Mark Clark [00:00:03]:
First Corinthians, chapter 10. Really hitting on one verse, but it's a climactic verse, so it's going to take a few minutes to unpack it because it really is the summary of what Paul wants to say and what he's been saying for two or three chapters. So First Corinthians, chapter 10. And if you're new with us, special welcome to you. Glad that you're here. We're in something called Masterclass, going through using the book of First Corinthians, which is a letter that Paul wrote in the first century to a messed up, jacked up church of a bunch of Christians. One writer that I know, he entitled it Christians Gone Wild. All right.
Mark Clark [00:00:33]:
It was like people who were doing all kinds of crazy stuff, they met Jesus. And now the Apostle Paul's like, how are you gonna be a church? What are you gonna do? And he starts addressing all of their issues. Very similar to having churches in the greater Vancouver area, the greater Calgary era. It's like, how do we actually follow Jesus in the mess that we're in, Feeling the pressure of the empire that we exist within, all the temptations, all the sins, all the things that we could get involved in, whether that's the sex or money or power or fame or whatever it is. And so the context of how do you actually treasure. And he was what he's constantly talking, how do you treasure Jesus more than you treasure those things? And he's been hitting this issue of food. And they're going to these pagan festivals and they're eating food that's offered to idols and so on. And there's this big debate.
Mark Clark [00:01:16]:
And the Apostle Paul comes out and he summarizes this thing very clearly. And what we have to understand is here's what's beautiful about this verse that we're about to hit and unpack in detail. I was talking with someone this week, someone we're just talking through, through Jesus with, reaching out to, hanging out with, journeying with. And she had said, I've never been to church before. I don't know anything to do with what you believe or how you function or whatever. I don't know much about God. She was kind of blown away that we would meet in different school settings or different movie theaters, so on. Cause she's like, is God actually in those places? She's like, I thought you needed to meet in a church for you to actually meet with God.
Mark Clark [00:01:52]:
And so it kind of blows the paradigm away. And Paul's constantly trying to do that, taking people who might not understand. And what she said is, you know, I have been asking the question of why I exist. What's my purpose? Why do I get up in the morning? I know I have a family. I know I go to work. I know I do these things. But what's the reason behind the reason? What's the big why? What is my why? What is my purpose? Why do I exist? What do I work so hard for? And that really is a beautiful question that hits today because you have all of the different marketplace of ideas that are gonna try to give you answers for your big why. Why you exist.
Mark Clark [00:02:23]:
What's your purpose? What are you designed for? Why do you feel empty? Why do you feel isolated answering those questions? So if you're sitting. Seeking is a great week for you, because Paul answers that question. And we gotta understand that some ideas. And I believe Christianity is the best idea in the marketplace of ideas to answer that question. And some of you might be like, okay, because we gotta understand some things, and some ideas are better than other ideas. I know in our culture, that's not very popular, but it just is. There's just some things that are better. Last night, my wife's away and my daughter's had a big sleepover.
Mark Clark [00:02:52]:
So they had all these girls, a bunch of girls in my house, awake till 12:30 at night, yapping and chatting and telling stories and laughing. And I kept telling them to shut up and go to sleep. Cause I'm a good dad. And throughout the night, one of the girls got kind of like, hey, man, I feel bad. You know, I'm a little scared. And I went to her, I said, why? And they said, well, your youngest said my dad was dead. I'm like, okay, Bella, that's not a thing you can't go around. She's like, I was just kidding.
Mark Clark [00:03:20]:
And I'm like, okay. So I brought her into the room and I started giving her the talk, right? I'm like, you don't understand. If you talk to people like this, you're not gonna. And I started. And she. Her only response to me was, she looked at me. She goes, mom is so much better at these talks than you.
Mark Clark [00:03:32]:
All right?
Mark Clark [00:03:33]:
And they just. And I'm like, what? All right, so. Which is totally true. Cause I don't even know what I was talking about. So there's some people that are better at things. There's some ideas that are better than other ideas. And that's the reality that you and I gotta deal with. And so we gotta understand.
Mark Clark [00:03:47]:
Christianity comes along and it starts answering These massive questions. And some people in the modern world think, oh no, my answers are better than those answers. Or those are ancient traditional biblical answers. And we've progressed as a society, we have better answers to the question of sexuality or marriage or what to do with your money or power. All these things that we deal with in normal life. We have better answers. But what we gotta understand is what Paul was writing into is very similar to what we were writing into. There's a sociologist and historian of religion, a guy named John Milbank.
Mark Clark [00:04:15]:
He was a British professor, wrote a book called Theology and Social Theory. And what he talked about was in the Greco Roman world, they were very open minded with their theology. They, they said, I have a God, cities have a God, countries have a God. But they never would say to themselves, you should believe in my God. And that was viewed as very open minded, kind of like progressivism today where you would believe what you believe. And then you had Christianity come along and say, no, there's one God and you need to believe my God or you're wrong. And so that was viewed as very narrow. But their life wasn't defined by narrowness because even though they believed you had to worship one God, they loved and served the poor.
Mark Clark [00:04:50]:
They went into the urban centers where people were having the plagues and dying. And when all the peg ran away, the Christians leaned in. And one of the things that he talks about is the mystery and the phenomenon of the early church leaning in and caring for people and even dying, taking care of people in the streets, even though they had a narrow theology. And the reason, he says, is because ancient paganism had this view. If there were so many gods, creation was created out of all these gods. And they were fighting and they were violent and they were territorial, and that's how the world came about. That was their worldview. And ergo, it filtered down to how they lived.
Mark Clark [00:05:22]:
But Christianity, even though it was seen as narrow, it had a view of God where he made everybody in God's image. He was one, he was. It was clarity, it was focused, it was very. And so there was this idea that even though you have all these pagan gods, it would filter down to violence. Christianity came along and said, you have to worship our God, but it's clear, it's focused, it's very direct. You're made in the image of God. And so even, even in today's world, if you look at progressivism, evolutionary science, ideas, all of us are born out of violence, chaos, randomness. And where does that lead to? There's some Worldviews that are just better than other worldviews.
Mark Clark [00:05:58]:
If you have a worldview like that, no wonder you feel isolated and lost. Because the whole foundation that you believe is randomness, survival of the fittest. And you were born out of violence. Christianity comes along and says, you might view me as narrow, but I have a view where the God of the universe came down and died for you, not for you to be violent toward others. See how ideas have an implication? There's ideas and they have results. So here's Christianity coming along into the marketplace of ideas and saying, what do we do with all of this? What do we do with the purpose of our lives? What do we do with the big why? And it's found in chapter 10, verse 31. So literally hitting one verse, couple other verses that we'll stray to for a few minutes. So here's what he said.
Mark Clark [00:06:38]:
So whether you eat or drink. So this whole idea of he's climaxing, this whole thing that he's been dealing with. Am I allowed to eat this? Am I allowed to eat that in that pagan world? And this is crazy for the Apostle Paul. Cause he was a Jew. He was a very conservative Jew. And so they had a bunch of rules. You couldn't eat this, you could eat that. You couldn't eat this, you could eat that.
Mark Clark [00:06:56]:
You couldn't wear that fabric. You couldn't do this, you couldn't. There was all of these rules. You couldn't eat pork. You couldn't go here on a Saturday, even today. All right? If you go to Israel, I was there probably eight, 10 years ago. And if you go on the Sabbath to an elevator, it just. You can't hit a button.
Mark Clark [00:07:11]:
Because that's work on the Sabbath, it just stops on every floor. So you just wait so that no one has to work. There's a system. And this is how people. This was the Apostle Paul. So for him to go, okay, now. And here's the reality. My wife grew up in this setting, right? Where it was like, you are defined by what you eat and what you drink, by who you hang out with, by what you wear, by what you do.
Mark Clark [00:07:32]:
She wasn't allowed to do certain things growing up. She was a conservative Christian home. And so it was like, you're not allowed. Literally, there was rules, right? You're not allowed to watch My Little Pony. Because that's demonic, right? That was a rule in her house. She grew up. She couldn't watch Smurfs. Cause Gargamel was this wizard.
Mark Clark [00:07:50]:
Sorry, what? That's the reality of what she grew up in. You couldn't drink certain things, you couldn't go certain places. You couldn't work on a Sunday, you couldn't shop on a Sunday, but you could go sit at a restaurant and let other people serve you. But that was okay. But you couldn't do it. And there was all these rules. There was things you could say, things you couldn't say, words that were bad, words that were good. All right.
Mark Clark [00:08:12]:
Literally yesterday, basically, it was kind of a theology of Jesus plus Jesus plus what you do, Jesus plus what you don't do. Yesterday, we were driving in our car, we went to watch a movie, and it was me and my buddy and all of our kids in the car. We were driving, and my daughters were talking, and they're like, you know, one time I heard dad in Uganda, he smacked his foot against something, and he said the S word. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, girls, I'm a pastor. I've never said that word in my life. Right? I don't even know what you're talking about. You must have heard wrong. Come on, get your stuff in order here.
Mark Clark [00:08:47]:
I'm gonna be disqualified for ministry. You gotta knock it off. And my buddy chimes in and goes, oh, don't worry. That's a soft swear word anyway. It's not a real swear word. I said, yeah.
Mark Clark [00:08:57]:
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Mark Clark [00:08:58]:
Hold on, girls. Earmuffs. This is crazy. We're having the Council of Nicaea around swear words now, right? We're just trying to exegete what's a swear word? What's a not. This was literally what they did in that culture. They said, we got to figure out every little thing. Are you allowed to eat here? Are you not allowed to eat here? Are you allowed to eat this? Are you not allowed to eat this? Are you allowed to drink this? What are you allowed to do? What are you not allowed to do? Where are you allowed to go? Where are you not allowed to go? Over and over and over again. That's how you define Christianity.
Mark Clark [00:09:25]:
That's how you define whether you knew God. And the reality is, that's a really bad way of evaluating whether someone knows God or not. Because the gospel comes along and tells us God isn't looking on the. I mean, what's that great passage in 1st Samuel when God is looking for a king and you have Saul, and Saul's all bulked up, and he's taller than all the Israelites, and everyone's like, he's gonna be our king. He's gonna be legit. Cause he's like a brave heart. He's like, bro, he's gonna be our leader. He's like, on the horse, all painted up.
Mark Clark [00:09:49]:
He's like, jacked up with the muscles. There's like, saul, he's gonna be our leader. It's legit. And then there's like, David, right? David's like the poet. He's like, hey, I'm writing a song. And he's like, playing the liar. He's like. And they're like, yeah, that's not our king, right? We're going for the bulked up, jacked up Braveheart.
Mark Clark [00:10:05]:
We don't want to go for Legolas. All right? So. And so the reality is. And then there's that great passage where it says, God, what, you know him? God doesn't look on the outside. He looks on the inside.
Mark Clark [00:10:19]:
And.
Mark Clark [00:10:19]:
And he saw in David that he was a heart. He was a man after God's own heart, and so he makes him king. How? You are living your life constantly looking on the outside. This person dresses like this, drives that, thinks like this, does this, but you don't actually know their heart. And this is why evaluating the externals is a really bad idea and why Paul is basically coming at it, and he's about to say, it doesn't matter what you eat or drink. You're looking at the externals. See, you could do anything externally. It has no internal bearing on what you actually believe, what you actually love, what you actually treasure, what you actually delight in, what you actually value.
Mark Clark [00:10:51]:
You can sit and take photos of yourself in church and say, look at me, I'm in church. I'm a good godly businessman. And under your heart you're saying, I hope people do business with me because they can see I'm part of a church. See, that's a hard issue. You can show pictures of yourself in church. You can externally do anything you want. But the reality is what is in the heart? Jesus himself said it. You are whitewashed tombs.
Mark Clark [00:11:17]:
You look really great on the outside. You clean yourself up, you make the dish look nice. But inside, you're full of dead men's bones. You're just a tomb. You don't actually know the living God, because all you keep focusing on is whether you eat this, drink that, go there, say that word, watch that, so on and so forth. And he's going, you got to get a heart. Because once your heart is close to God, all of this starts to change.
Mark Clark [00:11:41]:
Because you figured out what actually matters. And he starts to crack it open.
Mark Clark [00:11:45]:
And say, what do you actually value. Looking just at the externals of a person isn't gonna really do much because you can do any. You can act any way you want, but if your heart hasn't changed, then what's gonna start to happen is you're gonna start to live a hypocritical life where you say this over here and you do this. There was a New York Times article written a couple years ago where there was a conference, a really big men's conference back in the 90s. They would gather these men and fill these stadiums. And there was a report all over New York City that the strip clubs during those conferences would rise in their popularity and their attendance, that men would go to the conference during the day and then go to the strip clubs at night. And the Times article actually said that some of them wouldn't even take off their name tags. They just walk in with their lanyards on from the local Christian conference and go into the strip club because they're saying, hey, I wanna see a verse where I'm not allowed to go.
Mark Clark [00:12:36]:
And if I can't find that verse, then I'm good to go, and I'm here for the chicken wings. All right? The reality is. The reality is, where's the heart? That's what God's after. Because if your heart is right with him, then your actions will follow your praxis. Your behavior will follow if you actually know him and love him. So I just want you to take a minute and kinda go inside your secret space self and ask the question right now as you sit here across these sites, is your heart right with him? Is your soul actually right with him? Not what you eat, not what you drink, not what you watch or don't watch? Not if you swear or you don't swear. None of that is the issue that he's asking about. He's asking, do you really actually know the God of the universe in your heart? Because that's going to change what you do.
Mark Clark [00:13:19]:
That's his point, which is a huge, big idea. Because for him as a Jew, in that culture, literally, Jews building up to the first century would die under the power of Antiochus Epiphanies. He would say, I want you to eat this or not eat this. I want you to break kosher. I want you to eat pork. And they would go and be boiled to death in oil, stretched apart by lions and killed, have their limbs cut off, tortured to not eat certain things. Imagine that. And now the apostle Paul meets Jesus and says, it doesn't matter what you Eat or drink.
Mark Clark [00:13:53]:
That era where these things mattered, we're fighting for. Strips of land in the Middle east mattered. It's over. There's now a transnational global kingdom of God made up of every tribe, tongue and nation in the world. Strips of turf don't matter. Eating this or that, don't matter. What matters is, do you know the God of the universe through the person and the work of Jesus or not? And is he changing you at a soul level? Do you know him from the inside? Cause you could do all of those things really well and still die and go to hell. That's the warning, that's the danger.
Mark Clark [00:14:31]:
And so there's all kinds of listen. This is the fundamental posture of the human heart. Some of you might be Hindus, and you're here.
Mark Clark [00:14:38]:
Awesome.
Mark Clark [00:14:39]:
We're glad you're here. The message of the gospel is the sacred writings and certain behaviors won't save you. You might be a Muslim and you're here. We're glad you're here. It's that the, the five pillars and the giving alms and the traveling to Mecca and these kind of things, they're not going to want to save you. In the end, the work of Jesus saves you. Mormons. Mormons believe this.
Mark Clark [00:14:57]:
If you go to listen, Mormons are not allowed to drink coffee or alcohol. So if you can't drink coffee or alcohol, what do you do with your time? Because isn't 90% of meetings. I'll meet you for a beer or I'll meet you for a coffee. What are you gonna do? Just get together and eat caramels? Right. And so here's what happens. You go to Salt Lake City. I don't know if many of you, you know what's everywhere in Salt Lake City? What's everywhere in Salt Lake City? For anybody who's been to Salt Lake City, what are the stores, the kinds of things that are everywhere in Salt Lake City? Ice cream shops. Right.
Mark Clark [00:15:34]:
Because you can't drink alcohol and you can't drink coffee. So what are you gonna do? Lick an ice cream cone? This is what we do. And so if you're not allowed to do this, you're not allowed to do that. And so, Paul, this is. I know for us it's kind of a boring text, like, whatever, eat and drink, move on. It's the conclusive moment where he's saying all religion's over. Whether you eat or drink doesn't matter. I'm getting at your heart.
Mark Clark [00:16:02]:
I want to know if you value the person and the work. And then he says, this, which we're gonna spend the rest of our time or whatever. I'm gonna come back to this statement here.
Mark Clark [00:16:13]:
I don't know if this will change color.
Mark Clark [00:16:16]:
Whatever. I'm gonna come back to that.
Mark Clark [00:16:18]:
So just focus on this for a sec.
Mark Clark [00:16:20]:
Whatever you do, whatever you do, do all. All panta in the Greek. Everything, all your whole life. Sex, money, do it all to the glory. It's the Greek word doxa, the glory of God. The doxa U theu. The God has this thing called glory that literally is the most important attribute and thing about him. And it's the thing that we are called in life to live for his glory.
Mark Clark [00:16:59]:
It's the word girth or weight. And it means that the weight of God, it's the image. As one writer has said, if you have a rock and a rock is sitting on the top of a cliff, and then you have a pond, and someone pushes the rock over the cliff into the water, if the doxa of the rock hits the water and it's greater than the water, then it's gonna empty that pond, right? And so he's saying, whatever you do, you live to the docs of God. The glory of God, his beauty, his infinite worth and supremacy, his perfection that you live, everything you do in your life is meant that the world around you would feel the glory of God versus the glory of you. That's crazy, because you and I spend most of our life trying to give.
Mark Clark [00:17:54]:
Influence and weight to the world around us.
Mark Clark [00:17:57]:
So he's saying, remember a few weeks ago we asked the big question of the why we exist as a church, corporately, collectively. This is the answer to the question of why you exist. So answer come back to the person who asked me this week, why do I exist?
Mark Clark [00:18:09]:
What am I getting up for? You're getting up for the glory of God. You're raising kids for the glory of God. You're having your marriage for the glory of God. You're working for the glory of God. You're spending money for the glory of.
Mark Clark [00:18:21]:
God so that God might be felt.
Mark Clark [00:18:24]:
In the world and not you.
Mark Clark [00:18:25]:
I was reading this sermon by Charles Spurgeon on the glory of God. 1908, in London. He was the first megachurch pastor. 10,000 people in London. He was in his 20s. They didn't even know what to do. Went through deep depression in his life. It's an amazing story.
Mark Clark [00:18:40]:
He's writing a sermon on preaching a sermon on the glory of God, and he uses that as his text. Exodus 33, verse 18, where Moses looks and Says this quote. And he said, moses, I beseech you, Lord, show me your glory. And here's what Spurgeon says. This is a large request for Moses to make. He could not. He could not have asked for more. I beseech you, show me your glory.
Mark Clark [00:19:05]:
Why? It is the greatest petition that man ever asks of God. Spurgeon says, it seems to me the greatest stretch of faith that I have ever heard or read of. Think about that. Why would he say that? Because the glory of God literally is the most important thing about God. And here's the crazy part. It's gonna blow our minds for a few minutes here. Here's the crazy thing. If I was to ask you, what is God most about? See, why would I say, you gotta live for the glory of God? Why would Paul say, you gotta live for the glory of God? It's not because you'd be a good person or it's a fun idea or whatever.
Mark Clark [00:19:42]:
It's because it's the thing that God himself lives for. If I was to walk up to you and say, what is God most about? What is his highest priority? What is the thing he's most into? Some of you would say, loving people. Some of you would say, redeeming the world, rescuing the world. Some of you would say, reconciliation. Some of you would say, saving people. Some of you would say, renewing creation, whatever. What is he most about? What is his highest priority? Here's the thing that blows our minds as we read through the Scriptures. His highest priority, the thing he loves the most is himself.
Mark Clark [00:20:13]:
Is his own glory.
Mark Clark [00:20:15]:
And some of us are like, well, that doesn't make any sense. I'm not convinced. Okay, let me give you a couple passages. Okay? Psalm 23, funeral passage. All right, we oftentimes read this. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Now look at this.
Mark Clark [00:20:27]:
I shall not want seems to be about me. The Lord is my shepherd. He makes me lie down in green pastures. That's good stuff. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness. All of these things, if you were to just read it to there, you might go, well, this is about me.
Mark Clark [00:20:45]:
This is about my life. I'm getting led to paths of righteousness. I'm doing good things. But what's the motive behind all of these actions? He says, is this for his name's sake? So why did he do all of these things for his own name's sake? It's for himself that he led you beside. It wasn't about You. It was about him. Now let me give you another pass. Cause some of you are like, what? What are you talking about? This sounds really narcissistic.
Mark Clark [00:21:09]:
All right, listen to this. Isaiah, chapter 48. For my name's sake, I defer my anger. For the sake of my praise, I restrain it for you that I may not cut you off. All right. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver. I've tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake.
Mark Clark [00:21:28]:
For my own. I love this. This is like. He's like, they're not gonna get it. I guarantee you 20, 19, they're gonna be like, I don't know. He only said it once. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Right? For my own sake, I do it.
Mark Clark [00:21:41]:
For how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another. You do not get glory in your life. If you're successful, it ain't because you're a self made man. It's not because you worked hard. It's because he chose not to kill you this morning. And you better give him the glory for it over and over. I Talked to my 97 year old grandfather this week on the phone. I'm like, what's going on, Bobby? How you doing? I'm doing okay.
Mark Clark [00:22:14]:
And he's the only other Christian in my family. And he's just like, what's going on in the church? Oh my God. And he's like, you just keep giving God glory. I don't know why he's using you, you're an idiot. But just keep going like, thank you. It's 97. Lost his mind. The point is, you just keep telling God it.
Mark Clark [00:22:34]:
You just keep pointing people to the glory of God. You just make sure you never take credit for it. You better make sure you don't take the credit for it. Why am I doing good things when why did I bless you with money? Why did I bless you with a family? Why did I bless you with square footage? Why did I do anything in your life other than just take you out? For my own sake. Show people my weight, not yours.
Mark Clark [00:23:00]:
Now here's the problem.
Mark Clark [00:23:02]:
Some people live their life and say, I will live for the glory of God if God is man centered. So I'm fine if God is God centered. But as long as he's God centered. But he's also man centered and he's about me. And so here's the dichotomy. And I explained this a few years ago in a sermon and people still talk to me about It. So it's taken from a world religions course for a book called World Perspectives, where they use the analogy of dogs versus cats, dog theology and cat theology. And the point of it is.
Mark Clark [00:23:37]:
Now, listen, if you think about a cat, okay, a cat, you come home with a cat, all of them from Hades itself, from the devil made cats, got them into creation. I don't know how. And so you come home to a cat, and it's sitting there, and you feed a cat, and you put water in front of a cat, and you brush a cat, and you get little balls for the cat, and they swoop them around, they do all those things. A cat will see you giving them things, serving them, and they will deduce that they are God, okay? But a dog, you do the same things. You feed it, you give it water, you. You brush its hair, you play with it, and the dog will conclude that you are God and it will serve you. That's why when you come home, your dog is waiting at the front door. Right? Right.
Mark Clark [00:24:41]:
Licking and pawing, and your cat is sitting perched up in the windowsill waiting for you to feed it. And then it's just gonna saunter down. And eat its stuff. Because one of them believes that you serving them means that you're God. And one of them means that you serving them means that they're God. Most people live their lives as a cat theology. You think because God blessed you, made you alive today, gave you some health, gave you some wealth, gave you that, you must be God. You must.
Mark Clark [00:25:20]:
Must be really something. And the whole gospel comes along and.
Mark Clark [00:25:24]:
Goes, no, no, no, you don't get it. You gotta be a dog. He blesses you, and you're at the front door wagging your tongue, saying, what's next, Lord, you are God. I'm not God.
Mark Clark [00:25:35]:
And so the reality is, this is.
Mark Clark [00:25:37]:
Constantly the life and the tension we live in. Romans, chapter 11.
Mark Clark [00:25:43]:
All things are from him and through him, and to him, to him be glory forever. Hebrews, chapter two. All things exist for him and by Him. This is the reality. Now, some of you are like, well, this feels very narcissistic.
Mark Clark [00:26:02]:
I can't believe that God is like this. Paul's saying, you got to live to.
Mark Clark [00:26:05]:
The glory of God.
Mark Clark [00:26:06]:
Why would he do this? Here's the reality. This is the best news in the world.
Mark Clark [00:26:12]:
Because some of you might deduce it.
Mark Clark [00:26:13]:
And go, well, if God's all about himself, if he's his highest priority, that's.
Mark Clark [00:26:17]:
Gonna be bad for me. But that's because you're A modern thinker. What the Apostle Paul understands is because God is about himself and his glory being felt in the world, which is.
Mark Clark [00:26:27]:
Why you should live for his glory.
Mark Clark [00:26:29]:
It's the best news in the world.
Mark Clark [00:26:31]:
Not just for him, but for us.
Mark Clark [00:26:33]:
See, nobody is more into God than God.
Mark Clark [00:26:36]:
And that's the best news in the world for us.
Mark Clark [00:26:38]:
First, because it means he's not an idolater.
Mark Clark [00:26:40]:
Because of course, if you put anything above God, you're an idolater.
Mark Clark [00:26:43]:
You're worshiping something that isn't God. So if God loved you more than he loves himself, then he's by default an idolater.
Mark Clark [00:26:48]:
Then the universe just collapses. All right?
Mark Clark [00:26:49]:
So but secondly, and more importantly, this is the best news in the world.
Mark Clark [00:26:54]:
Because this is how you were designed.
Mark Clark [00:26:58]:
Come back to the original question.
Mark Clark [00:26:59]:
How are you not gonna feel isolated.
Mark Clark [00:27:01]:
And depressed and all of the different things that secular, the atheistic worldview goes.
Mark Clark [00:27:06]:
After that the progressive secular worldview goes after.
Mark Clark [00:27:08]:
And everyone's feeling lost and, and isolated and alone and not really sure how to answer these big massive questions.
Mark Clark [00:27:13]:
The reality is God says, the way I designed you was to give me glory. And when you're not giving me glory.
Mark Clark [00:27:20]:
You'Re outside of creation. And the way I literally created a woof. I designed you. In a way it's like I gave my kids a remote control. So I grew up, I didn't grow up with a lot of money. Pretty humble.
Mark Clark [00:27:34]:
So at Christmas I would get one or two gifts, usually not the one I wanted.
Mark Clark [00:27:37]:
I wanted a slimer, never got it.
Mark Clark [00:27:39]:
I wanted Teddy Rockspin.
Mark Clark [00:27:40]:
Never got it. And it's fine.
Mark Clark [00:27:43]:
Still love my mom, but feel it.
Mark Clark [00:27:45]:
Once in a while. So there's a few things I never got. And so Nintendo. Anyways, we'll stop the list. So I always wanted this remote control car. And I always say if I got a remote control car, I'd wheel it, I'd do all these things, I'd build, I got magazines, I'd leave them around the house. So my mom, cause oh my goodness, he's gonna take care of this remote control car. So when I, you know, had enough money, I blessed my kids.
Mark Clark [00:28:06]:
I'm like, I'm gonna give you a remote control car. So it's three daughters, hey, I'm gonna give you remote control. And you know, in my brain I'm like, this remote control car is designed for dirt and roads and climbing things and doing all kinds shooting laser. Alright, it's gonna get crazy. And literally next day I came back.
Mark Clark [00:28:20]:
From work and they had a Barbie in the car. And they were just pushing it around like this. And I'm like, what's going on here?
Mark Clark [00:28:27]:
And they're like, this is how I wanna use it.
Mark Clark [00:28:29]:
I'm like, what?
Mark Clark [00:28:29]:
What?
Mark Clark [00:28:30]:
You have ruined this toy. You've destroyed my soul and ruined the toy.
Mark Clark [00:28:35]:
Because you're not using the toy the way the toy was designed.
Mark Clark [00:28:37]:
Here's a remote.
Mark Clark [00:28:38]:
Here's a remote.
Mark Clark [00:28:39]:
Ah, remote. Push aside.
Mark Clark [00:28:42]:
Right? They killed the toy. You have a particular way you were designed. And the wolf, it's like a puzzle piece. And when you're connected to the God.
Mark Clark [00:28:53]:
Revealed in the person and the work.
Mark Clark [00:28:54]:
Of Jesus that he created you in.
Mark Clark [00:28:56]:
The Garden, Genesis 1 and 2, and.
Mark Clark [00:28:57]:
Put you there and said, I designed you to walk close with me in.
Mark Clark [00:29:00]:
The garden in the cool of the day.
Mark Clark [00:29:01]:
You rebelled, that thing got messed up and distorted. The reality is, when you're living your life to the glory of God, you are most satisfied. You are most happy in the long run. I'm not talking short term. I'm not saying you follow God, you're never going to get cancer.
Mark Clark [00:29:20]:
That's not what I'm talking about.
Mark Clark [00:29:21]:
But some of you, you follow God under a begrudging submission, thinking, if I don't follow him, then he's gonna give me cancer. If I don't do this, then something bad's gonna happen. That's karma. That's religion. Gospel comes in, says, you were designed this way. So when you have God at the center of your life, then you flourish in every other aspect of your life because you're doing it the way God designed you. You're living for the glory of God, even in the midst of suffering. So John Piper says, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, even in the midst of loss, even when we've lost everything and we live to the glory of God, we become satisfied in a way we never would have been, because that's.
Mark Clark [00:30:07]:
Literally how we were designed. Westminster Confession starts like this. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. That's the beauty of it.
Mark Clark [00:30:21]:
Now come back to this word, whatever.
Mark Clark [00:30:23]:
Okay?
Mark Clark [00:30:24]:
So we gotta live to the glory of God.
Mark Clark [00:30:25]:
That's foundational.
Mark Clark [00:30:26]:
Come back to this word, whatever.
Mark Clark [00:30:27]:
I love this because this. And I'll just kinda land here and apply it a couple different ways. Whatever you do. So here's what's beautiful about this. Whatever you do, meaning the most mundane. Nonsense. Some of you, you walk in here and you're sad that you haven't done more. You're sad that you're not a great leader.
Mark Clark [00:30:50]:
You're sad that you've never started, you know, the next great thing, you've never written that book you've done.
Mark Clark [00:30:56]:
You didn't actually get that deal that you thought you were gonna get. You, your kids maybe weren't raised in exactly the way you're disappointed and you're.
Mark Clark [00:31:05]:
On a treadmill and you're trying to.
Mark Clark [00:31:06]:
Earn it, you're trying to show God, I know I made mistakes, but I wish, I wish I could do this. And I wish. And you feel shame and you feel guilt and you feel beat up.
Mark Clark [00:31:15]:
He goes, listen, whatever your lot in life is, you're a soccer mom, you're a business person, you're a nurse, you're a doctor, you're a school teacher, you're a garbage man, you're a mechanic. Listen, most of you sitting here right now are not never going to lead the next great mission organization. Most of you are not going to be the next great leader. Most of you are never going to write a book. Most of you won't do the list of things that we as a culture.
Mark Clark [00:31:41]:
Think that you have to do to.
Mark Clark [00:31:43]:
Become successful in life.
Mark Clark [00:31:44]:
This is why this word is beautiful. Whatever you do, I don't care. I was talking with my wife this week. She was talking about, she asked me about C.S. lewis because I was reading a book about Joy Davidson, how she became as wife for four years later in life. And after four years she passed away. It was the greatest pain of his life. That's why he wrote the book, Grief observed.
Mark Clark [00:32:02]:
We were talking about this and I said, you know, C.S. lewis became this world renowned scholar, the most recognized academic in the world. Wrote all of the stuff he wrote, all the chronic, every lecture he did, every book he wrote, tons and tons and tons of stuff. The whole time he was doing all.
Mark Clark [00:32:18]:
Of that, he was taking care of his friend's mother who was 20 years his senior and living at Oxford, washing dishes every night, putting her to bed, buying groceries. He was a domesticated man because he knew this stuff was just as important. Living to the glory of God when I'm washing dishes and it's actually informing my soul. Writing miracles and writing, Grief observed, and.
Mark Clark [00:32:44]:
Writing the beautiful screwtape letters and writing mere Christianity. It's not separate.
Mark Clark [00:32:49]:
It's not some academic work where he sits in his office and comes up.
Mark Clark [00:32:52]:
It's lived in the crucible of real.
Mark Clark [00:32:54]:
Life, observing people around him.
Mark Clark [00:32:56]:
And you would think, how did he even find the time? How did he find the time it's whatever you do. It's the normal little. It's the nonsensical things. My mentor, Larry Osborne, talks about the fact that his parents. He starts off one of his books talking about his parents. He says, here's one of the difficulties, and I want to give this to you to set you free.
Mark Clark [00:33:14]:
Free a bit. All right?
Mark Clark [00:33:16]:
He says, one of the difficulties is leaders define discipleship not as discipleship, but leadership. And so instead of saying a disciple, you're gonna pray, you're gonna follow Jesus, you're gonna read the text, you're gonna live on mission, you're gonna give your money, you're gonna be generous to the kingdom. You're gonna live in disciplines and study in solitude. You're gonna live life out in the ways of Jesus to the best of your ability. Whatever context, we get on stage and we define discipleship as leadership. You got to do this. You got to slay these dragons. You got to be the most victorious.
Mark Clark [00:33:44]:
You got to lead these big organizations. You got to do this or you're not successful. And Larry Osborne says, listen, when I.
Mark Clark [00:33:49]:
Look at my parents, my parents, he says, my mom, every January would start to try to read through the Bible. He said, I don't know if she ever finished. They never let a Bible study in their home. Tried a few times, didn't work out. They never went on a mission trip. In every evaluation and every estimate of a zealous young preacher, they're a failed disciple first. Thessalonians 4. Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life.
Mark Clark [00:34:24]:
You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you. Some of you, you just need to hear this right now, because you don't think you've succeeded and accomplished much. Whatever you do, whatever context you are, live to the glory of God in your small microcosm, or if God's given you a macrocosm to deal with, and deal with that. But you better do it to the glory of God. That's his point. Whatever you do, whatever you do, it's the most freeing thing in the world to live for the glory of God.
Mark Clark [00:34:56]:
For a few reasons.
Mark Clark [00:34:57]:
Think about how it applies to your marriage. If this is your top priority, think.
Mark Clark [00:35:01]:
Of how it applies to your marriage. I mean, the. Whatever applies to a thousand things. Marriage, it means. Listen, here's the beauty of living for the glory of God.
Mark Clark [00:35:09]:
It means you're not the center of the universe.
Mark Clark [00:35:10]:
And the minute you're not the center.
Mark Clark [00:35:11]:
Of the universe is God's center of yours. Here's the beauty of it. You don't have to win that fight, bro. You can just let her win. Just let that wind breeze through your hair right now. Just feel that, like, oh. Cause she was right anyways. You don't have to win that fight because you're not the center of the universe when you're raising your kids.
Mark Clark [00:35:34]:
You don't have to do it perfectly because you're not being evaluated in the end on being a perfect parent. If you're a boss or a leader, you gotta feel the freedom of the fact that you're not the center of the universe.
Mark Clark [00:35:44]:
The sun does not rise and set.
Mark Clark [00:35:46]:
With you so you can mess up.
Mark Clark [00:35:48]:
You can make mistakes. It's okay. I feel this way early in Village church, we were growing, and I had to come to terms with the fact that I wasn't the best pastor. I wasn't gonna be able to be everybody's best friend. I was gonna fail. I was gonna make mistakes. I wasn't gonna answer every email. And so I had to get up and say, I can't slide down the fire pole every time you have a problem and be your friend, because I can't be everyone's friend.
Mark Clark [00:36:10]:
But I felt bad about that because I wanted to be super pastor and I wanted to start. And so I began to understand, reading through First Peter, that Jesus is the senior pastor of the church. He says in 1st Peter 5, the chief shepherd. Because I answer the question a lot. What if you get hit by a bus? What would happen to Village Church if Mark Clark gets hit by a bus? I deal with that weekly, by the way. It's such a beautiful world to live in. So nice to meet you. What if I get hit by.
Mark Clark [00:36:33]:
What if I punch you in the face? Right? So what if I get hit by a bus? It's okay, because Jesus is your senior pastor. Jesus is the chief shepherd of the church. And I started having to live out of the reality of the glory of God versus the glory of me, which is hard. But you start because people meet you. And I can see it in people's eyes. When I meet them in Costco or the grocery store, they're waiting for me to like. Cause the only context they have for me is saying really prophetic things and really, like, powerful moments. And so they're looking at me like, I know you're buying toilet paper, but can you give me something? And I'm like, want a taco? And they're like, well, that wasn't very inspiring.
Mark Clark [00:37:19]:
Anyway, nice to meet you. Moving on. And I gotta Start to own that.
Mark Clark [00:37:24]:
Because living for the glory of God is my lot in life, not living for the glory of me. And some of you have dealt with a lot of failure in your life. You've dealt with a lot of nonsense in your life. You know, you're harder to offend on the highway if you're not the center of the story.
Mark Clark [00:37:43]:
If you get offended a lot and.
Mark Clark [00:37:45]:
You find yourself being defensive a lot.
Mark Clark [00:37:47]:
Can't believe that person said this. Can't believe that person said, can you believe my sister said that. Can you believe?
Mark Clark [00:37:51]:
Can you believe?
Mark Clark [00:37:51]:
Can you believe you find yourself there? You know why?
Mark Clark [00:37:54]:
It's because you think you're the center of the universe.
Mark Clark [00:37:56]:
See, it's very hard to offend you.
Mark Clark [00:37:58]:
If God's the center of the universe and you live for his glory and not yours. But we feel burdened. We have mistakes, and we feel like we need to keep running and running and running to impress God. And the gospel says, you are beloved not because of what you have done, but because of what Jesus has done for you. My. I'm gonna bring my youngest daughter out. I asked her to give you what I believe is a gift, which is. She's a singer songwriter.
Mark Clark [00:38:30]:
She's 12 years old. And I was reading through this text, and I listened to a song that she wrote as she was playing it in the house, and the words were so deep and heavy around this theme that I said, hey, why don't you come and sing it? And so I want to end the service by giving you the gift of this song written by her. She got soul, man. And I just hone in on the words and let me just pray for us. Father, we are very grateful that we get the privilege to actually live for the glory of God. The weight of God being shown in the world versus the weight of ourselves, that no matter the mistakes we've made, no matter the running we think we all need to do on the treadmill to impress you and show you that Paul, like even the soul of this song talks about in the end, is going, take all of me. Let me live for you, not myself, if I belong. People here belong to another religion.
Mark Clark [00:39:37]:
Let them hear the beauty of Jesus from the cross. That in the midst of mistakes and things that we do and the running and the trying, Jesus declared from the cross it is finished. And all the mistakes and the shame and the guilt and the things that we've done in our life get covered over by the blood of Jesus. And then because he rose from the dead, we get empowered to actually live a new life. And some of us don't believe it. We don't feel it. And so I just pray that this text, by centering us, by changing our whole, whole idea of what's in the.
Mark Clark [00:40:12]:
Center, what do I live for?
Mark Clark [00:40:13]:
What do I get up for?
Mark Clark [00:40:14]:
What's my. Why? Why do I raise my kids? Why do I work hard?
Mark Clark [00:40:16]:
Why do I have a family? That the minute I realize that it's about the weight of God being shown in the world versus the weight of myself being, being felt in the world.
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And that God is the highest priority.
Mark Clark [00:40:27]:
Even to himself, that that would free me up to be a better husband. Because now I'm freed up to love and serve them, love and serve the world. Not as if it's a tool to serve me, but that I'm a tool to serve it. I'm a tool to serve my kids. I'm a tool to serve my wife. I'm a tool to serve this church. I'm a tool to serve the world. But if they exist to serve me because I'm in the center seat, this is the definition, definition of derailment.
Mark Clark [00:40:53]:
And so let us live in the beauty and the freedom of the death of Jesus for our sake, the glory of God being lived for, and the cry of Paul in this text to realign our priorities. In Jesus good name we pray. Amen.