August 11, 2024 NOTES NOT
EDITED
The Story of Jesus According to Mark, pt13:
“The Summons”
Mark 6b-13
We
are faith-filled, big thinking, bet-the-farm risk takers. We’ll never insult
God with small thinking and safe living.
Craig Groeschel
Someone
posted a
phrase once on FB I think is the key to great things happening in the future. That phrase was, “be a big
thinking, bet-the-farm risk taker.” This so cool. I wonder
what would happen if every believer—in just this one church let alone all
Christian churches—became a “big thinking, bet-the-farm-risk-taker who refuses to
insult God with small thinking and safe living?”
I’ll tell you what would happen:
there would be a revolution.
It would be a revolution like the world has never seen before. It would make the First American Revolution
look like a sweet-sixteen birthday party.
I think it is very likely that we, in our life-time, will see a Second American Revolution. I believe it will likely be as bloody as the
French Revolution of the 1800 hundreds.
People are deeply divided in
America. The politicians have created an
environment of “class warfare and color competition.” Our economy is in the crapper and our
people—many of them are in despair. The
fuse is lit and burning. We are headed
for a revolution.
I would rather see another revolution. Not a bloody political “battle” but a
spiritual revolution. A revolution that
does not bathe the streets in the blood of men but bathes men in the blood of
the Son of Man. Without this revolution,
there can be no real, lasting, change in our nation and we are headed down the
sewer pipe of history.
Today, I’m giving you a summons.
I’m serving you with official papers to come join the revolution. I’m delivering a summons on behalf of the
Lord Jesus Christ to come and join the revolution. Before we read our text this morning, look at
verse 7:
7 He summoned
the Twelve and began to send them out
Have you ever received a “summons” to appear as a witness in a
court trial? How did it make you
feel? I don’t know about you but
whenever I have received an envelope with the words “Superior Court” on the
outside, I get a little queasy in my stomach.
I guess I have a “guilt complex” and I wonder: “What have I done now.”
A common form of a Summons
is “a legal document requiring a person to appear before a court, such as
being a witness (also called a subpoena).”
I’ve been summoned to testify in a couple of court proceedings.
If you are a blood-bought, Spirit-filled, heaven-headed disciples
then Jesus has summoned you to the
revolution—the revolution to change the world; the revolution to be a “big thinking, bet-the-farm risk taker who
refuses to insult God with small thinking!”
Jesus not only has summoned you:
but he has equipped you with all the tools you need to become a
world-changing revolutionary.
I’d rather God take me out than let me fizzle out! Let’s read God’s Summons:
Now He was
going around the villages in a circuit, teaching. 7 He summoned
the Twelve and began to send them out in pairs and gave them authority
over unclean spirits. 8 He instructed them to take
nothing for the road except a walking stick: no bread, no traveling bag, no money in their belts. 9 They
were to wear sandals, but not put on an extra shirt. 10 Then He said to them,
“Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that place. 11 If
any place does not welcome you and
people refuse to listen to you, when you leave there, shake the dust off your
feet as a testimony against them.” 12 So they went out and
preached that people should repent. 13 And they were driving out
many demons, anointing many sick
people with olive oil, and
healing ⌊them⌋.
Now there are five tools, or
weapons if you will, that Jesus gives us to equip us in our revolutionary task:
1. God provides A
MODEL (6b)
6. . . Then Jesus went
around teaching from village to village.
Years ago one of my preaching professors reminded our class of
“young guns”: “People would rather see a sermon than hear one.” Every time I get up to deliver this message
(for going on nearly five decades now) this reminder sits at the gate of my
meditation. With God as my help I have
never preached a message to anyone else that I have not first applied to my own
life.
Sometimes, messages are like a soothing balm on an open wound. The Bible speaks of the “balm of
Gilead.” Sometimes, a message is like merthialate
Every child of the 1950s knew Merthiolate burned more than
Mercurochrome on an open wound. I once read a description that called it the
“tincture of hellfire.“ You also got a nice orangey-brown stain (reddish-brown
if it was Merthiolate) on your skin, kind of a playground tattoo. The FDA
banned and stopped the sale of both Merthiolate and Mercurochrome in the 1990s.
Seems they contained the troubling substance called, “mercury.”
In the 1950s most every medicine cabinet in America contained one
or both of these topical treatments, and it said Mercurochrome and
Merthiolate. “When a child fell and
got a cut or scrape, out came the mercurochrome in a little bottle with a glass
tube attached to the inside of the cap. The tube was dipped in the solution and
used to paint the mercurochrome all over the surface of the wound.”
Merthiolate had the unique characteristic of “stinging like crazy!” Many times
both Mom and Dad would blow furiously upon the wound as Dad applied this
“magical treatment.” Of course, they
later discovered that this “magical treatment” actually poisoned several
generation with mercury—the primary ingredient.
That means an entire generation, maybe more than one, was exposed to
Mercury. And you know Mercury poisoning causes you to go a little mad, a bit
out of your head. So, there’s my excuse!
Wow! Our parents poisoned us with mercury and had us ride in the
front seat of the car with no seatbelt and metal dash. It’s amazing Americans did not become
extinct.
One topic that always seems to “burn a bit” is the topic of
“witnessing or evangelism.” The most
important activity in the life of a believer is the one that “stings the most”
to talk about. I don’t see how we are
going to ever bring about a revolution if we cannot follow Jesus Christ who
modeled the most basic, fundamental, strategic activity of God’s Kingdom on
earth—witnessing. Look at verse 6b:
Now He was
going around the villages in a circuit, teaching.
Pay particular attention to the words, “Now He was going.”
Now
hear this: “More people are not coming to church because few church folk are going
to the people.”
We
have stepped into a trap the Devil set for the church beginning about 250
AD—that trap is called “the church building.”
Prior to 250AD (two centuries after the birth of the church at
Pentecost) the church had no buildings.
Church was a “going” affair, not a “coming” affair. Christians were pioneers, not campers.
If
we want to put the “go” back into gospel, we have A MODEL. Jesus was always “going and seeking.” Our first tool for becoming a world-changing
revolutionary is a MODEL.
2. Second, God gave us A
PARTNERSHIP for ministry (v7a)
7 Calling the Twelve to him, he sent them
out two by two
One
of the most fundamental teachings of the Bible is the idea that true
spirituality finds its greatest fulfillment in community. While the act of regeneration, being born
again, is an individual event unique to every new believer, the growth and
development of a disciple is a community experience. God never intends for Christians to be “Lone
Rangers.” Spiritual growth requires
participation in the community of faith Jesus established, which is His
Church. That’s the purpose of church, to
provide partnerships for ministry and mission.
We
see this principle taught all throughout the Bible beginning with the very
first verse of the Bible. See if you can
spot the fundamental teaching of the importance of “community” in this verse:
“In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth” Gen 1:1.
God
created the universe and everything in it and it has His fingerprints
everywhere you look—part of that fingerprint is “community.” The word for God in this verse is the Hebrew
word, “elohim.” Whereas
later God will identify Himself to Israel with the covenant name, “Yahweh,”
in Genesis 1:1 the emphasis is on His power and sovereignty as “El” or
God. The “im” attached to the end of
“el” to form “elohim” is the way semitic languages like Hebrew formed plurals. Normally in other semitic tongues this would
technically mean that there was more than one God, but we know from the Book of
Deuteronomy and throughout the rest of the Bible there is only “One God.” This “plural of majesty” as some scholars
refer to Elohim highlights the unique nature of God as a “trinity” (a word we
get later in church history from Latin) which means, “One God manifested
in three persons continuously and simultaneously.” Here’s the fantastic
lesson we learn from this one reference to God as “Elohim.” God has never been single. He has never been alone. God is within His very own nature a
“community” of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
If
that doesn’t blow you away . . . you’re not listening!
What
this means for us is that the most important aspect of our development and
deployment as disciples is we are in a “partnership” with others in the
church. We are NOT alone. This also means that a Christian who is not
enthusiastically participating in the Church is not growing in grace. God intends for our mission to be a TEAM
approach and for us to “partner” with other believers.
You
don’t have to go far to see how serious God is about the importance of a
“partnership in ministry.” In chapter
two of Genesis the Bible says that “God placed
man in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it” (2:15). God gave
man a mission just like Jesus was giving the Twelve Disciples a mission.
Then
in verse 18 God, Himself, declares: “It is not good
for man to be alone. I will make him a
helper.”
You
can follow this idea of “partnership” all throughout the Scriptures. Ministry partnership is one of the most
important tools, or weapons if you will that God has given to equip us for the
revolution.
3. God provides POWER (7b)
[He] gave them authority over unclean spirits.
The
word for “authority” is exousia which is a synonym in a family of
Greek words that relates to power. This
particular word, exousia, encompasses not only the “ability to
accomplish a task, but also the authority to perform that task.”
I
know about you, but the idea of dealing directly with demons is a bit
frightening for me. I can watch almost
any kind of scary, horror movie Hollywood can put out and sleep without any
problems; but, I do not like movies with “demonic” themes. That just ain’t my thing. So, when God promises that those who are part
of His revolution to change the world have “power and authority of over
demons” that is a great comfort and encouragement to me. That is the ultimate expression of power as
far as I am concerned.
4. God gives us PROVISIONS (8-11)
8 These were his instructions: “Take nothing
for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. 9 Wear
sandals but not an extra tunic. 10 Whenever you enter a house, stay there until
you leave that town. 11 And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you,
shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them.”
Here
are those instructions in simple terms: Live
simply, Be content with what you have, and Don’t sweat the haters!
Or,
I can make it even simpler: Just Trust God!
Now,
let’s go back to that quote that I shared with you as we began this study of
the revolution of God to change the world one heart at a time: “We
are faith-filled, big thinking, bet-the-farm risk takers. We’ll never insult
God with small thinking and safe living.”
Are
we at First Baptist really acting like “faith-filled, big thinking,
bet-the-farm” revolutionaries who believe that God will provide all the
resources we need for any mission project we can conceive? Are we really?
Or,
“are we insulting God with small thinking and safe living?”
Jesus
used the most words in this periscope (piece of Scripture) to emphasize in no
uncertain terms: “we are not to rely
on our ingenuity and our resources to fund God’s revolution—we are to trust in
Him to provide all we need for the biggest ideas we can conceive!”
When
we fully grasp the teachings in verses 9-12, First Baptist will change faster
than speed of light. We will find the answer to creation that science has been
looking for throughout time: the secret
to unlimited resources and unstoppable forces.
Churches
limit their ministry because we “count nickels and noses instead of counting
on God to come through ON TIME EVERY TIME WITH EVERYTHING WE NEED AND MORE!”
One
day I was sitting at my computer and a thought overwhelmed me—thoughts don’t
have to be very big to overwhelm me but this one was pretty big. I thought to myself: “when I set out from Moundsville, W.Va., a
little hillbilly town in a hillbilly state and from a hillbilly family, 38
years ago to “change the world,” I never realized it was going to be this hard
and take this long!”
But,
I’ve not given up on my dream of being a revolutionary, world-changing
ambassador for Jesus Christ. I’ve been
summoned by God to this revolution and God will fully equip me with all the
resources or provisions that are needed.
The
summons by God to stand before the court of the world and give testimony as an
eye-witness to the glorious life-changing power of the gospel of Jesus Christ
is a daunting, even terrifying prospect for most of us. But, God fully equips those Whom He
summons: God has given us a model, a
partner, the power, provisions, and most of all
5. A PROMISE (vv 12-13)
12 So they went out and
preached that people should repent. 13 And they were driving out
many demons, anointing many sick
people with olive oil, and
healing ⌊them⌋
The
promise in this passage is not expressed openly or explicitly, but it is strongly
implied by referencing the results of the disciples, “big thinking, bet-the-farm risk-taking faith.”
The disciples were successful.
Their
revolution was successful, and continues to be successful to this day, and will
ultimately be successful in the future.
They answered God’s summons to stand before the court of the world and
give a witness for Christ—AND THEY MADE A DIFFERENCE, A BIG DIFFERENCE.
Sure,
they didn’t see everyone saved—but they saw many saved. No, they did not see everyone healed, but
they saw many healed. No, they did not
see everyone delivered from the shackles of demon addiction—but they saw many
delivered.
Friends: our revolution matters. It matters eternally.
A
little boy was walking on a Galveston beach after a tumultuous storm. Broken limps from trees and other assorted
debris was deposited upon the beach by the storm. Also, hundreds of starfish had been washed up
on. They were everywhere. As the father and his young son would walk
along, the father would pick up a starfish and throw it back into the ocean, to
live another day as we say. The little
boy watched his father do this several times, but noticed for every starfish
the father threw back into the ocean, hundreds lay dying on the beach. The little boy tugged at his daddy’s shirt
and said, “Daddy, there are hundreds of starfish on the beach, do you really
think throwing a few back in really makes a difference?” With a wisdom straight from the Throne of God
the dad replied, “It makes a difference for the one I saved.”
We
look about our world with lives stranded by the millions from the storms of sin
and strife, and we wonder if our efforts make a difference. I am convinced they do. I’m thankful for a little church in W.Va.
that was willing to help this stranded soul.
When
I think of God’s Promise in regard to the success of our revolution as His
ambassadors in the world, I think of Isaiah 55:10
My word that comes from My mouth will not return to Me
empty, but it will accomplish what I please and will prosper in what I send it ⌊to do⌋.”
Answering
God’s summons to become join His revolution and become a fully equipped,
effective witness for Him does make a difference. We must answer the Lord’s summons.
Let
me pose this question to each of us: “If you were put on trial for being a
Christian, and the court summoned your family members, your neighbors, your
co-workers, or even the waiter that delivered your meal the last time we were
out—if those who view our lives every day were summoned to our trial for being
a Christian—would there be enough evidence to convict us?”
Jesus
has summoned us to His revolution to change the world one soul at a time. We must answer that summons or we are guilty
of being “in contempt of court.” Be a big
thinking, bet-the-farm risk-taking, Spirit-filled, Devil-thumping follower of
Jesus!
