The Multiplication of the Kingdom (Mark 3.7-19)

Introduction

Some of you will know an old worship song called I Have Decided to Follow Jesus. Mission Praise (number 272) credits the authorship as Anonymous, surprisingly really, because I thought it was well known that the song originated in the mid-19th Century and was written by a remarkable Indian Christian called Sadhu Sundar Singh.

The lyrics are very simple and repetitious; “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back” and they were taken straight from the lips of a man who laid down his life as a martyr in Assam, in north east India. He had become a believer in Jesus through the ministry of a Welsh missionary and that didn’t go down well with the locals so the man and his family were summoned by the authorities to explain themselves.

The village elders said to him what many believers in Jesus are hearing even today; that becoming a Christian is a serious offence and that if he did not renounce his new faith he would have to die. And it is reported that he looked straight at the village chief and said slowly and deliberately, “I have decided to follow Jesus.”  

So they made threats against his wife and two children, trying to scare them into renouncing their faith and isolating him. When the man heard this he said, “Though none go with me, still I will follow Jesus.” So the judge ordered that they must all be killed with bows and arrows. They were lined up, and as they were about to be executed the man sang these words; “The world behind me, the cross before me, no turning back.”

Having witnessed the extraordinary faith and bravery of this man and his family, and their faithfulness to Jesus even in the face of death, the chief who had ordered the execution broke down and said, “Now I too belong to Jesus.” The entire village turned to Christ.

The report of these words at the trial and execution spread and when Sundar Singh heard them he put them to music. I remember singing that little song with joy filling my heart when I was a brand new Christian, not knowing then that they were actually written in blood.

As I said, following Jesus still carries the risk of death in many parts of the world. Just last Saturday in Punjab, a pastor called Sultan Masih was shot dead outside his church by two men on a motorcycle. He leaves a wife and four children. One of his sons said this: “Our father was a courageous man and he was never afraid to die for Jesus. He has put the same zeal in us. Our family will continue to serve God.”

Following Jesus

Not many among us, if any at all, will be required to follow Jesus at such a heavy cost. But every one of us is called to follow Jesus – the world behind us and the cross before us, and even if no one goes with us. No turning back.

Our passage from Mark’s Gospel today is all about following Jesus. At this time, he is gaining in popularity amongst ordinary people – and from further afield as we’ll see. But simultaneously, he is getting flak from the religious leaders. As we saw last week, some of them by this stage are starting to talk about bumping him off. And Jesus knows it. He knows that he is going to have to complete everything he came to do in just three years.

That means his ministry must go from growth by addition to growth by multiplication. Here’s what I mean. If Jesus influences twelve lives, twelve lives are changed. If Jesus invests in twelve lives to each influence twelve lives, 144 lives are changed. This is the multiplication of the kingdom.

At this point, people are following him. In v7 it says “Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lake, and a large crowd from Galilee followed.”

But not only are they coming from the local area, the word has spread so wide, that they are swarming from Judea and Jerusalem (120 miles south), and from foreign parts; Idumea (150 miles south west), the regions across the Jordan (east) and around Tyre and Sidon (50 miles north west). People are spending days and days travelling on foot to get near to Jesus.

And so there are major stewarding issues. The crowds are so big, so desperate, that Jesus has to get his fishermen to improvise a kind of floating stage to avoid getting crushed by all these people. (I don’t know why he bothered actually, he could have just stood on the water if he wanted to…)

Still, he is healing many, and he is driving out evil spirits. You’ve got lepers and invalids, and depressives, and arthritics, and barren women, and deaf-mutes and all sorts pushing to the front to see if they can be cured. It is heaving and unruly, and embarrassing and noisy (the evil spirits leave making a right old racket) it’s the original messy church.

Who are all these people? Most of them have probably only got a limited understanding of the true greatness that is among them. Some are looking for evidence to be used against him. Others are no doubt just curious. Is he the real deal? Is he the Son of God?

Still others come wanting healing. We hear it said all the time, “if you’re healthy, that’s the most important thing.” It’s not actually. We all have spiritual needs even more important than health and life.

Some have come because they love him and recognise he is the Messiah and want to follow him, no turning back.

So there are many reasons why these people are there. Today, crowds still come to Jesus. People come to church for the very same reasons as these people came.

Some want to find fault. Others are just curious. Still others just want something for them. Some come to worship. What is the main reason you walked into this building today?

So far in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’ strategy has basically been one you could describe as “come and see.” And the crowds do come to see. Something new is happening. They gather to hear him preach because his words have authority, not like the dreary platitudes they’re used to. They flock to see him do miracles which they find amazing, and they see him lift up the needy.

I have found that if the church does what Jesus did, people come. If the church doesn’t what Jesus did, people vote with their feet. Frankly, I don’t blame them.

The Twelve

From the hundreds and hundreds of people who followed Jesus from place to place, he chooses just 12 to be on his team. Why these 12?

Was it because of their great faith? No; in fact, their faith regularly faltered and Jesus was often exasperated by their lack of it.

Did he pick these ones for their training and education? Did Jesus go to Scribes Theological College and say, “OK, I’m recruiting, I want the best, who’s Head Boy? Who’s Pharisee of the Month?” Again, no. Acts 4.13 describes what Jesus went for as simple, “unschooled, ordinary men”.

Were these 12 particularly talented or gifted? Once again, no. No one stood out as having exceptional ability, almost the opposite. For example, none of the five fishermen managed to land a single fish in the Gospels without Jesus having to do a miracle!

They had shown dedication though. They were already following him. They were already serving, already responding to him. Jesus chose leaders who had a track record of commitment. This is really important.

The Jesus way of growing leaders is to look for and discern what God is doing in someone’s life and say, “the Holy Spirit is clearly raising you up and giving you favour and authority; people can see that in you, so we want to formally recognise that.”

There is really only one thing that they all had in common. They were all willing to leave everything and follow Jesus, to obey him as their leader and mentor, no turning back.

Mark gives us two very important details about being on Jesus’ team. In v14 it says “he appointed twelve, that they might (a) be with him and (b) that he might send them out.”

Discipleship is relationship, then leadership. Jesus wanted his team to be learners first, then labourers.

Well, what a team. Some are single. Some are married. Most are northerners but at least one is from down south. Simon the Zealot is an anarchist who hates the government. Matthew has just been working for the government. Some have business expertise (Judas Iscariot for example), some are manual workers, some have political experience.

Some are higher profile than others. In the Gospels and Acts, Peter’s name appears 189 times. John is mentioned 50 times. Philip, 17 and Thomas just 11. Bartholomew is mentioned only once. Some of them, we know nothing about at all except their names. It seems that they probably gravitate to more servant roles behind the scenes.

All Men?

I shouldn’t ignore the obvious fact that they are all men. This naturally raises eyebrows in our diversity-obsessed society.

Shouldn’t Jesus have picked six men and six women, with a quota for those who aren’t sure what they are, plus guaranteed places for ethnic minorities like Samaritans and Romans, not forgetting homosexuals, vegetarians, registered disabled, and other religious groups not forgetting atheists (because you mustn’t discriminate)? All 12 are Jewish men. Why the lack of “inclusivity”?

Did he choose only men for cultural reasons? Probably not. Jesus certainly lived in a very traditional, conformist culture. But where in the Gospels is Jesus ever bothered about cultural sensitivity and political correctness?

Was it perhaps for practical reasons? Again, probably not. We know Jesus had women followers too. Luke 8.2 says women travelled with Jesus in a larger circle of disciples who served alongside him. But none was chosen among the twelve.

Was it for theological reasons? Once again, probably not. Women were the first witnesses of the resurrection and, according to Romans 16, were quite prominent in leadership teams in the early church.

So was it for missiological reasons? Here’s what I mean; I came across some research once which showed that, in our society, when a married woman becomes a Christian, 20% of their husbands subsequently become believers too. But when a married man becomes a Christian, 80% of their wives become believers in turn. Is that why Jesus chose only men as apostles? I’m not convinced.

The answer lies, I think, in what happens to the twelve in the days of the infant church that they are appointed to build.

Peter was crucified upside down at his own request, saying he was not worthy to die the same way Jesus did. James, the brother of John was beheaded. John died in a labour camp.

Philip was stoned and buried with his daughter. Matthew was killed with a spear. Simon was crucified. So was Andrew. Bartholomew is said to have been beaten and beheaded. Thomas was killed in India, we don’t know how.

When the Titanic went down, the decision about who filled the lifeboats and who went down with the ship wasn’t made on alphabetical order or casting lots. Overwhelmingly, the men laid down their lives to save and protect the women and children - not the other way round. No man could, with a clear conscience, climb into a lifeboat and watch a woman drown. It’s just not the way it should be.

For what it’s worth, I believe Jesus appointed twelve men as apostles to lay the foundation of the church principally because that involved living dangerously, suffering greatly, and dying violently. Well, that’s my theory. Whatever the reason, I am not prepared to say Jesus was mistaken, ignorant or restricted by public opinion.

Ending

Every person, one way or another, makes a judgement about Jesus: whether to love him or leave him out of their lives; whether to accept and follow his word or ignore it and go their own way.

And God has fixed a day when he will call to account each of us for the judgement we made about him.

What do you think about Jesus? Have you decided to follow him? No turning back?

I am going to end by telling the story of Stephen Lungu. Steven is the oldest son of a teenage mother from a township in Zimbabwe. She was trapped in a difficult marriage to a man over twenty years older. She dealt with the pain by drinking heavily.

One day, when Stephen was three years old, his mother took him, his brother and baby sister into town. She said she needed the toilet, and left Stephen holding his sister in the busy town square, while his brother played on the ground.

Two hours later she had not returned. She had run away, leaving the three children in the care of an aunt. By the age of eleven, Stephen had run away as well and lived on the streets.

He became bitter towards God. He found his way into a violent gang, called the Black Shadows. When a travelling evangelist came to town to speak to thousands of people about Jesus, Stephen planned a firebomb strike. He carried a bag full of explosives. He wanted to attack the event because of his rage against God.

As he waited for the right moment, a South African evangelist called Shadrach Maloka took to the stage and announced that the Holy Spirit had warned him that many in the audience may die soon without Christ. The Black Shadows panicked and ran, thinking someone had learned about their plan.

But Stephen experienced God’s presence and was captivated by the speaker’s words about God’s grace and peace which drew him into an encounter with Jesus.

He staggered forward to the stage, grabbed hold of the speaker’s feet and began to sob. That evening, he decided to follow Jesus. No turning back.

The next morning he turned himself in at a police station and confessed his crimes. The desk sergeant listened to his story, looked at the long charge sheet and released him.

Stephen now speaks about Jesus to crowds all over Africa. At an event a few years ago, a woman came forward saying she too wanted to follow Jesus. It turned out it was his mother who had abandoned him all those years ago.

·         Some of you might need to reconcile with parents or children. You can’t change the past, but Jesus can change the future.

·         Will you take a stand for Jesus today?

·         Will you decide to follow him?

·         Though none go with you, will you still follow?

·         Like the twelve, will you commit to be with him?

·         To spend time with him? To learn from him?

·         Will you go where he sends you?

The world behind me, the cross before me. No turning back.

Let’s stand to pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 23 July 2017

The Scandal of the Kingdom (Mark 2.13-22)

Introduction

This week, I learned about a man called Dez. Dez is from Scotland. This is his story in his own words:

“I was a doorman; a bouncer. I was quite a violent guy. I took a lot of drugs and became a cocaine addict. My life revolved around fighting, taking drugs, partying and living in that cycle. One night, I took a massive overdose. I felt like I was having a heart attack. My heart was jumping out of my chest. And I cried out in what I didn’t know then was a prayer - to live. I woke up the next day and I never touched cocaine again.”

After that scary experience, for some strange reason, Dez kept meeting Christians. One in particular was called Fiona. He wanted to get to know her better so he asked her out a few times, but she declined, mainly because he wasn’t a Christian. She didn’t agree to a date but she did give him a Bible and he started reading it. This is what he said about that. “I started tearing through it, trying to find something, and I ended up finding Jesus. Suddenly, my whole life made sense.”

He called Fiona and asked if she would take him to church. He saw some publicity for the Alpha Course and signed up. “On Alpha,” he says, “I met Jesus and it changed my life. I was this drug-fuelled, violent person and now I love people and love God. I just want to share my story.”

Dez is now married to Fiona and they are parents of an eleven-month-old baby.

“Jesus”, he says, “turned the questions I had about whether God exists into a belief that God cares about me. I have changed from a violent, loveless drug addict to a man who is happily married and full of love. I’m now running Alpha for all types of people, from gang members to grannies, and I’m seeing their lives changed too.”

Dez, as he was before, is perhaps not a man you’d expect to be attracted to church, particularly as it is usually portrayed in the media. Church: old-school, self-respecting, a bit pompous and a bit judgemental. Dez: messed-up and violent. Square peg, round hole.

But Dez found that Jesus is nothing like what he had imagined. What he found is exactly what the Bible says about Jesus.

There are three things in our passage that tell you a lot about Jesus...

1) In v13 - a large crowd came to Jesus. So it’s not niche spirituality for the chosen few. Jesus is attractive, interesting, good company. Everyone loves being around him.

Unlike the highly qualified religious leaders whose bored congregations are dwindling fast, Jesus has no proper qualifications. That’s the scandal of the kingdom. He didn’t go to theological college. He doesn’t wear the proper robes. He hasn’t got the impressive doctorate in advanced theology, but he is anointed by the Spirit to transform lives - and that’s what people want.

2) In v14 - Jesus sees Levi sitting at a tax collector’s booth. ‘Follow me’ Jesus says and Levi gets up and follows him. So Jesus is charismatic and influential. He’s a leader of men. People leave well-paid jobs, they renounce their decent pension; they resign on the spot, giving their employers no advance notice. It’s the scandal of the kingdom. Levi hands his boss his keys and is out of there.

3) In v15 – Jesus is having dinner… not with well-heeled and upstanding citizens but with many tax collectors and sinners. Jesus raises eyebrows and ruffles feathers. Jesus breaks all the rules. No one has seen anything quite like this before. He goes out of his way to mix with some pretty messy people; call girls, alcoholics, petty thieves, lap dancers, pickpockets, drug addicts, street fighters... People are outraged and offended. They gasp with shock. That’s the scandal of the kingdom. (Some of you are thinking “how does our vicar with the sheltered life he leads know about lap dancers?”)

People were perplexed. No one had seen anything like it. As we saw last Sunday, they said, “Hang on, what’s this about? He says he can forgive my sins? How can that be right?”

Then today in v16, it’s “Wait a minute, what’s all this mixing with the riff-raff? You’re supposed to be a man of God! Don’t you think it gives the wrong impression? What about your public image? We can’t see how this is helpful.”

Then in v18, there’s a genuine question. “Why aren’t you more like John the Baptist? He was sober and austere. You don’t seem to take it seriously; it’s all eating and drinking and taking it easy with you. We just don’t get it.” The implication is that religion should be dour and unenjoyable.

In Mark chapter 1 everybody loves Jesus. As we’ll see next week, we don’t get far into chapter 3 when some people want to see him dead. But here in chapter 2, the opposition against him is just starting to stir.

1) Follow Jesus

So here’s the story for today. It’s set in Capernaum which is on a major north/south route from Damascus to Egypt. That’s why there’s a toll booth there so money can be collected from passers-through for King Herod who governs that area on behalf of the Romans. Levi (v14) is the man in charge of the tax office.

How did you get to be a tax man in Jesus’ day? You put in a bid to the Roman authorities and the contract went to the highest bidder. Yes, you actually paid for the privilege but you recouped your investment by earning a percentage commission and you increased your profit margin by ripping people off for more than they actually owed.

It was extortion. It was a racket. Everyone knew it. The system was corrupt. Rome didn’t care. They gave their tax collectors carte blanche, and as long as Caesar got his money they weren’t bothered.

So as people pay their tax to Levi at his booth, they screw their faces up with resentment. They hate him for doing Rome’s dirty work. Their hard-earned money props up a godless, overbearing government; it pays for pagan temples and supports an Emperor cult. Caesar’s extravagant drunken orgies and lurid entertainment is all funded by their taxes and it makes them mad.

This is why tax collectors are all shunned as traitors and are automatically expelled from the synagogue.

It’s likely that Levi has heard of Jesus before. Jesus has already done amazing things in Capernaum as we saw in chapter 1. Word will have got around.  

Nevertheless, what happens next is totally out of the blue. No one expects it: Jesus approaches this crooked, unlovable outcast and says “you’re just what I’m looking for, come with me.”

This is what the Bible says about you too, and me. “This is love,” says 1 John 4, “it’s not that we loved God, but that he first loved us.”

God was looking into your heart long before you ever thought about him. It’s not that you and I just decided to get up and follow Jesus one day. That’s what it feels like, but the truth is that behind the scenes, before we were even half aware of any spiritual reality at all, God already knew us, and loved us, and chose us, and pursued us.

He drew us to himself and gave us the gift of faith. Of ourselves, we are totally unable to respond to God; without the grace of God, we are spiritually lost.

“It is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2.8-9).

Levi gets up. He just leaves his record book and his piles of coins on the table. All that was once important to him; the money, the prestige, the lifestyle, that’s over. His boss might be saying, “Hey, wait! Where do you think you’re off to? What about all these people queuing to pay their tax bill?” Levi doesn’t hear him. He doesn’t even know for sure where Jesus is going next; he just knows he’s never going back.

Have you walked away from your old way of life, to follow Jesus? Jesus never accepted 50/50 half-hearted offers to follow him. “Let me wait till my father dies.” “If I can keep my nice job and generous bonuses...” “Let me just say goodbye to everyone first, maybe I’ll come along later.” Jesus always says, “Uh uh. It’s all or nothing.”

2) Open Your House/Heart

The next scene is at Levi’s house. Levi has been with Jesus for just a few hours or maybe a couple of days but he’s a quick learner. “What can I do?” he thinks. “Well I’ve got a nice house and a big garden, I can have everyone round to my place for a party.”  

So he invites everyone over to meet Jesus. That’s quite a big deal. He’s got to clean his house and get it tidy. He’s not used to doing this; he’s hardly got any friends, remember, because of his job. He has to go out and buy food and drink and napkins and paper plates.  

Then everyone turns up. He has to put up with people spilling wine on his nice carpet. Some idiot smears ketchup on the sofa. Someone else leaves a floater in the toilet and doesn’t flush it. He’s got some dodgy characters helping themselves to some of his little ornaments. It’s messy, it’s untidy.

Things always get messy when Jesus is about. But Levi has understood that hospitality is more than opening your home; it’s opening your heart, opening your life; that’s the gospel.

So he welcomes everybody into his plush mansion with all their mess and their chaos and their bother and noise and says, “Come in, make yourself at home, and come and meet Jesus.” And that’s how lives get changed. This is how God works.

Verse 15 says “many tax collectors and sinners were there.” A sinner simply means a social outcast.

It could be that they have a blacklisted profession like Levi and the other tax-gatherers. It could be that they lead a notorious, licentious lifestyle. It would have been a pretty motley crowd. The one thing they all have in common is that they are all excommunicated from the synagogue.

You look around the room. There’s the bloke surrounded by minders who owns that club in town with live strippers. There’s the single mother covered in tattoos just out of rehab - again. Her kids are all in care and nobody dares foster them. There’s the guy who drinks meths by the school fence and smells like a dustbin. And there’s Jesus, completely at ease.

The scandal of the kingdom is that in Jesus’ culture eating with someone is seen as an endorsement. It looks like you are condoning or even promoting their lifestyle. People draw a deep breath and shake their heads.

It baffles the teachers of the law and the Pharisees. We’re going to hear a lot about these people. Their antagonism against Jesus intensifies as Mark’s Gospel unfolds. Who exactly are they and what is their problem?

The teachers of the law (or scribes) are trained scholars. They have degrees from the University of God. They memorise books of the Bible. They’re very learned. They examine all the fine print. And they love making lists of rules. Then they add their rules and traditions to the Bible. The Bible isn’t enough, oooooh no, you’ve got to do all this as well. And they impose their religion on everyone else.

Below these teachers of the law are the Pharisees. They are not formally educated but they are devoted and zealous laymen. The Pharisees all choose a teacher of the law to be their instructor. They listen to his every word, they take notes, they memorise the Hebrew, and they discipline themselves to live strictly and obediently by the extra rules that the teachers of the law tack on to the Bible.

Their thinking is that perhaps one day, if you do well enough, God will love you and accept you.

These are the people who ask this question in v16. “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” They’re not being awkward. They are genuinely perplexed. They simply don’t get it. Why would a man of God waste his time with this scum?

But notice, this is really telling, they don’t think that they’re sinners. Sinners is other people. That’s what usually happens with religious people. They tend to think that others are worse than them.

Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t actually disagree that these people are sinners. He doesn’t excuse sin. He doesn’t minimise it. He doesn’t explain it away. He actually agrees with the Pharisees. “Yes, these people have a lot of sin and brokenness and disorder in their lives. But so do you. So what’s the solution? Are we going to run a holy club just for Christians, or are we going to love these people, and hear their stories, and serve them, and help them see that there’s a way out?”

Imagine you’re at Eaglescliffe Medical Practice in Sunningdale Drive. You’re feeling awful. You’re sitting patiently, looking at the electronic board waiting for your name to come up. A whole hour goes by.

Suddenly, your GP storms into the reception area and says “I’ve had enough! That’s two asthma complaints, one kid whingeing about chicken pox, one woman moaning about her migraines, another man grumbling about a stomach complaint. Isn’t there anyone fit and well around here who wants to see me? Give me a break!”

Jesus says “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

3) Go with the New Thing God Is Doing

While Jesus and his new friends are tucking into a meal, another question comes up.

Again, it’s an honest question. They’re not being difficult, they genuinely want to try and understand.

John the Baptist and his followers were deadly serious about seeking God and part of that was fasting. It’s a discipline to do with self-humbling and repentance. They felt their alienation from God. They were hungry (literally) for more of God’s presence. They were saying “All is not well, we need to break through to a new reality with God.”

John Piper says “Fasting is a temporary renunciation of something that is in itself good, like food, in order to intensify our expression of need for something greater; namely, God and his work in our lives.”

Fasting is about expressing our longing and yearning for the more of Christ’s power in our midst. It’s saying “I need your presence more than food, more than life itself. So fasting is redundant when Jesus is here.

Jesus sums up by talking about new patches on old clothes and new wine in old wineskins. Neither works. You put new unstretched material on old garments and when you wash them the new material shrinks, pulling the old. 

Before glass bottles, people in the Middle East sewed goatskins together to make watertight bags. A new wineskin is quite supple so it doesn’t matter that the fermenting wine stretches the skin like a balloon. But once the wineskin is fully stretched it becomes taught and there’s no more “give” in it. If you put more new wine in then it just bursts.

The Old Testament Law that the Scribes and Pharisees loved so much is like an MRI scan that shows up heart disease. It is good for a diagnosis but a scan just tells you what’s wrong with you, it cannot operate and make you well. We needed a heart transplant. That’s why Jesus came.

The Pharisees are like rigid old wineskins. You cannot contain the new wine of the kingdom in a stuffy old religion of man-made ideas and rules.

But here’s my challenge to you today; every human heart can grow rigid and hard, resisting the new thing Jesus wants to do. What’s your heart like today? Does God want to soften your heart this morning, and open it up to the new thing that God is doing in your life and in his church?

Let’s pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 9 July 2017 

Forgiveness and Reinstatement (Philemon 8-22)

Nicky Gumbel once said, "If someone punches you in the face and you don't punch them back, that is mercy. If someone punches you in the face and you don't punch them back but instead say, 'That's OK, you are forgiven,' that is forgiveness. If someone punches you in the face and you don't punch them back but instead say, 'That's OK.' and then you buy them an ice cream, that is grace. This is God's love for us.

In May 1981 four shots were fired in quick succession at Pope John Paul II. Two bullets lodged in his lower intestine, one hit his left hand and the other his right arm. This assassination attempt left the Pope badly wounded and with significant blood loss. His general health was never the same again.

The gunman, 27-year-old Mehmet Ali Ağca, was sentenced to life imprisonment. But John Paul asked people to pray for his would-be assassin describing him as “my brother Ağca, whom I have sincerely forgiven.”

Two years later, the Pope visited Ağca in prison, took him by the hand and said to his face that he had forgiven him for what he had done (though Ağca had shown no sign of remorse).

Over the years, John Paul became a friend to Ağca’s family. In June 2000, at the Pope’s request, Ağca was given a presidential pardon.

In February 2005 Ağca sent a letter to the Pope wishing him well. When the Pope died two months later, Ağca’s brother Adrian gave an interview saying that Ağca and his entire family were grieving and that the Pope had been a great friend to them.

Maybe you think the Pope was foolish and naive. Maybe you think he should have waited for Mehmet Ali Ağca to show some remorse first. Personally, I think it’s a great testimony to the power and authenticity of the gospel.

Forgiveness lies at the heart of our faith. It is not a decorative cherry on the cake. It is an essential ingredient without which it doesn’t look like or taste like a cake.

Forgiveness and restitution are the stand-out themes in this little letter from Paul to Philemon.

Philemon is a minor, more obscure letter tucked away in a rarely thumbed section of our Bibles. And yet it is a hidden gem.

As you have probably noticed, most of the 21 letters in the New Testament are addressed to churches. They tend to be a bit formal, somewhat theological, and sometimes quite long. Only four were written to individuals. These letters are noticeably warmer, more personal, more practical and they’re shorter too. In fact, Philemon is more a postcard than a letter.

Written by Paul, to a wealthy Christian landowner called Philemon, it’s all about a runaway slave called Onesimus. It’s a real-life Prodigal Son story.

Slavery is, and always has been, a great social evil. Slaves could be inherited, traded, abused, bred or exploited. They could be killed quite legally. Shamefully, this still exists today, notably in countries like Mauritania and Sudan.

The church led the way in abolishing the slave trade, in bringing civil rights to the USA, and in opposing Apartheid in South Africa. William Wilberforce, Martin Luther King and Desmond Tutu were the iconic figures of those movements and each one did what they did in the name of Christ. Some people are puzzled that the Bible does not speak with greater condemnation of slavery.

The early church did not lead a protest movement because they were in no position to do so. Many, if not most, of the first Christians were slaves themselves. But this letter undermined the whole foundation on which slavery is built. The church spearheaded a radically new approach. It was the only place in society where everyone was respected, loved and treated as equals, in fact as brothers and sisters.

Slaves were routinely ill-treated but you don’t ill-treat someone you love.  Slaves were seen as things, not people, but you don’t treat a beloved brother or sister as an object. Years later, public opinion changed because of the lead taken by Christians and slavery collapsed.

Slavery was very, very common in the Roman Empire. About one in three people, 60 million in all, were slaves. Rome was built on it and it was into this cruel, harsh world that Christianity burst onto the scene.

The slave mentioned in this letter was called Onesimus which means “useful”. Maybe today he’d be called Andy because he was quite ‘andy to have around.

Alas, his master’s hopes for him were unfulfilled because he turned out to be pretty useless. He ran away and made for the bright lights of Rome, where he would have the best chance of blending in with the crowd and escaping efforts to track him down.

While he was in Rome, we don’t know how, but in the providence of God, he ran into Paul who was at that time under house arrest awaiting trial.

What a coincidence! Actually, it was not luck, or chance, or fate or anything of the sort. It was a “God-incidence” as someone has put it. Because that unlikely encounter is what led to this young man becoming a Christian.

Paul told Onesimus he should put everything right and return to his master Philemon and face the music. He said, “I know your former master. I’ll put in a good word for you.” And this is the covering letter.

Forgiveness is never easy. Each of the three main characters in this letter had to make a brave decision.

Paul had to let his new ‘son’ in the faith go. That would have been a wrench for him, facing a court trial, his life in the balance. This lazy runaway thief had become really useful and hardworking. He was no longer just someone to use, he had become someone to love. But Paul said, “You must go back, it’s the right thing to do.” As someone said, “The first to apologise is the bravest. The first to forgive is the strongest. The first to forget is the happiest.”

Onesimus too had to do something difficult. He had to bite the bullet and go home. That was risky. The usual punishment for a runaway slave was to have the letter “F” (for fugitive) branded his forehead. That was to show everyone who he was should he ever dare to do it again. Some masters punished their runaway slaves with crucifixion.

But it would have been hard for Philemon to receive him back too. You can see how he might resent having to take this man back. But Philemon had been badly let down by this man. He had betrayed his trust. To let him off might encourage others to try their luck. Should he just let off this useless worker? What’s more, Paul is urging him to treat this joker as a brother, as an equal.

Paul, of course, knew all about forgiveness. We first meet him in Acts 7 as a harsh, violent young man breathing out threats, spitting abuse. But he met Jesus on the Road to Damascus and amazing grace softened his heart. He never forgot how much God had forgiven him. Even in his last letters, he called himself then worst of sinners.

How did it work out? The Bible doesn’t say but we do know that 20 years later the church at Colossae consecrated a Bishop by the name of… Onesimus. Who knows, it may be the same man. I think it is extremely likely that Philemon did take him back, forgive him, and restore him.

After all, if Philemon had refused to forgive, how would this personal letter have found its way into our Bibles? Philemon would have torn the letter up and thrown it in the bin.

Does forgiveness work? Or is it just gullible sentimentality? I’ll leave the last words to Mehmet Ali Ağca.

“After John Paul II visited me in prison,” he said, “I thought about it, and I studied the gospel at length. I know the sacred books better than many others.” He converted to Christ and is currently considering the priesthood.

Let’s pray…

Sermon preached at Saint Mary's Long Newton, 2 July 2017

The Power of the Kingdom (Mark 1.29-45)

Introduction

I said last week that Mark’s gospel was the first of the four to be written and that the emphasis is on what Jesus did. Matthew and Luke came afterwards and, using Mark as a basic outline, they expanded on what Jesus said. John’s Gospel came last of all and its unique focus is on who Jesus really is.

Jesus’ words are truth that set people free. They are spirit and life. Heaven and earth will pass away but his words will never pass away. Nevertheless, none of the Gospels focus exclusively on what Jesus said.

Words alone are incomplete. Jesus came with words but also with works and wonders. As Paul said, in 1 Corinthians 4.20, “The Kingdom of God not a matter of talk but of power.”

If you add up all that Jesus says in Mark, it amounts to about 20 minutes of speech. If you add together all Mark wrote about what Jesus did even that only compresses down to about three weeks’ solid action. But 20 minutes of Jesus’ words and a few weeks on what he did is all you need to know to become a follower of Jesus.

Our passage today divides neatly into three scenes.

Scene 1 - Peter’s Mother-in-Law

Chapter 1 is about the earliest days of Jesus’ ministry. Everything went fine. No one criticised him, no one was jealous of him, no one plotted to kill him. That all starts in chapter 2 and we’ll see that next week.

But at the start, the only reaction to Jesus was one of wonder. Jesus was popular. People came from everywhere to see him. As soon as Jesus left the synagogue (where we were last week), he goes to a house to get some rest. It’s Simon Peter’s house in Capernaum.

If you go to Capernaum, as I did in the 1980s, you will see some excavations of a First Century fisherman’s home. I remember it being very modest, quite small, and not particularly noteworthy. Who knows, those ruins may be of Peter’s old home. As you’d expect, the tour operators waste no time in telling you it probably is!

Actually, they may be right. Because there is evidence that the function of the house changed dramatically in the years immediately following Jesus’ death. There are several extensions that suggest the house was no longer used as a home but instead as a place for communal gatherings. So there is speculation that Peter’s house became a church that kept growing and needing extra space. Sounds familiar…

There Jesus is. It’s late in the afternoon. It’s been a long, hot day. But the minute Jesus gets a bit of shade, puts his aching feet up and rests his head on a cushion, Peter comes and says “My mother-in-law’s really poorly.”

So Peter, having a mother-in-law, must have been married - which is quite a story if you’re the first pope. 1 Corinthians 9 says that Peter’s wife travelled around with her husband as did other apostles’ wives. They weren’t just stuck at home waiting for the men to return. In fact, the early church historian Eusebius wrote that Peter’s wife loved the Lord and was actively involved in spreading the gospel with him.

We sometimes imagine Jesus travelling with a dozen bachelor types but the reality is very different. Wives came too, and Luke 8 other women joined them too and even supported the group from their own means.

Anyway, in Luke’s Gospel Peter’s mother-in-law’s condition is described as a high fever – and Luke was a doctor so he would have known this wasn’t just a harmless, minor infection. A high fever could be serious, even life-threatening, without antibiotics.

They come to Jesus and appeal to him saying, “Do you think you could come and have a look? She’s white as a sheet, she’s soaking in sweat, her temperature is off the scale. She’s fretful. She’s hallucinating. We’ve tried everything. Nothing’s working. Please help.”

We know from elsewhere in the Gospels that when Jesus healed, he felt power go out of him. A full day like this drained him. It exhausted him. Jesus is shattered. Now it’s time, at last, to rest and recharge.

So Jesus says “You know what, can it wait? It’s been a busy day and I’m wiped out here…” No he doesn’t. He says “Yes.” He only has to touch her hand and help her up. The fever goes immediately.

And without even thinking, she does what my mum would do and your mum would do, the moment she realises there’s a houseful, she asks who wants tea and who wants coffee, who takes milk and sugar and puts the kettle on!

Jesus flops down again. But as soon as the sun sets, about 6 o’clock, signalling the end of the Sabbath, with the smell of dinner in the air, there’s a crowd outside. “The whole town was there,” it says.

“Pray for my back,” “heal my blindness,” “help me walk again,” “mend my broken arm,” “I’ve got these red spots, can you take a look?,” “will you take my cancer away?” “my son has got a demon,” “come and see my bedridden dad.” “Fix this. Fix that. Help me, help me, help me.”

Lots of people are outside, knocking on the door and peering through the windows. It’s intrusive. I would have told them all to clear off! Actually, I wouldn’t. I might think it, but I’m much too British to say it.

The Bible says “Jesus healed many who had various diseases.” Not “a few”, not “some”. “Many.” 

The power of the kingdom is that even when you’re tired and weary, the Lord is there. Do you need the touch of Jesus on your life today? Are you, like this crowd, willing to come to him with open hands and humbly ask? And once you have received, are you like this woman ready to serve? Are you up for serving in a new way today?

The All Party Parliamentary Report into Holiday Hunger was published in April and churches in our diocese were highlighted in it. Church-led events in 30 locations including Sunderland, Gateshead, Hartlepool and Stockton over the last two summers provided over 10,000 meals to families in areas of high child poverty.

That is what happens when lives are touched by Christ. And that’s an example of why we give so much in Parish Share.

Scene 2 - Replenishment

People don’t usually get up very early unless they can’t sleep or have something important to do. A bit of advice for you; if you can’t get to sleep at night, just lie right on the very edge of the bed.  You'll soon drop off…

But this is not about Jesus’ insomnia. As we’ll see in chapter 4, he can sleep soundly, no problem, in an old creaking boat as it’s tossed about in a violent storm. This is about Jesus’ number one priority – time with the Father. So “very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”

Vance Havner once wrote, “If you don’t come apart for a while, you will come apart in a while.” Jesus never fell apart, never lost his nerve, never burned out.

People ask, “What is the secret of Jesus’ power in ministry?” This is it. This is where it all comes from. This is why Jesus always knows what to do next. “I only do what I see my Father doing,” he said – this is where he saw it.

I read a little book last year called Zeal without Burnout by the aptly named Christopher Ash. (I mean what are the chances that a guy writing about burnout is called Ash?) And it says when you serve at a level that your spiritual inner life with the Lord cannot sustain you end up first faking it and then burning out.

Pete Scazzero is a church leader in New York. One day his wife said to him “I’m leaving your church because it sucks.” She was fed up of being married to a man who was bright and positive up front but behind the scenes was irritable and distant. It was busy, busy, but with no replenishment. It was the shock he needed to put things right and rebuild his marriage.

Time to replenish. Time with God. It doesn’t have to be in the morning. But if you’re going to know anything about the power of the kingdom, it does have to be some time.

Even Jesus, the Son of God, knew he had to breathe in, before breathing out in ministry. Nobody can give to others what they haven’t received themselves.

Some of you are giving out a lot. Are you planning replenishment time? Jesus ministered in power because he was constantly refilled spiritually. That’s why we do prayer ministry here. We seek the fresh anointing and empowering of the Holy Spirit - not just for broken people, or burdened people; but for busy people, for bushed people.

Hours after Jesus is up, everyone else wakes up. They find him gone so they send out a search party. Where’s Jesus? Where’s he gone? What about my needs, what about my problems, what about my burdens? Someone find him! Quick, we need him!

When they finally track him down, you can hear the relief. “Ah Jesus! There you are! Great, everyone is looking for you.” Jesus could have settled down and started a nice big church right there. Everyone wanted him to stay.

But Jesus has already decided he’s moving on. Not because he’s sick of Capernaum. But because, in prayer, he has heard from the Father that it’s time to go. “Let us go somewhere else, to the nearby villages, so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”

The region of Galilee measures about 60 miles north to south and 30 miles east to west. It’s roughly the size of County Durham. There were about 250 towns and many synagogues. There was a lot of ground to cover.

Scene 3 - The Leper

But Mark picks out one particular encounter with a leper for special mention. The Greek word used here can mean any one of a variety of skin complaints, but Jesus’ instruction is consistent with the procedure they had for leprosy.

We don’t know where this man lived. Mark doesn’t say. Luke says the meeting took place in one of the towns. That’s significant because lepers weren’t allowed in towns. It was like bird flu or Ebola today. Because of the risk of contagion and because there was no known cure, lepers were kept in isolation and there were strict laws regulating the distance they had to keep from healthy people.

Leprosy was a terrifying disease. It was disgusting to look at; disfigured faces and skin peeling off the body. Lepers became social outcasts, banished and estranged from their families. They had to wear special clothes and shout “unclean” wherever they went.

No one would go anywhere near them. If they came too close people would throw rocks at them to keep them away. They were feared. They were judged. They were scapegoated. They were cut off spiritually, banned from entering synagogues and forbidden to approach the temple. Just imagine the hopelessness and despair these people lived with.

Every society has “lepers”; people who are excluded, who are shunned, who are made into outsiders.

The young family who left everything behind, and to save their children risked snipers and grenades, ran many dangers, went hungry, braved the cold of winter outside only to arrive in a foreign land to be insulted and stigmatised by our best-read newspapers. Lepers.

In January this year, People magazine published a feature about Christian singer called Colton Dixon. The piece included honeymoon pictures of him and his beautiful wife Annie, and it came out in the interview that they had saved sex for marriage. It attracted a barrage of angry abuse. Comments like “they’re repressed”, they’re “brainwashed,” “this is sick”, “it’s freakish and against nature.” Lepers.

The elderly woman wasting away in a care home with no one to visit, not even family. Ours is the only society the earth has ever known that treats its elderly as burdensome. Lepers.

At our Connect Home Day two weeks ago, one of our brilliant volunteers asked a lady called Agnes if she was enjoying the day. “Oh,” she said, “I’m 95 years old and today is one of the top five days of my life.” When asked why, she just said, “I feel so loved.”

That moved me so much. This is the touch of God, the touch of love. Jesus stood out because he touched untouchable. He had time for the forgotten and forlorn. He reached out to the excluded and unwanted. He loved the least, the last and the lost.

So lepers were kept apart and banished from society. But this one was desperate. Maybe he spent all his money in vain for a cure. He didn’t worry if he upset social conventions and he was past caring about rabbinical laws; he’d heard that Jesus could put people right, so he came out of the shadows, into the open, into town.

He left his safe place and walked towards Jesus. Is that what you need to do this morning?

Listen to his desperation. “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” That’s a big ask. But if you don’t think God can do much you won’t ask for much.

Jesus left his safe place too. Any other Jew in that society would have warned him to stay away, and even thrown rocks if necessary. Not Jesus. He is filled with compassion. We talk about compassion as a tearful emotion of the heart. It has a sentimental feel about it, but the word used here speaks of something much deeper, it’s visceral. It literally means “gutted.”

Religion says, “sort yourself out and then you can come in.” Some churches would say, “clean yourself up first and then we’ll see.”

Jesus says, “I am willing. Be clean.” “I heal you, I cleanse you.”

Ending

It doesn’t matter where you’ve been. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. Jesus says “you can be new today. I loved you first; this is grace.”

Let’s stand…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 25 June 2017

The Message of the Kingdom (Mark 1.9-28)

Image courtesy of www.LumoProject.com

Introduction

As Scott said last Sunday, we’ve just started a series of talks on Mark’s Gospel. We are going to cover every word of it, finishing on Easter Sunday next year.

Mark’s is the shortest of the four Gospels; you can read it in one sitting as we did on Maundy Thursday a few years ago here. It took us about two and a half hours.

It’s also the liveliest; it is the Tigger of the four Gospels, jumping abruptly from scene to scene. It’s like a documentary filmed with a shaky hand-held camera. There’s no editing or airbrushing. It’s raw and unpolished.

It’s also the earliest of the four to be written. So this is the very first testimony about Jesus the world has. One first century source claims that Mark scribbled down some rough notes on Peter’s preaching, when he told the stories of what it was like following Jesus.

What was it like? Let me, with a little help from Mark Driscoll, sum this Gospel up for you in three minutes.

Chapter 1; Jesus starts off by telling four workers to walk out of their jobs without giving notice and orders a demon to shut up.

Chapter 2; Jesus picks an argument with some well-mannered clergy and hangs out with a crowd of crooks, rogues, and whores.

Chapter 3; Jesus’ family, including his own mother, try and take hold of him saying he has lost the plot. People conclude he is possessed.

Chapter 4; Jesus is so lax on health and safety that his exasperated disciples ask him if he even cares if they drown.

Chapter 5; Jesus kills about two thousand pigs.

Chapter 6; Jesus offends yet more people and sends his lads out on an exorcism mission with no qualifications or equipment.

Chapter 7; Jesus insults the local hardworking clergy, calling them ‘frauds’, and compares a woman with a sick child to a dog.

Chapter 8; Jesus spits on a disabled man, and publically scolds his most trusted follower, addressing him as ‘Satan’.

Chapter 9; Jesus advises people to cut off their hands and feet and to gouge out their eyes.

Chapter 10; Jesus upsets practically everyone by saying that remarriage after divorce is adultery. He then tells a millionaire to sell all his stuff and give the money away to beggars.

Chapter 11; Jesus tells his men to take someone’s donkey without asking, and then vandalises some small businesses in the temple.

Chapter 12; Jesus tells the highest theological authority in the land that they don’t know their Bibles and are going to hell.

Chapter 13; Jesus sets off alarm bells when he says he’s going to completely flatten the most iconic religious building in the Middle-East.

Chapter 14; Jesus reprimands his friends for taking a nap at night having run them all over the Middle-East for three years.

Chapter 15; the authorities kill him for all of the above, which seems perfectly fine to pretty well everyone.

And the story ends in chapter 16 with Jesus alive again and the trembling, amazed, and frightened disciples being told to speak in tongues, handle snakes and offend the whole world. 

It’s controversial. It’s provocative. It’s incendiary. Jesus scandalised and delighted people in equal measure.

This short section we’re looking at today hits you like a train. Jesus bursts onto the scene with barely any introduction. You have to catch your breath as Jesus – Action Man – hits the ground running, dashing from one scene to the next.

This is Mark’s breathless introduction of Jesus. These are the first impressions. Straightaway, he wants you to know five key things about him; his identity (v9-11), his tenacity (v12-13) his simplicity (v14-15), his community (v16-20), and his authority (v21-28).

1. Identity (v9-11)

Firstly, identity. People struggle more and more with identity. Who am I? Where do I come from? Am I male or female? What am I here for? Does my life have any purpose? Am I loved? The answers to all these questions for Jesus come in v9-11.

Jesus comes down to the Jordan from his home in Nazareth and is baptized. He didn’t need to because he didn’t need forgiveness. Unlike anyone who has ever lived before or since he led a flawless life.

It’s basically about obedience.  It’s about submitting to the Father’s plan. Just as Jesus will take all our sin onto himself at the end of his ministry, it was his Father’s plan for him to immerse himself into our sinful world at the start of it. It’s about saying, “Your will, not mine.”

Heaven is torn open and the Holy Spirit descends on him like a dove. And he is anointed with power. If you want anointing, if you want to move in the power of the Holy Spirit, if you want to be mightily used by God, as with Jesus, it all starts here with simple obedience, living his way, not yours.

Jesus comes up out of the water and hears his Father’s voice. “You are my Son, whom I love. With you I am well pleased.” This is the Father’s affection, his approval, his esteem. It is there before Jesus works a single miracle, preaches a single word, calls a single disciple, or heals a single soul. The Father’s love is not performance-related. You cannot please God by earning.  It is from the beginning.

The Apostle Paul uses the expression “in Christ” over 80 times. If you are a Christian, that’s your address. You are in Christ. This means that everything that is true of Jesus is now true for you. You share in his authority, his anointing, and his righteousness.

What the Father says about Jesus is highly significant. It combines two Scriptures from the Old Testament that reveal who he is. “You are my Son” is an echo of Psalm 2, a royal psalm, a song for a king, but no ordinary king. “I will make the nations your inheritance and the ends of the earth your possession,” it says. It’s a prophetic psalm about the King of kings and Lord of lords, the anointed one, who will rule the nations.

“With you I am well pleased” is an echo of Isaiah 42. “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight.” And it goes on to speak of his humiliation, his sufferings, laying down his life for all.

This is a statement, right at the start of his ministry, about who Jesus is. He is king and servant. He is the highest who became the lowest. He is exalted and humbled. He is the King of kings and the servant of all.

2. Tenacity (v12-13)

Jesus is overwhelmed by this outpouring of affirmation and affection as the Father’s dearly loved only Son. He is in a good place.

Ever been in a spiritually good place before? Perhaps your conversion, your baptism, or witnessing an extraordinary healing, or receiving a prophetic word, maybe a special time at New Wine or Soul Survivor...

We love that! But life is not like this all the time. It isn’t for us - and it wasn’t for Jesus either.

Verse 13 says Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days. In the desert of Judea the temperature gets up to around 40° at midday and at night it drops to about 4°. “He was with the wild animals,” it says. These weren’t cute pets to keep him company! They kept him on edge day and night; scorpions, poisonous snakes, wolves, jackals and the now extinct species of lions, bears, and leopards. This is like Bear Grylls “Man v Wild” gone badly wrong.

Satan tends to attack when we are most vulnerable. He’ll bide his time and hold his fire, and when we least expect it, just after the excitement and elation of a spiritual high, or when you are tired and stressed, when you’re running on empty, he strikes.

Are you in a time of testing now? That doesn’t mean that God has stopped blessing you! The Lord is building up spiritual muscle and resilience in you. This is actually God’s gymnasium. Jesus is about to embark on the most fantastic three years this earth has ever seen. It was founded on this time of training.

 

3. Simplicity (v14-15)

In v15 Mark’s first recorded words of Jesus sum up his entire teaching. 17 simple words in English. None more than two syllables. 85 characters. This is the essence of everything he said, the message of the kingdom, in one tweet.

What’s the very first thing he says? “The time has come.” People were waiting for a great leader who would change the world. They were longing for an expected figure who would bring peace and prosperity. Jesus bursts onto the public scene and says’ “This is it! The moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived.”

“The kingdom of God has come near.” There are over 80 different instances in the gospels when Jesus talks about the kingdom of God. It means that God’s rule and reign are here. Something exceptional and new is breaking in. There’s a shift in the atmosphere, like two giant tectonic plates suddenly colliding and shaking the earth. With Jesus, you can get a foretaste of heaven.

But there are two things required of us. “Repent and believe the good news.” Jesus is saying that with this new reality, you cannot go on as before. You are going to have to (literally) change your thinking, change course. There needs to be a change of direction.

Maybe someone here today knows in their heart right now that today is the day things are going to change. I did this when I was 17. I abruptly changed the course I was on, turned my life around and started a new life. That was the best thing I ever did. Not once since that day have I regretted it.

4. Community (v16-20)

Identity, tenacity, simplicity, and then fourthly community.

If anyone was ever qualified to operate as a one-man band in ministry it was Jesus. He is the Son of God, perfect in every way. Anyone else added to his team is only going to make things worse.

But isn’t it great that Jesus made it clear right at the outset that church is not a spectator sport? You get to play. Everyone gets to be on the team!

So Jesus calls out to four guys, “Who wants to be on my team?” and without hesitation, they all leave everything behind – their jobs, their security, their homes and say, “We’ll come.”

Mark’s favourite word is “euthus” which is translated “immediately,” “at once”, “straightaway” or “without delay”. But it’s the same word in the original and it occurs 41 times in this Gospel. The point is “get on with it, do it today.”

And when you do that, everything changes. Jesus says “leave the nets, forget fishing. You join me in fishing for people instead.” So many new Christians say to me, “All my values have changed. Material things become much less important. And people have become much more important.”

5. Authority (v21-29)

Finally, authority. The message of the kingdom is powerful. It is weighty. It is striking. Twice here (v22 and v27) it says people were amazed by its authority. The message of the kingdom is not theoretical, propositional or merely academic. It turns heads. It is revolutionary because it is accompanied by works of power.

Last week, after the talk at 10.30am, Dave called for a decision, a response, to Scott's talk. One person gave her life to Christ, one said he wanted to baptized, and others encountered Jesus when they came forward for prayer.

On Thursday a man training for ordained ministry posted this on Facebook. “Just had a lecture on missiology which included a very broad and incisive view of church and mission... The orientation themes were placed in a new context. We looked at… a view of critical correlation and the questions we need to bring to Scriptures and the view we have of the world. Then time spent with a social cognitive discourse analysis and the wonder of the hybrid person. We even looked at epigenetics and how the church can suppress who we truly are (Jungian) yet in embracing our DNA we can be freed and bring that part of our humanity to the light.”

Who understood any of that? Why are we training our ordinands to empty our churches! I think that was his point in posting it. There is no authority and no amazement, in stuff like that; it’s just pretentious, pompous garbage. Evil spirits listen to hot air like that and just yawn.

In Mark 1.21-28, a man from the synagogue is delivered of an unclean spirit. That wouldn’t have happened after a lecture on social cognitive discourse analysis, the hybrid person and epigenetics would it?

The question I have is “How on earth did this man manage to spend years in the synagogue with all his darkness and shadows and spiritual anguish totally unaffected?”

I remember Alan Farish, my predecessor saying to me when I first arrived here that evil spirits are extremely comfortable in churchy, religious environments. It doesn’t bother them at all, they quite like it. But that is not what Jesus came to bring.

I’ve told you before about the church that started in Halifax in 2012 primarily for those who are homeless, recovering from addictions or are just out of prison and people who are marginalised.

One evening a few years ago, a Wiccan High Priestess visited. While standing at the back during Amazing Grace, she couldn’t move while waves of love and grace washed over her. She encountered the living God, renounced her life as a High Priestess and surrendered her life to Jesus. She’s now a key staff member there.

Another day during worship, phones were ringing, a group started chatting and it looked like a fight was about to break out. Prompted by the Holy Spirit they stopped mid-song and explained that they needed to pray against a spirit of distraction. Once that happened, a powerful time of worship followed. At the end, they discovered a visitor had given his life to Jesus and another man was healed of lung cancer which was later verified by doctors. 

Ending

This is what Jesus is like! This is his message of the kingdom. God’s rule and reign are here. Heaven is breaking in. People are amazed. People recognise the authority.

So as we end, do you want to encounter Christ today? Do you want to be anointed with power as Jesus was?

Does someone here want to hear from God about who they are in Christ, how much they are loved?

Is someone facing a battle in the wilderness? We will pray with you and you will leave this place with the devil where he belongs, under your feet.

Do you need to get up off the spectator seats and respond to Jesus’ call to serve his church and follow him?

Is there someone here who knows today is the day they stop, turn round and start living a new life?

Let’s stand to pray...



Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 18 June 2017