When Faith Stops Being Theory (Ephesians 3:7–9)

Mark Clark [00:00:03]: All right, Ephesians, chapter three is where we are. We're going to do a couple verses. Two of them we've kind of already hit, but we got to ramp up to verse 9 so we understand the real power and depth of what Paul's trying to do with verse nine of the book of Ephesians in chapter three. And so he says this of this gospel. This is verse seven. I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace. And so the word minister, we said was a servant. So I was made a servant. Mark Clark [00:00:32]: Servant. I'm the Apostle Paul. I'm a servant according to the gift of God's grace. And so we've constantly said, let's come back to understand what grace is. Grace is not what we constantly interpret it to be, which is, I can do whatever I want and God doesn't care. So I can live sexually how I want. I can live with my finances however I want. I can do business however I want. Mark Clark [00:00:53]: And God doesn't care because he's so gracious. He's just so happy to have me on his team because he's lonely. And so that's how we've defined grace. And we've cheapened it and we abuse it. And we think that that's what grace means, but it's not that. It's this undeserved favor in Jesus Christ. We're not because of you, but in spite of you. God will save you if you repent of sin and trust in him. Mark Clark [00:01:16]: And so he's saying, man, that gift of God's grace, which was given to me by the working of his power. So we gotta camp on that for a few minutes this morning. Because what Paul is saying is, even though I'm the Apostle Paul, even though I've done a whole bunch of great things in my Life, I've written 13 books of the New Testament, I've planted churches. Thousands of people are coming to know Jesus because of me. I oversee a network of all of these church plants. The reality is, none of it had to do with me. None of it had to do with my power. None of it is about me. Mark Clark [00:01:48]: And so we see village, church, and people are coming to know Jesus, and families are getting put back together and people are getting baptized and lives are being transformed. And what Paul's saying is, that had nothing to do with me, and it had nothing to do with you. It to do by his power, his grace, working and transforming people. And the challenge in our life, whether you're in ministry or you work a Normal job or you're a soccer mom is to actually function in a way that you're functioning in your own power or God's power versus your own power. Because our tendency is to function in our own power. We've got this. So if I have financial strife, I'll figure it out. If I have addiction, I'll. Mark Clark [00:02:27]: I'll figure it out. I'll just read the latest self help book. And what we do is we just put this burden on ourself because you can never get free from that kind of thing without the power of Jesus. So this is what Paul is saying. I'm gonna live by his power, not my own, or I'm constantly gonna be living under this burden. I remember the first time I ever preached publicly. I was at a church, about 1500 people. I was the junior high intern, alright? So they gave me a chance. Mark Clark [00:02:55]: It was youth day, right? So the youth day, they used to, you know, the youth would get up and lead the band and every note was off, but everyone just went, who cares? It's the youth, right? And then they, and then they would get the youth guy. At the time, it was me to get up and preach and he would stink. But everyone would say, it's okay, it's the youth guy. So I was like, I'm not gonna be like that. I'm gonna kill this thing. I'm gonna do this thing. Awesome. So I got up and I, bam. Mark Clark [00:03:20]: Just murdered it. All right? 9am, 11am, 15, bam. And I was like, man, now here's all I cared about in that moment. All I cared about was that the senior pastor liked it. All right? That's who I was preaching to. I didn't even care. I mean, yes, people come to Christ, great. But I want him to like it. Mark Clark [00:03:36]: All right? That was my goal, all right? So then I got into his office on Monday and I'm like, all right, you know, I'm just gonna tell me you liked it. You didn't like it? He said, yeah, I liked it. I'm like, awesome. Good. Goal complete. He's like, hold on. But that's not the point. Cause here's the issue. Mark Clark [00:03:51]: The way that you were made, the way that God just made you and wired you, your natural skill set is that you could do good at that. That's not my concern. He said you could sell ice to Eskimos. That's just who you are, right? You can have people believing one thing and then get them to believe something else and they didn't even know it. That's Just who you. That's what you were born as. That doesn't impress me. Your issue in ministry is gonna be, are you ever gonna need to depend on him? Are you ever gonna need to pray? Are you ever gonna need to push into the scriptures and fast and function in his power versus your own? Because the reality is, if you just spend enough time crafting messages, all right, and reading enough books, you can do this. Mark Clark [00:04:41]: I'm not impressed by that. I was like, da, come on, bro, just give me some credit. And this is the problem. Paul writes to Timothy, who's the pastor of this church in Ephesus, and he said, your church is going to be full of people who have what he says, the form of godliness, but denying its power. And my fear for you village church in 2013 is that you are going to be people who function and look godly, all right? You're going to look the part. You're going to tithe your 10%, come to church every week, go serve in ministry, have a Bible with handles. You know, whatever you're going to have, and you're going to look the part, all right? You're going to be doing those things, but you will be functioning in a way where you're denying his power to actually live and move and walk with Jesus Christ in power, where God can take you to places you've never dreamed of because you're fully dependent on him instead of fully dependent on yourself. And the Apostle Paul is terrified that that would be the reality of the church in Ephesus. Mark Clark [00:05:51]: They're going to have the appearance of godliness but deny its power. They're going to be people who come to church who have Christian language, who use language like, let me put the great physician and hey, brother, hey, sister, so and so my brethren are here. Let me, you know, put a hedge of protection around. You know, we're gonna have all of that lingo down, but we're not gonna live in any power. That is Paul's concern that when it comes to your addictions and your finances and your life, you are gonna try to do it on your own instead of tapping into him and what he's constantly trying to do in saying it's gonna be by his power and not our power, is he's trying to say you have to integrate and everything about your life with Jesus, all right? Meaning if you try to function in a way where you divide out secular and sacred. When I do religious things, God's involved. Here's my faith life, here's my God life. But Then here's my work life, here's my family life, here's my finance life. Mark Clark [00:06:49]: Paul never has that vision. He says you have to do everything in his power and not your own power. So that might mean you're a Christian lawyer. Alright, that's not an oxymoron. They're out there. All right, if you're a Christian lawyer and you're here, how are you going to practice Christian law in the power that God is giving you versus your own power? Because you are going to be tempted to lie. It will happen. So what are you going to do with that when you're tempted to lie? If you're a Christian business person and you own a company, how are you gonna run it? Like a follower of Jesus in his power, following how he would want you to treat employees and customers versus functioning in your own power. Mark Clark [00:07:34]: That's what he's talking about. Full integration into our life. How do you become, how do you engage with art and media? As a Christian, I know Christian actors who compartmentalize their life. So much so that when I'm acting, I'm not a Christian. So I will, you know, do this crazy naked sex scene. The director will say, cut. And then they'll be reading my utmost for his highest in the same moment. Because they've divided out their life to faith life and work life. Mark Clark [00:08:03]: And Paul goes, you gotta integrate these things. And some of you have made New Year's resolutions where you've said things that sound really good and the things that you've said are, let me put Jesus first, then my family, then my spouse, my kids, my friends, my job. And you've kind of structured it out that way. And Paul would say, that is not a good way to function because how is that gonna play out in life? It's gonna look like I'm gonna give Jesus my 10 minutes in the morning, then I'm gonna give my family a bit of time, then I'm gonna go to work. That's compartmentalization. Paul would say, you gotta make Jesus the middle and the center of every piece of it so that it all gets integrated together. That's what it means to function in power. So at my house right now, we're doing our devotions with the girls around the dinner table. Mark Clark [00:08:50]: So it's integrated, all right? We're not dividing this thing out. We're like eating dinner and we're doing devos and we're. Right now we're doing a princess in the Bible. All right, all right. That's not a joke right there. Princesses in the Bible. All right, so I got three girls. I got six, four and two. Mark Clark [00:09:09]: So if this is gonna cause them to love you, like we're doing Princess Eve. All right, what's her story? All right, Princess Hagar. Princess. All right. Princess Sarah. Princess. I mean, we're just doing this stuff, and my girls just eat this stuff. I was like, yeah, Jesus. Mark Clark [00:09:26]: I'm like, a little bit. But it's cool. It's princesses in the Bible, women in the Bible. Good. My girls love it, praise God. But we try to integrate that into our life versus compartmentalizing it all out. That's what Paul's trying to do. He's saying, you gotta live in the kind of power that brings Jesus into the middle of everything. Mark Clark [00:09:47]: And that's why he says in verse nine, in God who created all things, his mind is going back to Genesis 1, where he's saying, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, that God made everything. And therefore, don't divide your life up into things. You will do things. You won't do things that are godly, things that are. That are secular, that if it was made, God made it. All right? He was involved. He created all things. And the charge to the church is to take all things and redeem them unto the glory of God. Mark Clark [00:10:22]: That is what Ephesians keeps pushing us to do as people. What we tend to do is we tend to say, well, this particular thing is intrinsically evil. So if it's wine, for instance, right. We'll say, that's intrinsically evil. That's just bad. And the reality is, if you can smell it, if you can taste it, if you can touch it, Jesus made it. He oversees it. The question is, are you gonna pervert it like we do with a lot of things post fall, or are you gonna redeem it to the glory of God? And we can do that with everything. Mark Clark [00:10:52]: Sex and wine and meat and work. And we can take anything good, anything that God declared good, and we can pervert it. And so people will say, well, you know, wine is intrinsically evil. It's not true. You can't really believe that with any kind of biblical fidelity, because you look. I mean, my dad was an alcoholic, so can it go bad places? Yes. Do most of us not have the self discipline to make sure it doesn't go bad places? Yes. So we need to be functioning in his power when we look at something like that. Mark Clark [00:11:26]: But the reality is, you couldn't say it's intrinsically evil. What was Jesus first miracle? All right. He's turning water into wine. John, chapter two. He's at a party and everyone starts to go, this is lame. They're only giving us sparkling wine or whatever, right? This party sucks. And Jesus goes, all right, bring water. Bam. Mark Clark [00:11:51]: And the party's back on. All right, That's Jesus. That's what he's doing. And so in order to get around that, people go, well, no, in that day, wine wasn't really wine. It was just grape juice. False. If you go to Ephesians, chapter five, Paul says this, do not get drunk with wine. All right? Now, I don't know how many guys you know, grape juice lights them up, all right? I don't know how much grape juice you have to drink before you start, you know, putting a lampshade on your head, tearing your clothes off, running around, setting fire to stuff. Mark Clark [00:12:30]: That's a lot of grape juice. All right? So Paul's going, don't go down. That silliness. Just understand if God created, if you could smell, taste, touch it, you want to take it and you want to redeem it for the glory of God. He is overseer of all things. He made all things. And we can take and we can abuse or we can use it to his glory. And so how do you be a lawyer? How do you redeem art and media? And how do you do all of these things in his power to the glory of God? It's a challenge, especially if you're involved in art or media, because what tends to happen is we tend to just wanna do the Christian knockoff of everything. Mark Clark [00:13:11]: And so we, you know, we're the Christian Radiohead, right? And we're the Christian Rihanna. I don't know if that's possible, but we're the, you know, and so we just kind of take something that's out there and we knock it off. And then we say, well, this is Christian. And. And what we end up doing is we, instead of being creative to the glory of God, we just start sucking the tailpipe of culture. And so he would say, no. What does it look like to function in his power, even in art, in media? And whatever you do to redeem it to his glory? That's gonna be hard. It's gonna be hard to be creative. Mark Clark [00:13:46]: That's why you need him and you can't do this alone. That's what he's trying to get at, alright? And then he says this verse 8. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints. This grace was given to preach to the Gentiles. And so he's tapping into the humility of his life, that even though I'm an apostle, even though I wrote 13 books of the New Testament, I've planted all these churches, I've done all these great things, the reality of my life is I'm the least of all the saints. And what he's saying is, if I really truly understand the gospel, I'm gonna be humble instead of arrogant and proud. And this is constantly what happens is people criticize Christianity for being arrogant people, proud people, people who are narrow minded. And what Paul is saying is if you function like that in your life, you don't truly understand the grace of God. Mark Clark [00:14:40]: You don't truly understand the gospel, because if you understood yourself as sinful, if you understood what you actually deserve under the wrath of God, then you would not be haughty and proud. You would be humble and you would thank God for the grace that he's showing you. And so constantly in my life, like, I gotta constantly come back to my own weaknesses and my own brokenness as a person, as a pastor. And that's why I try to use I just confess, all right? Sin my own failures. So just a couple days ago, I restarted my One Year Bible program, all right, Where I read the Bible, the whole Bible, in a year. And the reason I restarted it this year is because last year I failed horribly. All right? So I have this app, it's called One Year Bible YouVersion. And so when you've done a chapter, you just kind of click it, click it, click it. Mark Clark [00:15:35]: And you read through the Bible in a whole year. Last year, I barely got started, all right? And I just failed at it. I just gotta use this time to confess. Don't tell anybody. This is between me and you, all right? I'm just saying. And how horrible is that? Like, I'm a pastor and I didn't read the whole Bible last year. And worse than that, my wife, she started the program too. And so she had it on her iPad there. Mark Clark [00:16:03]: I had it on my phone. And I went up and I saw that she was like three or four days ahead of me. I was like, what is going on? So I just click, click, click, click, back, back, back, back, back. She had come up. Oh, I thought I was ahead. No, sorry, you're behind me. Whatever, right? I mean, I can't. That's a true story right there. Mark Clark [00:16:19]: I mean, I can't because I can't lose because I'm a pastor. I'm supposed to be holy, I'm supposed to be righteous. And so what he's saying is get in touch with this, that when you really start to understand the wickedness of your own heart and, and how the grace of God saved you, you're gonna view yourself not as haughty and narrow minded, but as the least of all the saints. And some of you are like, yeah, you don't have to, you know, you don't know what I've done. You don't know the wickedness of my heart. I do understand the wickedness of your own heart. I have three children. I understand the wickedness of your own heart. Mark Clark [00:16:51]: They're wicked right to the core, Right? Right. My buddy told me, I heard a story the other day of a guy, he was dealing with this, I think it was his two year old, maybe his three year old, and he was potty training her and she could not for the life of her control her bladder. And so he said, let's get some incentive in here. I will give you a bag of M and Ms. Every time you can get on the potty and go to the bathroom. And so day one, she figured it out, right? She got on there, she right, got up, bag of M and Ms. Day two, bag of M&MS. By day three, she had figured out a way to get on the potty. Mark Clark [00:17:30]: Okay, go a little bit and then stop, get up, walk to him, get a bag of M and Ms. Walk back, go again, get up, walk back, get a bag of M&Ms, go back three days, right? This is a greedy little girl. Wicked. That's the biblical doctrine, right? Of our natural. We are sinners by nature and choice. That's the reality. That's what Paul's in touch with. And the more that you're in touch with that about yourself, the more in touch with the fact that when you're three years old, you can figure out how to control your urinary tract. Mark Clark [00:18:17]: All right? In three days, in order to get chocolate, you begin to understand your own sinfulness. And so Paul's going, the more I reflect on that, I'm the least of all the saints, that's who I am. And God saved me anyway, not because of me, but in spite of me. And then he says this to preach to the gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. Here's what he means. The unsearchable riches of Christ is saying there's a depth and a beauty and a joy to knowing Jesus beyond. Just let me give you the doctrines and cognitive ideas about the truths of Jesus and hope you respond to them. What Paul is saying is people sometimes need more motivation to come to know Christ than what I'm telling you is true. Mark Clark [00:19:13]: Because as we've been talking about the last couple weeks, we don't tend to be on a truth quest in our life. We tend to be on a quest for happiness and joy. That is the greatest motivator behind any choices that we make. Is this going to give me pleasure? Is this gonna give me joy? Not is this true? We don't. We will trump truth because something makes us joyous and we will take it over truth every time. Right? Let me illustrate it this way. If you're trying to get a teenager to do anything, what you don't do is simply deal in the realm of facts, of truth, because it won't motivate them. So if right in front of them, they have an issue, they've got algebra homework and they don't know how to do it, and they got no motivation to do it. Mark Clark [00:20:02]: Here's what you don't do as a parent. You don't sit down and say, here's what you gotta understand. Algebra is true, so you should learn it. The kid will say, I know it's true, but I don't have any motivation. I don't care that it's true. I'm never going to use this. Which is true, by the way. You won't. Mark Clark [00:20:29]: So here's what you need to do as a parent. Don't come at them from the truth angle. You come at them and you craft it in a bigger emotional story. See, here's what you have to do. You have to say, listen, son, if you don't learn algebra, you're not going to pass. And if you don't pass, you're not going to go to university. And if you don't go to university, you're not going to get a degree. And if you don't get a degree, you're not going to get a job. Mark Clark [00:20:53]: And if you don't get a job, you're not going to get a paycheck. And if you don't get a paycheck, you're not going to get a date. And all of a sudden, algebra, baby. Let's do this. Yes. Algebra is the key to my joy, it's the key to my marriage, it's the key to ever meeting a girl. Ever meeting a boy is algebra. I lock myself. Mark Clark [00:21:20]: I'm just doing that dinner. Honey, forget that. I'm just constantly in our life, we make these choices. We will take joy over truth every single time. And this is why Paul is Saying, listen, what you gotta hold out for people is that Jesus is practically, in the context of how you feel, emotionally satisfying over top of just being true. Because you're not on a truth quest, you're in a joy quest. And that's why he's saying, it's the unsearchable riches of Christ. There's more to this than just, hey, don't worry, it's pie in the sky when you die. Mark Clark [00:22:01]: Because no one in this room gets motivated by that. Because none of you think you're going to die tomorrow, even though some of you could. So you don't get motivated by pie in the sky when you die or all that. And that's why Paul rarely ever talks about. He talks about the unsearchable riches now in the now he is rich. He is all satisfying. That's why when we baptize people, I don't just say, do you accept Jesus as Lord and Savior? Of course we do. We want Jesus as Lord of my life. Mark Clark [00:22:29]: I want to follow him. I want to be saved from the wrath of God and saved from hell. I say, do you take him as Lord, Savior and treasure? Do you like him? Do you treasure him at all? Do you love Jesus? Or do you just take him as Lord Savior to get yourself out of a tight spot? The unsearchable riches of Christ say we become the kinds of people who go, man, he is all satisfying. So much so that all of these circumstances that I live in, they can crash, they can burn, they don't have to go perfect. Because my richness and my satisfaction is in him. And that's why I meet people who have been through couples who, one of the spouses has cheated on them, and they get through it and they grow and they win and they charge through and they continue on in their life because they have recognized the unsearchable riches of Christ that trump this particular scenario. And they say, I'm all satisfied in him. And what begins to happen is we take normal, average things like work or money or marriage or whatever it is, and we make them ultimate things. Mark Clark [00:23:41]: And when we make them ultimate things, when we make them gods, then they crush us. But what he's saying here is, never do that. Make Jesus the ultimate thing. And then everything else gets humbled under him. He. He's all satisfying. He's got unsearchable riches for you. I'm not talking about going to heaven when you die. Mark Clark [00:23:56]: That's good too. I'm talking about in the now. He has unsearchable riches for you. In the now. So let me give you an example of a way that we do this in our culture. We tend to elevate in the suburbs, marriage as a way of life. And we tend to push marriage on people as if this is always the way God wants it, and this is how you should live your life. And when we make it an idol like that, then what happens is when people who are 25 aren't married, they start to feel depressed, or they're 30 and they're not married, and they start to feel depressed, or they're 35 and they're not married. Mark Clark [00:24:29]: And the Christian culture's worse for it because we say. And yes, statistically, 97% of you will marry. And God loves marriage. We love it. But when it becomes a God, an end unto itself, like the suburbs, where we preach this message, where this is what your life's gonna be. You. You're gonna go to elementary school, you're gonna graduate from there, and then you're gonna go to Trinity to find a spouse. You're gonna go there, you're gonna. Mark Clark [00:24:55]: You're gonna find your spouse, all right? You're gonna get married, then you're gonna get a job, then you're gonna have kids, and then you're gonna live the next 30 or 40 years. And that's gospel according to the suburbs. You can't picture a reality outside of that, and it crushes you. Than when you're 35 and you don't have a mate, you feel like something's wrong with you. And here's what the AAPostle Paul does. First Corinthians 7. He argues for, listen, singleness. He says this. Mark Clark [00:25:25]: First Corinthians 7, verse 28 to 35. Those who marry will have worldly troubles. All the married people went, mm. And Paul says this, and I would spare you that. I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. He's focused on Jesus. He's focused on how do I serve him, walk with him, love him to the glory of God. Mark Clark [00:25:54]: But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife. And his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. She's focused, how do I walk with Jesus? How do I love Jesus? But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. And husbands are like, what's up? And you know why? He's pleading for Singleness. Is he saying, because the reason some people should never marry in this room is because you will start to care more about your marriage than you will about Jesus. You will start to care more about your mortgage payments, getting a house, raising your kids, which love language you have. You will care more about that than you will about serving God, reaching your neighbors, loving people. Mark Clark [00:26:56]: That's what you're gonna. That's gonna start to consume your time, it's gonna start to consume your energy. And then you're going to fight, and then you're going to be misunderstood. Every day, every week, every month, every year, for the rest of your life, you will be mis. But I said this. But you didn't mean that. Thought I did. That's going to be your future. Mark Clark [00:27:24]: And he's going, you're going to get cheated on. There's going to be lies told. There's going to be problems. You're going to have to go in for counseling. You're going to get married and divorce. You're going to get remarried. Worldly troubles, you're going to feel that. And in my ministry experience, as I've sat with people, marriage is crumbling. Mark Clark [00:27:46]: Marriage is hurting. I would say this is true. Some of you in this room need to think about, is marriage actually for me when or am I being called to be single in order to serve Jesus for the rest of my life without what he's talking about here? Now, the reason we never think of that reality is because we elevate marriage to be this God, to be this idol, to be this ultimate treasure. And Paul's going, the only ultimate treasure is Jesus Christ. The only ultimate treasure is Him. And so when you elevate this thing, all it's going to do is start to crush you. Because here's the reality. Marriage is only momentary. Mark Clark [00:28:26]: Jesus teaches us. Matthew 22, he says, when the resurrection happens, people will not be married or given in marriage. When in the new creation in heaven, you're not going to have a spouse. He says, listen, you're going to be with God and you're going to marry Jesus. Now, guys, don't freak out about that. It's collectively all right. Collectively, corporately, the church becomes the bride of Christ. Therefore, marriage is done. Mark Clark [00:28:53]: That's what he says. And so marriage becomes this momentary thing that we do in this life. And people always talk to me. They say, why did Jesus have such a high standard in marriage? Like, why would he say, when you enter this thing, there's only two legitimate reasons to ever divorce. One of them is adultery. And one of them is abandonment. And that's it. He gave two. Mark Clark [00:29:17]: Culturally, we have lists, we have websites, we'll give you more reasons. And he goes, I'll give you two. And people say, why did he do. Why did he have such a high standard? Why didn't he give anybody out? And the reason is this, because never in the Bible, culturally, what is preached to us is marriage. Finding a spouse, that's going to be your ultimate point of joy, happiness and satisfaction in your life. The Bible goes, you're going to find ultimate satisfaction and joy and happiness and marriage. You're going to be disappointed every time. That is not what this is about. Mark Clark [00:29:47]: There are bigger things in the universe in regard to your marriage than your own joy and your own happiness. And whatever kind of shoveled out definition of happiness that you've come up with, your marriage has a bigger purpose in this universe than simply making you happy, the way you define happiness. And so a guy named John Piper says, this marriage is but momentary, a brief blessing, a great one, but not an ultimate one, a precious one, but not a permanent one. This eternal perspective explains why Jesus can be so radical. Never to have married is not a tragedy, otherwise Jesus life is a tragedy. Tragedy is craving the perfect marriage so much that we make a God out of being married. Jesus standards are high because marriage does not and should not meet all of our needs. It should not take the place of Jesus himself. Mark Clark [00:30:51]: Marriage is but for a moment. Jesus is for eternity. How we live in our marriages and our singleness will show if Jesus is our supreme treasure. But we had a bad month. I'm going to trade him out. You can't, because your marriage is way. It has this cosmic where you reflect out the image of God. Your marriage is a picture of how Christ loves the church. Mark Clark [00:31:32]: That's what Paul goes on to say in Ephesians 5. And so if you just walk out, you know what it says? It says, I've sinned a bunch, now Jesus is going to leave me. What Jesus wasn't thinking about when he was dying for you on the cross is how much you please him, how much you make him happy, how much pleasure you give him. He was dying in spite of your weaknesses, in spite of your brokenness. That's what covenant faithfulness is. And then in verse nine, Paul says this. And to bring to light for everyone. So he's going to say, God called me to bring to light to everyone. Mark Clark [00:32:15]: So to bring the gospel into people's lives is to bring you, if you're here and you don't know Jesus. He's saying, you don't see properly. You're in a kind of darkness. And the gospel is meant to bring you into the light. Now, I know that's offensive. And that's okay. I mean, that's part of how we deal with the crisis of the gospel as it kind of confronts us and we get a little uncomfortable, right? That that confrontation is there. And I know not everybody's totally happy about it. Mark Clark [00:32:45]: Last week, it was awesome. I was. We were showing the video, right? So how all these testimonies and then me preaching in between those testimonies. 50 minutes it was. That was the sermon for the day. And I was. So I was in the audience, which I never get to do. And I was sitting on the stairs and it was pitch black in the auditorium. Mark Clark [00:33:03]: And I was up there, and it was the part of the sermon I was preaching about, shut up. And I was like, you know, when sin and temptation and demons start speaking, you would tell them to shut up. You got to tell them to shut up. And as I'm sitting there, a guy walks by, it's pitch black. He doesn't know it's me. He looks me in the face and says, someone should tell that guy to shut up. Up. I was like, yes, yes, they should jerk. Mark Clark [00:33:39]: Out. Of all the people he could have said that to, Just like the Lord's just speaking to me, man. Idiot. And that's okay. I mean, that's part of the offense. I get it. People always get up and leave. Sometimes you get, I see. Mark Clark [00:34:00]: And sometimes they got an appointment, whatever. But sometimes, just like this, I'm done with it. I gotta get out of here. Okay, that's cool. I get it. That's part of the gospel. It's part of. But. Mark Clark [00:34:08]: But coming in here, what you got to understand what Paul's going to say is if you don't know Jesus, you need to be brought into the light. The assumption. Meaning you're in the dark, you can't see really clearly. You get ultimate joy out of things like doing really well at work or getting good marks or getting a new pair of jeans or having a good relationship moment. Those are your greatest points of joy and treasure. And Paul is saying you don't see properly. Like, I didn't see properly. I didn't come to know Jesus. Mark Clark [00:34:41]: I was 17, so I thought life was good. I thought I had it figured out. I thought I could see. I felt inside that I could see. And what Paul is saying is, you couldn't see, man. It was blurry. So you need to be brought into the light, brought out of the darkness and into the light of Jesus. That's what he's saying. Mark Clark [00:35:02]: And then he says to bring to light for everyone. That means your family, your friends, your neighbors. If you don't have a heart for your co workers, your fellow students, the people, if you don't want to bring them into the light, you haven't really understood the gospel. He's saying for everyone. This is all encompassing. To bring to light for everyone. What is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God? So let me, let's wrap this by coming and landing on this for a few minutes. If you don't know Jesus and you're here, you might be saying to yourself, why would I ever want to come to know him? Why would I ever want to give my life to Christ? Why would I ever want to become a Christian? And the reason, he gives a lot of different reasons throughout the book of Ephesians, the one he gives here. Mark Clark [00:35:52]: I mean, he talks about how God loves you and how he's powerful. He can change your life. And Jesus died for you, Rose again. Coming back wants to give you newness of life, all of those things. He's sovereign, he's cosmic, all of that. In this moment, he gives a bit of a different reason. And so for some of you, you skeptics, you're studiers, you like to look at truth and history and all of these things, here's a brilliant reason to come to know Jesus. He says the reason is, is because he is the objective meaning of all of history. Mark Clark [00:36:22]: He is the plan that was the mystery that was hidden for ages has now been revealed. And Jesus is the reason for all of history. He's the center of everything. So remember, we talked about your birth was really important. We talked about this at Christmas Eve when you had a child. That was a really important day. All right, you got, you put that kid's face up and you're like, hey, look it, it's Timothy George Clark. And 20 people liked it on Facebook. Mark Clark [00:36:49]: And you were like, whoa. And your family came and they celebrated the baby, all right? And they sang a song. And I don't know if people do that, but it came to the hospital and you started discovering these crazy things that you never knew. You discovered this black tar stuff that came out and you were like, why didn't anybody ever tell me about that? I didn't know that come out of people. That's insane. I remember the first time I saw that. I'm like going to the doctor, I'm like, I think they've got some disease. I think they're dying. Mark Clark [00:37:21]: Like, you're an idiot. All right. Oh, that's supposed to happen. All right. Why didn't anybody tell me about that black tar? Why didn't anybody tell me about the sleeplessness? Why didn't anybody tell me I hate my life right now? Like, no one set that up. Everyone's like, ah, it'll be the best time of your life. It'll be awesome. Woohoo. Mark Clark [00:37:39]: And it wasn't that way. So that was a really important day. That was a really important day for you when you had that baby. But here's what never happened. As we talked about at Christmas Eve, the stars never aligned. Magi didn't come. Dirty shepherds didn't come and kick in the door and say, let me see your baby. None of that happened. Mark Clark [00:37:55]: Why? Because while your baby is important and while your birth is really important, it wasn't cosmically important. And here's what Paul is saying. He's saying Jesus Christ is the meaning of all of history. That that word mystery, Mysterion. It means the logic, the purpose, the reason, the meaning of all of history, of all of life. Jesus is the answer to that question that you feel rumbling in you as you live your life. Why am I here? Why was I made? What purpose do I have in the universe? And he's saying that purpose is Jesus. And you get preached a lot of things that talk about what is the meaning of history? What is the purpose of all of history? What direction is all of history going? And there's a whole history of philosophy that's debated those ideas. Mark Clark [00:38:40]: The Hebrews said, yes, there's a point to history. The Greeks said, no, perfection can't come out of chaos. There is no meaning of history. It's not going anywhere. We preach nationalism, we preach Marxism. The meaning of history is creating a utopia right on earth by our education and our technology. And we'll take control of everything and will be the center of the story. We preach all of these different messages to ourselves. Mark Clark [00:39:05]: And Jesus says, listen, all of those ideas are very powerful because it's the power of an idea you will live out of whatever story you bought into. What do you believe the whole plan of history is? What do you believe the whole meaning of history is? If you think it's Marxism, where you're going to build a utopia at some point, we're going to live it here. Here's what you're gonna be able to do, because that utopia isn't really going to be established till two or three generations from now. Everybody who's living right now becomes expendable. And that's why you can put them in ovens. See, what you think about the world will define how you live. The power of an idea of your worldview. What do you think the center of history is? And Paul's going, let me just tell you. Mark Clark [00:39:52]: You get preached every angle about what the true story of history is. And if you need, if no other reason has convinced you to believe in Jesus, let it be this. He is the key to all of history. He is where history is going. He's where it's coming from. He is the meaning of all of life and the question of who you are and what you're supposed to do, who you were made for is Jesus. That's his answer over and over and over again. And he wants you to go, listen, this is bigger than philosophy. Mark Clark [00:40:29]: This is bigger than cognitive ideas. This is bigger than theorizing. This is so practical that you will begin to feel the unsearchable riches of Christ. Feel them emotionally, you can feel them. This is more than a list of rules or religions or ideas about. Here's what to believe. This is everything. And you can feel it. Mark Clark [00:40:52]: It's that practical. That's what he's trying to push us continuously toward. When I meet Bible college students and we've got a bunch of them at Village and they want to go into ministry and they want. They come in, I say, okay, what are you doing on the ground? What are you building? What are you leading? How are you doing ministry? Well, I'm not. I'm in my second year of Bible college. So what are you doing? Well, I'm reading a whole bunch of books. Okay, so tell me what you can do, though. Well, I don't know what I can do. Mark Clark [00:41:13]: I'm just. I'm reading books. I learned. I've got a ma I've got a bachelor's degree and a master's degree. I learned nothing about ministry from being in school. Zero. They don't prep you for this. I learned about it when I had to have no other choice but to have the power of God to do something in a particular moment. Mark Clark [00:41:44]: I learned about it when I walked into a room, to a room where a woman was about to take her own life and I had to sit down with her and bring her back to what the plan is that he uses the word. There's a plan, there's a meaning. Let's bring it back to the plan. Because all of you have experienced hurt, all of you have experienced pain. And you begin to wonder, is there a plan? Is there a God? Is my cancer for anything? And he goes, there's a plan, and it's been hidden. And now in Jesus Christ, it's being revealed. And I had to draw that woman back into. Listen, your identity in Jesus Christ is everything. Mark Clark [00:42:24]: There's a plan and it's Jesus. And that saved her life in that moment. And I went looking for the manual. I left that house. I was like, where's that ministry manual? I'm sure that was in one of our syllabuses somewhere. No. I learned about ministry the day I showed up to a guy's funeral without any notes and didn't even know his name and had to preach at his funeral. In the hospital, when I told that woman that her husband had died when he hadn't. Mark Clark [00:43:15]: Say what? See, in those moments, if God doesn't come through with his power, I'm done. So we've been talking about this. Some of you are like, heaven is brass. I can't grow with God. I don't understand. Why can't I get deeper? Why can't I get to know Him? And you're living the safest possible life you can. It's not going to happen. You got to put yourself out there and see if he shows up. Mark Clark [00:43:54]: That's how your life's going to change. That's how you're going to live in power. That's how you'll start to feel that there's a plan outside of just cognitively theoretically knowing it. And that's my prayer. This is what God's pushing on me for 2013, for village church, for my life, and for every single one of your lives. That this thing would start to live itself out in obedience to. To where he's guiding you, where he's leading you. This is going way beyond what we think and got to filter down to what we do. Mark Clark [00:44:28]: So let me pray, Father, my prayer for each person who is here, for each person who is sitting here listening to this coming from all of their different backgrounds and all of their contexts and scenarios. And we're starting 2013. And my prayer is that we would move as a church, me as a person, them as a person. We would move away from Christianity as theory, Christianity is just a cognitive idea, but that we would recognize that you, Jesus, are the plan, you're the center, the mystery that has been hidden for ages, maybe from us, those of us who are sitting here, we've never believed in you we've never trusted. You have truly been hidden. You have truly been a mystery. That in this moment, we would start this year by repenting of sin, giving our lives to you, and trusting that you can do something big with us. And that this entire life would move away from some theoretical idea and filter down to the way that we walk day in, day out and day out, and that we would walk in power, in your power, instead of our own. Mark Clark [00:45:46]: And continuously drawing ourselves back to the fact that you, Jesus, are the plan. You are the center of all of history. That. That powerful idea that this is bigger than just some personal faith of just me and you, this is cosmic. You oversee everything and you're moving it all under your submission. That cosmic idea would change us as we're sitting here, that we'd be real with you. And now as we worship and as we give that you'd bless what we give and it would all go toward this greater glory. In Jesus good name we pray. Mark Clark [00:46:27]: Amen.