Mark Clark [00:00:00]:
Hey, everyone. Mark here.
Mark Clark [00:00:01]:
Welcome to the Mark Clark podcast.
Mark Clark [00:00:03]:
We are glad you're here.
Mark Clark [00:00:04]:
This is part of the Thrive podcast network, so go over to thrivepodcastnetwork.com dot. There's a whole bunch of great pods over there. And this is a series that we're launching a three week series out of the book of Philippians called Citizens of Joy. And I just wrote a book that is coming out in February. I'm super excited about it.
Mark Clark [00:00:20]:
And one of the major themes is.
Mark Clark [00:00:22]:
How to find joy in a disenchanted world. The book is called the problem of life. It is the third and final book in the problem trilogy. And you can actually get it right now on Amazon.
Mark Clark [00:00:34]:
You can get it for preorder, which.
Mark Clark [00:00:35]:
Is actually great because the more people get the pre order, the more the analytics go up on Amazon, and then the more people get to hear the awesome message of hope that's in the book. Where, in the midst of the world that we live in, how do you find your identity, your joy, your purpose, meaning?
Mark Clark [00:00:49]:
How do you view all of life?
Mark Clark [00:00:51]:
And there's eleven exhortations or principles or lessons that I give about how to flourish in life versus flounder in life. I am super excited about this book. It is the best thing I have written and thrown out to the world. So jump over to Amazon, look for the problem of life, and pre order it, and then you'll get it on February 18. In this episode, we're diving into the Book of Philippians, one of the most profound texts in church history. And we're talking about true joy, not the fleeting kind tied to your life and the ups and downs of life, but a joy that endures through life's trials, suffering and everything in between.
Mark Clark [00:01:27]:
So we're gonna explore Paul's powerful words.
Mark Clark [00:01:29]:
Written from a prison cell and discover how being a citizen of heaven actually changes everything, no matter what life throws at you.
Mark Clark [00:01:37]:
So stick around for a deep, thought.
Mark Clark [00:01:38]:
Provoking journey into what it means to live as citizens of joy in this world. Let's jump in, y'all.
Mark Clark [00:01:46]:
We call it citizens of joy because joy is one of the major themes of the book of Philippians. 16 times it is mentioned, and yet it's not like joy. The way to get joy is to chase after just being happy and feeling.
Mark Clark [00:02:00]:
Happy all the time.
Mark Clark [00:02:00]:
It's actually in the teeth of the world in the difficulty. Paul writes this from prison. So that's why we have, like, a busy urban kind of aesthetic to this, because it's not like, hey, go out in the middle of a village, and just get away from everything, and then you'll be happy. It's joy in the midst of pain, suffering, difficulty in the real world. And Paul writes these words from prison. Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus to all God to God, all God's holy people in Christ Jesus. Athenae, Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons. So he starts out by saying, hey, listen, this is a letter to the city of Philippi.
Mark Clark [00:02:36]:
So let's talk about a little bit of history we're going to do. I'm sure you woke up this morning, said, oh, man, my marriage is struggling. My kids suck. I hope when I get to church, we talk about history. But that's what you're going to do for a couple minutes here. We're going to get a history lesson. So look at that. And a map.
Mark Clark [00:02:56]:
So here is where Philippi is. It's right here. Now, if you know, this is Italy, okay? This is Sicily, the soccer ball of Italy, right? Sicilian mafia, that's Sicily. This is Italy. The boot. This is Rome. So kind of the head of the colosseum, all this. And over here is Greece.
Mark Clark [00:03:16]:
So 350 years before Jesus comes on the scene, there's the greek world. The world is run by the Greeks. Any Greeks in the house, right? Any Greeks? There was a bunch in the last service. Yeah, be proud. You guys have seen my big, fat greek wedding, all right? You know, everything was invented by the Greeks, right? At least that's what they think, and we'll just let them have that. But it's true. It's why I had to take Greek for three years when I was studying the New Testament, doing a master's degree, because the whole. Anything that was significant, they were speaking Greek.
Mark Clark [00:03:51]:
And so Greece ran the world. There was this king named Philip, and he ruled as the greek ruler. And then this little village that nobody cared about found gold. Philip's like, what's going on over there? They got a lot of gold. So he gets interested in this little spot called Philippi, and he names it after himself, King Philip. Let's name the city Philippi. So he names it after himself. And his son takes all that money that's from the gold, and he uses it to fund all of his adventures in the military.
Mark Clark [00:04:24]:
And his son is a little known military leader by the name of Alexander the Great. So King Philip Philippi, Alexander the Great, he goes on, runs the world, rules the world, does this thing. Now, by the time Paul, about 50. So that's about 350 ADHD. This is now 49 50 Ad Paul.
Mark Clark [00:04:47]:
Plants a church in Philippi, and he says, hey, we gotta actually plant a church in this city. And he plants it there, and it starts to grow. Cause he knows that all culture is gonna come out of the city. So these people start to get their lives changed.
Mark Clark [00:04:58]:
So that's the beginning of the book of Philippians. So here's how the book actually starts. He says this in chapter three, verse 20, which I think is, like, one.
Mark Clark [00:05:10]:
Of the central texts of the whole book.
Mark Clark [00:05:12]:
He says, our citizenship is in heaven. So he starts out with this kind of philippian background. He starts talking about citizenship, because in the Philippi mind, it'd be like, we're in Philippi, but the colony. Philippi is a colony of the roman empire. And so what they want is all the culture of the roman empire. They want it to exist in Philippi. So it's like, I bumped into a.
Mark Clark [00:05:37]:
Guy one time, and he was in the army, and he was working in. He was deployed in Afghanistan, and he found out I was canadian, and he's.
Mark Clark [00:05:45]:
Like, oh, your citizenship's in Canada? He goes, here's what we would all.
Mark Clark [00:05:48]:
Do in the army when we were in Afghanistan. We would follow the Canadians, because the.
Mark Clark [00:05:52]:
Canadians could always find Tim Hortons, right? You guys know what? Tim Hortons is kind of our national coffee shop, right? He's like, the Canadians could always find Tim Hortons and beer, so we would always follow them. Made sense. So my citizenship is canadian, right? You guys are american. I'm canadian. Pastor Andrew is irish. That's citizenship. So when you're a citizen of something, you feel like allegiance. That's why when you guys make fun of Canada, I feel hurt, right? Cause you guys don't know what you're talking about.
Mark Clark [00:06:29]:
So you're like, ah, Canada.
Mark Clark [00:06:30]:
I'm like, do you know?
Mark Clark [00:06:31]:
Have you ever been there?
Mark Clark [00:06:31]:
It's like, no.
Mark Clark [00:06:32]:
Polar bears. Murica. And it's like, no. So our citizenship is in Canada. So people meet my daughters, and they're like, wow, you speak really good English. We're only being here for a year, so my citizens. So whenever you guys make fun of Canada, I'm like, no, no, no. But, like, Celine Dion's from Canada.
Mark Clark [00:06:56]:
And you're all like, I don't care about the eight people that are famous from Canada. Or, you know, when you meet Andrew, he gets all excited about Ireland. Oh, don't you know what? The Irish. He knows everything the Irish did. It's like, dude, it's whiskey and the Titanic. That's it.
Mark Clark [00:07:11]:
Let's move on.
Mark Clark [00:07:13]:
So oh, but the Irish, because that's what citizenship's like. It's like you care about the place that you're a citizen. And what the apostle Paul is doing here is he's saying, don't worry about Rome and Philippi and where your citizenship, your actual citizenship is in heaven. Meaning America, Canada, Ireland, it doesn't matter. The church is every tribe, tongue and nation. There's no boundaries geographically in regard to the kingdom. And if you spend more time thinking about and worrying about how to make America better versus populating heaven, you've lost track in your life, right? That's what the apostle Paul is doing. Citizenship.
Mark Clark [00:07:54]:
The ultimate question isn't what citizenship do you have in the empires of this world, but is your citizenship in the heavens? Have you held on to Jesus so that joy can be defined not by your circumstances, but by something that transcends your circumstances, that when your marriage falls apart and the money runs out and you get that diagnosis that it's not going to crush you because your citizenship is where in heaven, it transcends all of this. And that is the only way to joy. That's what we're trying to say, citizens of joy. That's how you're ever going to get it in life. If you base it off, all of the things, making more money, being healthy, having a great family, all that stuff can leave you. But if your citizenship is in heaven, nobody can steal it from you. So that's what he's trying to do. So chapter one, verse one, starts this way, Paul.
Mark Clark [00:08:48]:
Okay, stop right there. So he's introducing himself. And for those of you who are new to church, you meet like, okay, who's this Paul guy? Why is he writing this letter? And some of you might have heard.
Mark Clark [00:08:59]:
About Paul, but scholars tell us we.
Mark Clark [00:09:01]:
Would, even if the New Testament didn't.
Mark Clark [00:09:03]:
Exist, we would know who the apostle Paul was because he was that brilliant. He probably spoke three or four languages fluently. He had the Torah memorized.
Mark Clark [00:09:11]:
He was what was called a shamite Pharisee, which was a group of people. When you read the gospels and you.
Mark Clark [00:09:15]:
See Jesus interacting with pharisees, there are.
Mark Clark [00:09:17]:
People who really love the external life. If you were religious, if you be a good person, then God would love you. And so he always was about the external religious part.
Mark Clark [00:09:26]:
And he actually.
Mark Clark [00:09:27]:
So some of you might be like, man, see, this is why I can't come to church, because the people God uses are the good people. They're the perfect people.
Mark Clark [00:09:34]:
But, Mark, you don't know what I.
Mark Clark [00:09:35]:
Looked at last week. You don't know how my family has.
Mark Clark [00:09:38]:
Fallen apart under my leadership.
Mark Clark [00:09:40]:
You don't know what I did at work. You don't know me. And the reality is, here's the life.
Mark Clark [00:09:45]:
Of the apostle Paul. He was actually a murderer.
Mark Clark [00:09:48]:
He actually oversaw the murder of the first Christian. So if you haven't murdered anybody, you're.
Mark Clark [00:09:54]:
Already ahead of the game. And I won't ask you if you have, because the group will clear out.
Mark Clark [00:09:57]:
That's beside you. So the point is, the apostle Paul was a murderer. He was not a perfect guy. And some of us have to understand, God can use any of you, no matter your past, no matter your history, no matter your addictions, no matter what you've done. My background, as you know, I'm a pastor now. But I wasn't always the shining beacon of godly togetherness. I grew up in a non christian home. I told you my mom wanted to name my brother Matthew.
Mark Clark [00:10:31]:
My dad wouldn't allow it because it was biblical. And then they named me Mark. The guy had never picked up a Bible before in his life. No church, no Bible, no God, no prayer. I spent my life trying to do a little bit of drugs here and steal money. For that. I would go into people's cars and steal money so I could. This was my life.
Mark Clark [00:10:47]:
I was in utter disaster. My grandfather tried to get my dad to agree to send me to a christian camp so I could hear about Jesus. My dad was like, absolutely not. That was my life growing up. But here's the thing.
Mark Clark [00:10:58]:
The beautiful testimony of ephesians, chapter two. You were this. You were this. You were this, but goddess, but God.
Mark Clark [00:11:05]:
And this is what happened with the Apostle Paul. He was riding on a road to Damascus, and Jesus shows up and knocks him down and makes him blind. Some of you are like, what? Wake up, man. If Jesus wants to do something in your life, he's going to hunt you down. And you better listen. He made him blind. He said, I'm going to make you blind until you agree to be my apostle to the Gentiles.
Mark Clark [00:11:29]:
And Paul is okay, and he wakes.
Mark Clark [00:11:31]:
Up and he gives his life to Jesus, and God uses him, not because of him, but in spite of him. And some of you are sitting here like, no, God can never use me. He can use you no matter who you are, no matter what you've done. And this is what God does. He redeems, he restores, he transforms, he empowers. No matter who you are, what you've done, the sins you've done are the sins that have been done to you.
Mark Clark [00:11:54]:
Now, here's the crazy part. The apostle Paul actually isn't like me, kind of an example of pagan, and then God used him.
Mark Clark [00:12:04]:
He actually wasn't kind of that pagan jerky guy. He was. And this is probably more relevant to.
Mark Clark [00:12:12]:
The people in this room.
Mark Clark [00:12:13]:
He was actually the religious jerky guy. He grew up. So most of you, like, a lot of you grew up in the church, which is awesome. And you went to youth group and you memorized the phrases and you figured out how to talk a certain way and do a certain thing and navigate the church. And you learn the Bible stories and you listen to the worship songs. And yet some of you, if you're like the apostle Paul, he had all the external things, but he didn't know the God of the universe. He was playing a game. And so his example.
Mark Clark [00:12:48]:
So what to have in your head is not so much the, like the tattooed up. Like, those are the stories we love, right? Like, play that video again of the guy who's like, ah, I killed a bunch of people and I was a drug addict for 40 years. And then I met Jesus, and we're all like, yeah, we love those stories. The apostle Paul. See, that's what you're picturing.
Mark Clark [00:13:07]:
If I put a picture up and.
Mark Clark [00:13:08]:
Say, this is what, this is who God saves. No, there's.
Mark Clark [00:13:11]:
Listen, this is what the apostle Paul actually would look like right here.
Mark Clark [00:13:22]:
That's more of a picture of the apostle. Like, has that guy ever sinned in his life? No way that guy's ever sinned. So when you're picturing the apostle Paul, don't picture tatted up doing drugs. Picture Kevin Thompson. Right? Memorizes the Bible, grows up in the church. Like, literally, Kevin was born a Christian. You can just tell. And that is actually more a piece of.
Mark Clark [00:14:01]:
Most of you could identify with that side of the Paul story that, in fact, you're not lost in sin, you are lost in religion. You are lost by trying to be a good moral person and thinking that God will love you and use you because you're a good person and you're going to impress God and you're going to do good deeds and you're going to memorize this and you're going to do that. And you have become somebody who externally.
Mark Clark [00:14:28]:
Might be a thing, but internally you don't actually know or walk or treasure the God of the universe at all. That's the tension. So when I first entered the church, I went in and I remember walking to the auditorium and I didn't look like. And sound like any of the guys.
Mark Clark [00:14:44]:
You know, chain smoking and big baggy pants.
Mark Clark [00:14:46]:
And I remember going into the congregation, I was like, oh, and the auditorium was there, and there was this pulpit. And I walked in there one day, and it was pitch black. And I'm like, I want to preach. And I walked up behind the pulpit. The doors were closed. People locked the doors. You couldn't get in there, right? So I, like, picked the lock and got in there using my old break in skills, and I get in behind the pulpit, and I just start to preach. Man, God wants to say this to you.
Mark Clark [00:15:16]:
You need to come to know Jesus. This is what the text says. And all of a sudden, this door opens, and all the lights go, and the head of, like, the janitor team is sitting there.
Mark Clark [00:15:26]:
He's like, what are you doing up there? I'm like, I'm preaching. And he's like, get off there. That is.
Mark Clark [00:15:33]:
And he'll never forget what he said.
Mark Clark [00:15:34]:
He said, that is God's desk, and this is God's holy room. And I said, haven't you read the book of acts? God does not dwell in temples made with human hands. No, I didn't say that, but I really wanted to say that because it's true. I really want to say that God does not dwell. See, this is what happens. We get all this religion in us, and we start to get proud, and we don't understand the kinds of people God uses. We become people who externally are playing a game. It's behavior modification, but we don't internally have any affection.
Mark Clark [00:16:17]:
This is like my middle daughter, Hayden.
Mark Clark [00:16:21]:
I was putting her to bed a little bit ago, and she was.
Mark Clark [00:16:23]:
Hey, Hayden. Good night. Hey, good night.
Mark Clark [00:16:25]:
She got her kindle up. Everything good? Oh, yeah.
Mark Clark [00:16:27]:
Everything's great. Okay. Good night, kiddo. Night.
Mark Clark [00:16:29]:
I shut the light off. I go to leave, and I hear like this. I'm like, what's going on? I turn the light back on. I'm like, what?
Mark Clark [00:16:36]:
What's going on? Oh, nothing. It's reading. What? And I pull the sheet back, and she has an entire massive bag of fishy crackers in her bed. And I'm like, what are you doing? And she's like, oh, shoot. What? I didn't know. I. Sorry. I just snack.
Mark Clark [00:16:53]:
What? And I'm like, what? She's playing externally, she knows all the right things to impress her father. Oh, Father. I'm just here reading the Bible here on my kindle. Oh, good night. Just a schemer. So externally, you're doing the right things, but under the sheets in the dark, when nobody's looking, you don't actually walk and love and obey the God of the universe. That is the problem of Paul. All right, so that's Paul, all right, all right.
Mark Clark [00:17:41]:
And then he says, and Timothy, so Timothy, Timothy is his little apprentice that he's building up. And he's training him in ministry to be a pastor. And Timothy is with him and he says, we are servants of Christ Jesus. I love this. Right off the bat, he says, if I'm looking for a category for myself, I'm not gonna call myself a leader. I'm not gonna call myself some better.
Mark Clark [00:18:12]:
Person than other people.
Mark Clark [00:18:14]:
I am a slave. It's the greek word, doulos. I am a slave of Christ Jesus. Is that how you view yourself, as a servant of Christ Jesus? Or are you like an accomplished leader? Are you going to get some stuff.
Mark Clark [00:18:33]:
Done in the world? You're going to do some influence, you're.
Mark Clark [00:18:35]:
Going to have some stuff, you're going.
Mark Clark [00:18:36]:
To do some stuff. And Paul is going, no, man, I'm a servant of Christ. Listen, Bayside church is not a country club. It's a hospital full of servants.
Mark Clark [00:18:52]:
With all the mess of your life, all the mistakes. If you're intimidated to come here because you haven't got your life all sorted out yet, we are not a country club. Listen, I go to a country club and play golf all the time. You know what I need to do when I go in there? They always say, mark, hey, mark, you gotta tuck in your shirt. You gotta tuck in your shirt. And I always show up, no, tuck in. I was talking to my buddy the other day. No joke, the head pro.
Mark Clark [00:19:17]:
It's not weird cause I know him. I'm talking to my buddy. I feel these arms come around my body and tuck my shirt all the way in around my body. No joke. A country club is jacked up about how you look, how you position yourself externally. Are you perfect? Do you have it all together? A hospital gets you to come in, triage, whoever you are, whatever your situation is, and says we are, we are servants together. Every single one of us. It doesn't matter who you are, what you've done.
Mark Clark [00:19:56]:
Servants of Christ. This is how it is. So.
Mark Clark [00:20:03]:
Here'S the thing. Some of you are like you're waiting to be used by God. Because your category is not slave. It's like, I got to be accomplished. I got to be competent. I got to be confident. I have to have. And that's to misunderstand when God will start to use you, when you're a.
Mark Clark [00:20:23]:
Servant when you're just going, okay, all right. I'm willing to be used now. Whatever. In all my, you know, all my messes, God can still use me. Like, listen, a couple weeks ago I.
Mark Clark [00:20:34]:
Was speaking at a conference in some place in California, and I guess the guy hadn't really seen me speak before, and so he had asked me to come speak at this conference, and so he didn't. I don't think he knew, like, all my, like, tics and my tourette syndrome stuff.
Mark Clark [00:20:49]:
So 2 hours before the event, he's.
Mark Clark [00:20:52]:
Got thousands of people coming to this event.
Mark Clark [00:20:54]:
We go for dinner, and I can just see him kind of every time I, like, twitch my face around. He is kind of. And over the dinner, he's starting to sweat a little bit. So I just kind of. I just let it play. I'm like, yeah, so anyway, so how's your church going? You know, whatever. And like 2 hours into the dinner, he's sweating. He's looking at his colleagues like.
Mark Clark [00:21:27]:
And finally he goes, so what's your story, man?
Mark Clark [00:21:29]:
So I tell him my story, and.
Mark Clark [00:21:30]:
He'S like, oh, thank God. I thought you were having a stroke. Thought we were going to have to replace the speaker. You can't wait until you're perfect for God to use you. You can't wait till you have it all together or I never would have done this job because I've made mistakes along the way. Some of you are like, yeah, I don't want to start ministry. Listen, I ran an inner city junior high ministry. Every kid in the ministry was a minority.
Mark Clark [00:22:01]:
I was the only white person in the group. I was the leader, intercity Toronto. I ran that mission. I used to have an event and play coldplay. And finally one girl walks up to me. She's like, easy.
Mark Clark [00:22:19]:
Wonder bread with the coldplay. All right, wonder bread.
Mark Clark [00:22:26]:
I had to look that up. I'm like, what is that, a racial slur? I didn't know what I was doing. And so some of you are waiting until you're competent and confident. No. You are a servant, and you will always be. So go do. This is why Paul says to all God's holy people, every single one of you is needed in the church. No matter who you are.
Mark Clark [00:22:53]:
You have gifts, you have passions, you have history, and you are needed. The church isn't meant to be a couple guys on stage doing stuff, entertaining you, juggling for you. And you can go home and write the sermon and move on with your life. All God's people need to be on mission. Every single one of you. Some of you have gifts to teach. Some of you have gifts to lead. Some of you have gifts to do administration.
Mark Clark [00:23:17]:
Some of you have gifts to make money. We need money. And you've got it in your pockets and you're keeping too much of it for yourself. You don't need to redo your kitchen every three years. We need your money. We need to be on mission. We got 80 years on this planet to reach people, to populate heaven for eternity. And it takes money to do it.
Mark Clark [00:23:45]:
Some of you are gifted to make money. We need it. We need you to be generous. Some of you are gifted teachers. Some of you are gifted with kids. I mean, we need all God's people to actually be doing. One of the great joys of my.
Mark Clark [00:24:00]:
Life is watching my three daughters serve in ministry. They're all musical. They all sing. They can all songwrite, play instruments. And they all use their gifts to.
Mark Clark [00:24:08]:
Serve in different age groups in the.
Mark Clark [00:24:10]:
Church to lead worship.
Mark Clark [00:24:11]:
And I get video and I see that because Aaron and I's dream was.
Mark Clark [00:24:15]:
Always that two things about our kids, they love Jesus and they'd love the church.
Mark Clark [00:24:20]:
Some of you only love Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:24:26]:
You haven't started to love the church yet. You haven't started to understand that part.
Mark Clark [00:24:30]:
Of your life needs to be that you are part of all God's holy people together.
Mark Clark [00:24:35]:
Paul's going.
Mark Clark [00:24:36]:
And do you know what a mixed bag the church is? You're sitting beside people of all different situations. Money, past history, abuses, wonder things, experiences. Some of you divorce, friends, all kinds of.
Mark Clark [00:24:51]:
And that's what makes the church the church.
Mark Clark [00:24:53]:
That you hang out with people who don't look like you, vote like you, talk like you, dress like you, listen to the same music as you. All of God's people do, you know.
Mark Clark [00:25:04]:
Paul is probably thinking about.
Mark Clark [00:25:08]:
So here's the crazy part.
Mark Clark [00:25:09]:
Remember I said earlier that Paul was a shamite Pharisee.
Mark Clark [00:25:12]:
So here's a prayer he would pray. This dawned on me this week. The prayer that he, as a pharisee.
Mark Clark [00:25:19]:
Would say three times a day is, thank you, Lord, that I am not a gentile, a woman or a child.
Mark Clark [00:25:26]:
Because in that culture, all three of those categories weren't useful for things. They were just seen as commodities. Gentiles are outside the people of God. Women aren't educated and kids are useless.
Mark Clark [00:25:37]:
They just take resources.
Mark Clark [00:25:39]:
So which, that one I kind of agree with. So he would pray every day. Thank you. I'm not these things. Thank you, lord. Thank you, Lord. And then here's what dawned on me this week, I was reading, if you go, I don't have time to hit it, but go and read acts, chapter 16. That is the starting of the church in Philippi.
Mark Clark [00:25:58]:
Do you know who the first three founding members were?
Mark Clark [00:26:03]:
A gentile jailer, a rich woman, and a demon possessed kid. Now, picture that small group. I mean, what a zoo.
Mark Clark [00:26:22]:
You show up, it's your first time looking for a small group, and you open the door, and you got this because.
Mark Clark [00:26:28]:
So Lydia was her name.
Mark Clark [00:26:29]:
She goes on to fund a whole.
Mark Clark [00:26:30]:
Bunch of stuff for the apostle Paul.
Mark Clark [00:26:32]:
She's an entrepreneur. She's smart. So picture, like, west coast, like, you know, makes a million a year. She's super smart, drives an escalade. You know, when she drinks Starbucks, it's like. But not just like normal Starbucks. Like, what's the $12 double foamed up Chico, double pumpkin spice latte, wears lululemon pants, watches Oprah, reads eat, pray, love, hangs out at wine o'clock with the ladies, watches Grey's anatomy all the time. That's Lydia.
Mark Clark [00:27:14]:
That's Lydia. And from all that security and all that beauty and all that confidence, she comes to know Jesus. She didn't need Jesus. She was rich. She had it going on.
Mark Clark [00:27:29]:
And she comes to know Christ.
Mark Clark [00:27:31]:
And then the jailer, a gentile jailer. So picture Lydia shows up in the Prius, maybe eating kale, and she comes in, and dog the bounty hunter is in the room, pulls up in his big truck. And then just a kid sitting there, demon possessed. She was a slave girl. So you got a rich and a slave and a woman and a man and a kid. A mixed bag. This is the beginning of the church in Philippi. This is Bayside.
Mark Clark [00:28:15]:
Go and ask some people some stories.
Mark Clark [00:28:17]:
Every one of us has a story. That's the beauty of the church, guys. And some of you love Jesus, but you don't love the church yet, because not everyone sounds like you or looks like you. That's the beauty of the mosaic of what the church is. And so Paul is going, all God's people, every single one of you.
Mark Clark [00:28:38]:
I greet all of you. You are much needed in the context of the church.
Mark Clark [00:28:45]:
Jesus did the same thing.
Mark Clark [00:28:47]:
If you go read the kinds of people Jesus put together in the twelve disciples, they were all a mismatched misfit of randos. There was an anarchist who hated the Roman Empire and a tax collector who worked for the Roman Empire. And he's like, hey, you two, come here. It's not like he walked into the local billiards and just grabbed twelve guys.
Mark Clark [00:29:12]:
He did a bunch of randoms. I want to take an anarchist who hates the empire. I want to take a guy who works for the empire. I want to take a thief.
Mark Clark [00:29:19]:
You know, he put.
Mark Clark [00:29:20]:
John tells us that the guy was.
Mark Clark [00:29:22]:
A thief who was in charge of the money bag. I love it. Jesus, like, hey, thief, come here. We got a bunch of money. I need you to watch it. Tax collectors are like, question from the rear. What? And then two of the disciples, their brothers James and John. And the text Mark tells us they called themselves.
Mark Clark [00:29:49]:
What is it? Those of you who know the Bible, the sons of thunder. What? A couple of losers who calls themselves. And they stitch it into their robes. They're like, sons of thunder. What's that?
Mark Clark [00:30:07]:
And these are the losers that Jesus uses to change the world. Mismatched, random people. All. Every one of you is needed in Christ Jesus. Philippi. Here's the beautiful thing again. Philippi was a. It was a colony of the roman empire.
Mark Clark [00:30:29]:
And here's what it meant. It meant, I need you. This is very important. When Paul says citizenship is in heaven, his point is this. If Philippi is a colony of the roman empire, it's not that one day you're gonna retire, die, and go back to Rome.
Mark Clark [00:30:44]:
That's not the point.
Mark Clark [00:30:45]:
It's you're supposed to bring the culture.
Mark Clark [00:30:48]:
Of Rome to Philippi. So your citizenship is in heaven, which means what are you supposed to do? Bring the culture of heaven to earth right now. That's why Jesus prayed, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Your job is not to sit around and wait to die so you can go to heaven. It's to bring the culture of heaven to earth now, every single day. And so he says, you're at Philippi.
Mark Clark [00:31:21]:
Together with the overseers and the deacons. Those were two kinds of leaders, grace, which is something we all need to get undeserved favor. And we've talked about this before. If you wake up thinking you deserve this day, you don't understand grace. The only way you understand grace is that you understand God could have killed you last night. And the fact that you are breathing.
Mark Clark [00:31:39]:
And alive right now, we should all just be freaking out and going, ah, what am I going to do with this day? You have one more day that is promised you. Maybe you don't even get to the.
Mark Clark [00:31:50]:
End of it today. The fact that you are alive is the grace of God. It has nothing to do with you and how good you are and what you're accomplishing. He can accomplish anything in the world without you. His grace says, you don't deserve it, but I'm letting you live. And then he says, and peace, which is something we all want. And then he says this from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So here's what he does right off the bat.
Mark Clark [00:32:17]:
He doesn't. This is very important. He doesn't even want to go into the letter too far before he puts God right in the center and starts to go. Everything about the way I'm going to interact with you is infused with God. Everything I'm going to. So he doesn't even write a letter without making sure God is involved in it. How many letters do you write? Text messages, emails, interactions where God isn't even a factor? Cs Lewis says that every single person we interact with is an immortal soul that will live forever in either heaven or hell. And every interaction we have is helping people get to one of those two destinations.
Mark Clark [00:33:06]:
Do you infuse God in what you do, or is he an afterthought? The way you speak, the way you talk, the way you email, the way you text, the way you call, the.
Mark Clark [00:33:17]:
Way you order at a restaurant infused, Paul doesn't go two verses without going, I want your eyes on God, not me, not your circumstances, not your life. God's life.
Mark Clark [00:33:34]:
So early on in our church plant planted a church up in Vancouver in 2010. We were pretty broke. I had spent all of our money on school, getting a master's degree, and we had a couple kids, and we just. We didn't have any money. We were little in debt. And our friends that we used to hang out with two or three nights a week, they ran into some money and they looked at us one day and they said, you know, you would never ask for this because, like, you just would go through life and figure it out. But we just felt God wanted us to gift you some money. And so we know that you have a bit of a debt thing because of your school, so we just want to pay that off.
Mark Clark [00:34:12]:
So they gave us this check, and it was. It was amazing. It was the church being the church, it was brilliant.
Mark Clark [00:34:17]:
But then. But then every time we saw them, I would just. I was like. I would just be like, thank you.
Mark Clark [00:34:26]:
Hey, guys, thanks for that check. And we go out for dinner and.
Mark Clark [00:34:29]:
Hey, everybody, y'all order a burger?
Mark Clark [00:34:31]:
Hey, did I thank you guys for that check?
Mark Clark [00:34:32]:
Thank you.
Mark Clark [00:34:33]:
Just thank you so much. And finally, after, like, two months, they're.
Mark Clark [00:34:37]:
Like, hey, dude, you've thanked us literally 45 times. Stop it. It's starting to ruin the whole experience, and we're gonna take it back.
Mark Clark [00:34:50]:
And I said, okay, okay, I'm sorry, but. Yeah, but thank you. Thank you.
Mark Clark [00:34:58]:
And the point was, is later he took me out.
Mark Clark [00:35:00]:
He said, dude, we didn't do it for you. You weren't our audience, man. God was. I have an audience of one. He said, I didn't do it to improve your life. I did it cause God told me to do it.
Mark Clark [00:35:16]:
That's it. So stop thanking me. I don't even care that you like it. I didn't do it for you. I did it for him. Is that how you live your life? Recognizing right off the bat in every moment of every day, needs to be infused and focused on God, not just you.
Mark Clark [00:35:34]:
And then at the end, he points us not just to God in general, but to Jesus Christ in particular. And he says, it's not good enough to have all your definitions of God. West coast definitions, east coast definitions, eastern philosophy. Maybe you're muslim, maybe you're buddhist. Maybe you're an agnostic and atheist. You all have these visions and versions. And even when I say, make sure you include God, you just project your own ideas. He doesn't leave it there.
Mark Clark [00:36:01]:
He says, no, no, no. It's distinctively about the person and the work of Jesus Christ, that he is God. He lived a perfect life in your place. He died on a cross for your sin, the mistakes and foibles of your life and the things that have been done to you and rose again to give you life. So let me end by giving you an illustration of this, because I think for those of you who come to church often, you hear the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, and you're kind of sometimes looking for analogies of how this works. Last night I was thinking about this. So if you've ever seen the movie the quiet place, have you seen that movie quiet place? It's very quiet. It's not good for a guy with Tourette's to watch that in the movie theater because it's just like an hour and a half of dead silence, and.
Mark Clark [00:36:49]:
All I want to do is go.
Mark Clark [00:36:53]:
So I waited till it came out on video, but I'm going to ruin the movie for you. So in the movie, there's these monsters that have attacked planet Earth, and they go by sound. So half the earth is dead, but if you can make no sound, you can survive. So this. Have this little family and a few little kids. And the opening scene, they're walking along a path and it flashes back to the younger kid goes into this convenience store, and his older sister sees that he's taken this little ambulance or airplane toy, and it makes a lot of noise when you touch it. And so they're like, no, no, no. You can't bring that.
Mark Clark [00:37:32]:
You're gonna get us all killed. And then he kind of takes it anyway. And the sister sees that he takes it, but she lets him. And as they're walking along in the opening scene, he presses the button, and.
Mark Clark [00:37:42]:
The thing goes, dee dee dee dee dee dee dee. And the family turns around, and the monsters come out of the trees. Bam.
Mark Clark [00:37:48]:
Kid's dead. Opening scene, little kidde. And for the rest of the movie.
Mark Clark [00:37:53]:
You have, like, this feeling of guilt.
Mark Clark [00:37:56]:
That the older sister has because she has caused the death of her brother. And she knows that her dad in particular, resents her and hates her because he did this. And it gets to the end of the movie, and the monster is attacking the whole family, and he needs to sacrifice himself in order to save his family. So he runs out into a field, and just before he just makes a screaming noise and lets the monster overtake him, he looks at his daughter, who's staring at him, knowing that he hates her, and he just looks at her. And of course, they speak in sign language, and he signs, I love you. And then he says, I've always loved you, and then he screams, and the monster comes and kills him. And I remember watching that movie being like, man, what a beautiful picture of what? Like, some of you sit here and you're like, gosh, I'm not sure God actually likes me because of the things I've done, the shame and the guilt that you bring here every week or into your life. And you got to understand man as God the father.
Mark Clark [00:39:14]:
He looks at you and goes, dude, I love you. Actually, I've always loved you. And the greatest act to show you that was that I came down and screamed and let evil do its worst to me and overtake me and kill.
Mark Clark [00:39:33]:
Me in order to save you. And so, Father, I pray for our hearts to just treasure you more because of what you did for us in Jesus, that our hearts wouldn't find that to be old news, that that would never get old, that we would not only believe, we would not only trust, but we would treasure above everything else in the universe. And if there are people here right now who's like, man, I've never even given my life to Jesus, that in this moment that they would receive the grace of God and say, jesus, come into my life. Thank you for dying for me. Thank you for rising from death. Thank you for taking the wrath of God and evil and sin on yourself so I wouldn't have to. Thank you for loving me despite the fact that I have messed up every single day of my life. Save me.
Mark Clark [00:40:35]:
Use me and those of us who already know you. Empower us to the great mission you have for us. Let us be used for your glory. In Jesus great name we pray. Amen.