Mark Clark [00:00:03]:
We've been in this series for about, you know, 40 weeks or so. Going through the entire book of First Corinthians has everything to say to our modern reality. And in this text, it's kind of part two of something we started last week, where Paul kind of goes through a whole bunch of different giftings and callings in life, in the world, in the church. And he says, and now this is kind of part two where he's saying, you gotta figure out what your giftings are and then actually use them in the service of the church, in the world. And I don't know. He gives this analogy in the text, which we'll get to in a second, about a body. And I don't know if you've. And he kind of talks about it being broken.
Mark Clark [00:00:38]:
So I don't know if you've had a broken body before or kind of gone through a situation where something wasn't working. My wife tells me, I always have something broken in me, which is my brain, because I oftentimes will just say or do things because in my brain I function in a particular way, which some people would call broken, where I just kind of assume people should just say what is right? Like, why are we wasting time? Just kind of nuancing everything in life and kind of. I mean, you guys probably heard my preaching long enough to know that I kind of just say what I think should be said. I see reality in a certain way, and I just say that versus, like, hey, let me sugarcoat it and take 45 minutes to kind of get you to a place and massage you. Like, it's not kind of really what I do. And we had met this new neighbor on our street and we were chatting and I realized this about me because I kind of kind of questioned my wife. I'm like, I don't just say whatever. And we were chatting and this neighbor says, hey, the old people that used to live there, you know, if we saw each other's garages open, we would text each other and just make sure, hey, you know, if it's 11 o' clock at night or something, garage left open.
Mark Clark [00:01:44]:
To just text each other and say, hey, you got to shut your garage, or whatever. And so hopefully we can have that relationship too. And without even thinking, I'm like, well, doesn't your garage just close if you hit the button? She's like, yeah. I'm like, okay, well then just hit the button and don't bother texting us. Now. This is a new person that I don't know. There's no relationship here where we know each other and we can talk to each other like this. This is the first conversation we've had.
Mark Clark [00:02:08]:
And I just said it. And she just kind of was like, taken aback. She's like, okay. Because in my brain, I'm like, it feels inefficient. And so my brain is constantly after the most efficient thing. And if the most efficient thing is, don't text me, why are you wasting time now? I gotta get up outta bed at 12 o' clock and go down and just shut my garage. And my wife's like, dude, your brain is broken. All right? So now this happens to our bodies at times.
Mark Clark [00:02:37]:
The last time I remember this church in the park last year, my eyeball exploded, all right? Just before. And so it's literally. It was pus and goop and red and it's exploded. That's why if you see pictures of church in the park, I'm wearing sunglasses. It's not to be cool, all right? One of my eyeballs is falling out, all right? And so if something in your body's not working, it's inefficient. My voice went. Three or four years ago, when I was preaching three or four times on a Sunday, my voice went. And so I could barely talk during the week.
Mark Clark [00:03:08]:
People were, like, concerned. And I'm sitting there to myself going, man, I don't know what my contribution to the kingdom is going to be if I can't talk. Like, one of the things I can do is talk. But beyond that, I don't really have much use to the kingdom. Don't tell anybody. This is just between you and me, all right? So if I lose my voice, I don't know what I do around here, to be honest. I don't know how I would still work here if I lost my voice. I'd probably.
Mark Clark [00:03:32]:
Because I can talk, but not much else. This is the end where your voice is gone. That's a problem. This is the exact issue that Paul's about to hit. He's about to unpack the idea that. Imagine a body functioning a particular way, and you knew what you were designed to do and you didn't actually live it out. All right? So this is what he's trying to do. So first Corinthians, chapter 12.
Mark Clark [00:03:52]:
And here's how he starts. Chapter 12, verse 12. He says this, okay? Four. All right, now stop right there, all right? Because that's. It's a crucial word, all right? This is why it takes us a while to get through this stuff. The 4 is the word in Greek. And it's like a therefore kind of comment. So it's like he's said a bunch of stuff and then he says therefore.
Mark Clark [00:04:15]:
And so all the stuff he said earlier, right in verse 1 to 11, was all about the stuff we talked about last week, spiritual gifts. And so he has argued that there's a whole bunch of spiritual gifts. These. These gifts that Jesus has given. And they're people. They're kinds of people who have gifts given to the world, given to the church in order to serve the world, serve the church. There's administrators, there's teachers, there's people with mercy, there's people with generosity. There's all these amazing gifts as part of the church.
Mark Clark [00:04:40]:
And they're meant to actually use their spiritual gifts in order to serve the church. Now, here's two or three things about the spiritual gift thing he already came from. It's kind of a little bit of part two from last week. Because one of the questions that was left over from last week was how are you ever gonna know what your spiritual gifts are? So let me give you two or three pieces of advice. Cause we went through mostly all of the spiritual gifts of the New Testament list last week in the four or five lists in the New Testament, I missed a couple. But the bottom line is, you have all these gifts. Apostleship and teaching and administration and helps and mercy and giving and all this kind of stuff. Now, how are you gonna know what your actual gifts are? So let me give you two or three.
Mark Clark [00:05:19]:
I'm gonna try to be really practical. So if you're a note taker, this would be a good one. Because you'll be able to take notes and be really practical and go home and go, okay, I gotta figure this out. Okay, the first way you're gonna figure out what your spiritual gift is or how. What your particular place in the world and the church is, is you've gotta ask the question, what do people affirm in you? Now, there's lots of people who actually want a certain spiritual gift or they think they're something, but you gotta be self aware. One of the great things in life is one of the ways you succeed. I tell my girls this all the time, look, there's a certain way you can get good grades that isn't gonna be the only contributing factor to the whether you're successful or not. Now they're homeschooled, so grades are kind of relative a little bit.
Mark Clark [00:05:55]:
It's like, hey, you're getting an A, all right? Cause you're My child and I love you. All right, so. But beyond grades in classic school, you gotta have some self awareness. You have to have empathy. These are two things that get you ahead in life. If you're not self aware, you don't get ahead in life. No one gives you a promotion because you're just. Nobody likes you socially.
Mark Clark [00:06:14]:
And this is crucial that you have self awareness, that you know your strengths and your weaknesses. So you might think you have the gift of teaching, but if no one comes back to your community group and it's been three years and it's still just you and your wife, you probably don't have the gift of teaching. Maybe your gift is baking cookies, praise God, right? But it's not talking in the group. That might be a thing, right? You have to be self aware. So some of you might think you're an administrator, but you can't administrate yourself out of bed in the morning. Everything's disorganized in your life. Then you're not an administrator. You have to understand what do people say about you that are around you, not what you think yourself to be.
Mark Clark [00:06:51]:
So there's lots of people who think they're preachers and leaders and all this kind of stuff, but they're just not. I can tell within 10 minutes that they're not a preacher or a leader, but they've been told this by their wife and a few people around them their whole life. So they think that they're the next big thing. You have to be self aware enough. What do people say you are around you and what do people say you're not? You gotta listen to those things. Cause ultimately in life, if you're honest and you listen, then you're gonna say, okay, there's a particular direction I need to take and there's a particular direction I don't need to take. I remember in my life there's been times where people have spoken things into my life. I didn't know what I was gonna do with my life.
Mark Clark [00:07:27]:
I had a guy actually come around me. It was September 10, 2001. I remember the date because it was the day before. Nine, 11. All right. And we, and we were starting school the next day, Bible college for the year. And we had this prayer session at night and we were gathered in prayer, me and this guy. It was like 12 o' clock at night.
Mark Clark [00:07:47]:
We're praying and praying, praying. And he opened his eyes and he said, this isn't really something I normally feel in life, but I just had the Lord, I think, gave me A vision for your life. And the vision for your life is that you are going to lead a movement of thousands of people. Now, here's what you gotta understand about that. At that moment, I was a janitor in a church and I was running a junior high. I was playing Coldplay for an inner city junior high ministry filled with black kids. All right? So I was not a prospect of success. All right, all right.
Mark Clark [00:08:21]:
They were showing up. They're like, I'm like, oh, listen to this girl fix you. I'm like, yeah. They're like, whatever. One girl goes, whatever, Wonder Bread. I'm like, what? All right. So it's not like I had a lot of successful reality. If you go back to September 10, 2001.
Mark Clark [00:08:39]:
But this guy kind of spoke this thing in my life. And there's gonna be people who speak things into your life. But here's what you need to do. You need to walk humbly. You need to have patience. You need to understand that maybe it's not your time. For 15 or 20 years, a vision might not come complete in your life, but there's people around you who are gonna affirm certain things and other people who won't. And so teaching the Bible and when I open the Scriptures, it's a way.
Mark Clark [00:09:02]:
It's literally how I feel alive. Everything else in life is crazy. It's, like, confusing. There's so many decisions to make about leadership and strategy and family and money and life and you guys and what to do. There's all of these things are crazy. Dude, start a campus here. Do you shift money over there? Who do you hire? Who do you fire? All of these massive questions. But when I'm sitting off stage on a Sunday, before I walk out here, do you know what happens to me? A calm comes over me and a clarity.
Mark Clark [00:09:29]:
Because all my job is for the next 40 minutes is to open the Bible, to come under the authority of the scriptures and just to explain it to you. That, to me, is calming. It feels like it was what I was born to do. What is that thing for you, the thing you were born to do? Because that's the second piece of it. It's not only what people affirm or tell you you should do or not do. It's what people. It's what you feel alive doing. And there's people around you.
Mark Clark [00:09:59]:
There's times when you might think you have a particular gift, but it's not actually what you take pleasure and it's not what you delight in. It's not what you feel alive doing. My Buddy grew up in a denomination that said that in order to be a Christian, you had to speak in tongues. And so he was like, well, he tried to speak in tongues, but he was like, I don't have any joy in this. I don't even understand it. And so he went to the front one day, and they're praying over him. They're like, you must speak in tongues. You must speak in tongues.
Mark Clark [00:10:27]:
He's like, okay, just give it to me. Give it to me. And they're like, don't worry. If you just sit and wait, the spirit's gonna come on you. You're gonna speak in tongues. He's like, okay, give it to me. And he sat and he wait. And he's like.
Mark Clark [00:10:36]:
He's looking around, and then he just starts to kind of force it. He's like, tie my boat Thai shit about a high, all right? And he starts saying, all right. And the guy's like, yeah, there it is. He goes, no, I was just making that up. He's like, what? All right? There's times when literally you're trying to force stuff, and it's not working, all right? Because it's not actually how you were wired. It's not what you're supposed to do. And so you gotta understand what gives me joy, what gives me ultimate satisfaction in life. What are the things that I feel alive doing? There's a book out, right? Because how you feel happiness, how you feel delight, how you feel joy, it's the massive, the most motivating factor in your life.
Mark Clark [00:11:18]:
It's the reason you do anything. It's the reason you choose your spouse. It's the reason you choose your food. It's your own happiness. It's your own pleasure, it's your own joy. That's what motivates you in life. And so, Paul, God appeals to the things that give us delight in order to find our place in the world. And so not only do you ask the question, what do people say about me? And not say about me, you ask the question, what do I feel alive doing? And there's this book called the Happiness Hypothesis, okay? Happiness is the greatest motivating factor in our life.
Mark Clark [00:11:46]:
And it says, how are you gonna find happiness in your life? What are the things that are actually going to give you happiness? And there was a psychologist, and he said, through a bunch of work psychologists came up with a formula for happiness, all right? And the formula for happiness is this. Happiness equals S plus C plus V. Now, here's what the S is the first thing for those of you taking notes is a biological set point. That's what they talk about. And it's the idea that these three things come together to give you happiness. The biological set point is your genes. The way you're made up, the way that you're born, the things in your, you know, basically your genetic makeup is one thing that's going to actually add to your happiness. All right? That's just the reality.
Mark Clark [00:12:30]:
Some of you might have depression in your genes. Some of you might have extreme happiness. Extroversion, introversion, whatever. It's kind of the way you're wired, the way you're born is one factor. It's not the overwhelming factor, and that's important. It's one factor in your happiness equation. All right? The second thing is circumstances in life. All right? So you have your set biological set point.
Mark Clark [00:12:53]:
Then you have circumstances in life. Is your marriage good? Is your marriage bad? Is there money? Is there not money? Do you have a job that you love? Do you not? Did you get a cancer diagnosis? So on and so forth. The circumstances in life are a massive indicator of what you do. And then the V is voluntary actions, activities. It's what you choose to do with your life. And these three things coming together make your happiness. Now, here's the amazing thing about this. These two, there's sometimes not much we can do about them, but this one is all about our choices.
Mark Clark [00:13:23]:
What are you going to do? Your voluntary actions in life? And here's the crazy thing that psychologists say and the writer of the happiness hypothesis talks about. He says that this is the greatest factor in regard to whether someone has happiness or not right here. It's voluntary activities. It's things you choose to do or not to do. And so Paul is gonna give us this list of spiritual gifts. And he's gonna say, now there's this question of whether you're gonna use them. And that's the whole background to the problem that he's addressing in the text that we're looking at today. Because what happened in the Church of Corinth is they knew that they were gifted, but they choose and they chose not.
Mark Clark [00:14:01]:
They chose to sit on those giftings. And he's saying, your voluntary activity is gonna cause disruption and ultimately not happiness and joy in your life because you're not actually being who you were designed to be. All right? So the third thing I wanna talk about is when it comes to the question of you finding out what your actual gifts are, is there's a guy named Rick Warren, maybe some of you have heard of him that's not okay. And here's what he says. He says, as you're beginning to wonder to yourself, what are my spiritual gifts and where am I supposed to use them? So what are your spiritual gifts? Are one question, but where am I supposed to use them? Is another question. And he gives the idea of the word design, all right? And he says, here's the things you're supposed to actually wonder about, and I'll give you the list, and then you can go home and think about it. So the first one is the question of desire. What is your desire? That's going to define where you use your gifting.
Mark Clark [00:14:57]:
So it's one question to say, how am I gifted? Teacher, apostle, music administration, giving, whatever. But the question of desire is the question of what is the context I'm gonna use my gift in? And so some of you might be gifted musically, for instance, but are you gonna use it kind of with adults or children, for instance? Is that gonna be your desire, or is it gonna be you alone writing music, trying to figure it out? The desire that you have is gonna define the context that you're gonna use your gift in. Secondly, he talks about experience. Experience is going to define how you use your gifting. And so, for instance, when I was getting assessed as a church planter, one of the things, of course, that they evaluate is your entrepreneurial gifting. Like, if you're gonna start a church, you can't just, like, be a pastor of a church and be happy with that. You actually have to have some entrepreneurial ideas about what you're gonna do. You're gonna start something from scratch, and you're gonna be creative.
Mark Clark [00:15:48]:
You're gonna go after things. So what in your experience gives us any indication that you're good at that? And so I was able to talk about a whole bunch of ideas of things I started from scratch, and da, da, da, da. So your experience is gonna help you define where are you gonna actually use your gifting? S is spiritual gifts, right? How am I gifted? How has the Lord wired me? Okay, that's what I'm gonna do. The I is individual style. And so you might be gifted in a particular thing, a particular teaching or whatever, but. But you gotta figure out, do I do it in an extroverted way or an introverted way? Am I a prophet, a priest, or a king? How am I going to actually live out my gifting according to me, not according to the way that person does it. And this is one of the problems with modern preaching, for instance, is people just copy Each other's styles all the time. And they say, well, that was successful.
Mark Clark [00:16:32]:
So I'm gonna do this. You can't do that. You gotta be you, right? God made you one individual person for the world. You are a gift. You gotta do it according to your style. G is the growth phase you're in. How are you gonna use your particular gifting? Well, if you're a new Christian, you're probably not gonna be an elder. All right? You're probably not just gonna jump right in.
Mark Clark [00:16:51]:
I accepted Christ today. I think my gift is being an elder. Give me power. Probably not gonna be what happens, right? You have a particular growth phase that you're in. Are you mature enough to actually live that out or not? And you gotta. It might start much lower. And then the N is simply your natural ability. All right, what is your natural ability? How has God wired you? Just naturally.
Mark Clark [00:17:11]:
I remember we were starting Village church. There was all these people, 16 people gathered together with natural abilities. That blew my mind. And so I used them like when we were renting Rosemary Heights in the early days. If it was up to me, we would have been kicked out of that place within three weeks. Because I don't care about the little details of some contract that we signed. I'm like, whatever. They're like, okay, if you're going to use chairs, you gotta spend $0.16 per chair per Sunday.
Mark Clark [00:17:37]:
I'm like, they're never gonna know. Just use all the chairs. All right? And we had a guy named Bob Paul who. His natural gifting is notes with colors and numbers. And he would like all of this like he is administrative to the core. And he said, I felt called by Jesus to come and work alongside of you, Mark, so that we could do this. I'm like, perfect. Now we won't be kicked out and we won't have a three week old church.
Mark Clark [00:18:04]:
And then we'll have to wrap it up, right? And so he came along and would work 40 hours a week. He worked for four years, designing, administrating, make sure everything was in order. That's the kind of reality God is called his point. The point is this. God has called each and every one of us. He's given us gifting, he's given us passions, he's given us opportunities. How are you going to use them? Where are you going to use them? Okay, so that's the four. All right.
Mark Clark [00:18:27]:
How are we doing on time? Okay, so now he says, just as the body is one. All right, so now he. Now he has this kind of unity. Just as the body is one and as many members. And all the members of the body and all are members of the body, though many are one body. So it is with Christ. That's an interesting. It's an interesting thing.
Mark Clark [00:18:49]:
So he gives this body analogy, right? So he's using this body analogy. He's saying, so there's this body and it's one body, but it has many members. So he's gonna go on to give this kind of analogy of arms and eyes and feet. And so he's gonna make this point about the church. But he. But he comes down here and you expect him to say, so it is with the church. But he doesn't say that initially. He says, so it is with Christ.
Mark Clark [00:19:13]:
And I think what's powerful about that, it's almost like he learned in Acts, chapter 9, Jesus comes to him, the apostle Paul, the guy who wrote this Paul. And the Apostle Paul was the first oversaw, the first martyr of the first Christian, a guy named Stephen. Acts, chapter eight. And it says, the guys who stoned Stephen laid their coats at the feet of a man named Saul, which is Paul. And he's on his way to Damascus. Jesus knocks him blind. So don't think Jesus won't do that to you. You're like, oh, Jesus just wants nice things for me.
Mark Clark [00:19:42]:
Read the story of the apostle Paul. Jesus literally punches him in the face and makes him blind for a while. And then he says, I want you to be an apostle to the Gentiles. And he says this to him, it's very fascinating. Acts, chapter nine. He says, you would expect him to say, why are you persecuting the church? Meaning you killed Stephen. He doesn't say that. He says, why are you persecuting me? Why are you persecuting me? It's the same thing.
Mark Clark [00:20:05]:
It's like Paul, Paul. And this should blow your mind for a second. Paul is so intermingled the church with Jesus himself that he sometimes he doesn't want to unfold, unfold them. He wants to say that you, the church, we collectively are Jesus to the world. That's our job. So step up and be it. Make that be your motivation to be godly, to not worship money, to get your life in the context of holiness, to be on mission in your life. We are Jesus in the world right now.
Mark Clark [00:20:38]:
And the Apostle Paul doesn't even untangle those two things. He leaves them. We are Christ for the world. What does that mean for your life? And then he says, and then he makes this point. One body and many members. And so it's this issue of. It's a unification, it's a unity. But it has, like, a body, like arms, eyes, feet, whatever.
Mark Clark [00:20:56]:
And so Paul makes this point. You have the human body. It's the most organic system on the planet. It's interrelatedness. If you cut off one particular part of a body, it doesn't continue working well. It's not like if you cut my arm off, it continues like, hey, guys, how's it going? I'm going get a tan for the next year. I'm going to grab stuff. I'm going to move around within.
Mark Clark [00:21:17]:
I don't know, I'm not a doctor, but within a certain amount of time, my arm's going to shrivel up and die, and it'll be done. And here's the reality. Paul wants to make this point, that we are the body of Christ. We are one. And if you remove one member, that member will suffer. And communally, we will suffer. That's the reality. The rest of the body suffers.
Mark Clark [00:21:39]:
If you take my eyeball out, I'm going to be less effective in the world. I'm still going to be able to function. You take both my eyeballs out, I'm going to be less effective in the world. That's his point, is every. He's already come from the first seven verses where he's saying, all of you make up the church. You're all members. Some of your eyeballs, some of you are mouths, some of you are arms. If you choose to move backward, if you choose to say, I had my time already, I did my service, and now this is rest time, or I don't know.
Mark Clark [00:22:09]:
See, this is what happened in Corinth. I don't know. I just don't know if I'm gifted enough. I don't know if the church needs me. I don't know. See, I do my gift this way, and I'm not needed or I don't need them. Those are the two things that Paul destroys here. And he says no.
Mark Clark [00:22:26]:
Don't you understand? If you cut one off, it's gonna shrivel and die and the body becomes less effective. And so here's the reality. You begin to think about your life. Are you someone who sits back and lets other people do the church for you? You know, you're wired in a particular way. You know you're gifted in a particular way, but you refuse to actually live it out. Paul challenges for one spirit. We're all baptized into one body. We're all one body.
Mark Clark [00:22:52]:
There's this. There's this Unity, slave or free. And all were made to drink of one spirit. And he begins to go through all. For the one body does not consist of one member, but of many. If the foot should say, because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body. See, this is, this is the temptation we all have. I'm going to remove myself because I'm going to let other people do it.
Mark Clark [00:23:14]:
And he's saying, no, no, the strength is the. The relationship. The strength is the, the. The oneness of it. That's why he keeps coming back. And see, see, the thing, here's what we gotta understand. That the concept of the oneness, the body of Christ coming together, is where the power is. And when you start to remove yourself, see, think about the power of family, what the church is.
Mark Clark [00:23:40]:
The church is not a group of families that have gotten together. The church is a family itself. And the power of community. The pat. See, we. We have three priorities as a church. Gospel, community, culture. Community is so important because it's the thing.
Mark Clark [00:23:58]:
Think about missionally, what's going on in the world. People are disconnected, people are lonely. People sit on social media all day. They have massive fomo, fear, missing out. They have depression, they're isolated, they're alone. One of the greatest things the church has to offer is not your fancy little answers to their theological questions. That's important. It's that you get to be family to them.
Mark Clark [00:24:20]:
If your life when you show up to church isn't about, how do I get outside of myself to welcome people to this family, then you're not coming to church with the right mission. Think about if someone walked into your home. You don't sit on the couch and go, yeah, hey, Joe, like if you had a party, right? We had all the staff or staff walk in within two minutes. I'm on them. I'm like, what do you want to drink? What do you want to do? You're being hospitable. You're constantly trying to say to yourself, you're going to be part of my family. Now. I don't just sit on the couch and go, oh, yeah, you're here, great.
Mark Clark [00:24:50]:
Anyways, right? That's not how you do family. And so our job is to go, what does it mean? See, you wonder about the attractiveness of a religion like Mormonism. Ask the question, why is Mormonism one of the fastest growing religions in the world? It ain't the theology. Well, it might be because you get to have planetary sex for eternity. So that actually might attract people. But. But it ain't The, The. The theology is like a mess.
Mark Clark [00:25:15]:
Like, you gotta believe Joseph Smith. You think the Garden of Eden's in. In. In Missouri somewhere? All right, it's like some stuff that. It doesn't make any sense theologically, philosophically, historically. It's got all kinds of problems. But people flock to Mormonism. Why? Because Mormons are the nicest people on the planet.
Mark Clark [00:25:36]:
You are immediately welcomed into their family. Their love, their communal love is what attracts the world. So be inspired. Stop being a Christian jerk, sharing all your nonsense, totally disconnected from any kind of relationship. But boy, you're right on Facebook and your ideas are so right. Yeah, but you look like a clown. You look like a jerk. No one wants to join your family.
Mark Clark [00:26:00]:
I want to join the Mormon family. They just cut my lawn for free. Free. They didn't actually do that, but you can get them to do that. I'm just telling you they. I know. I'm serious. I like cutting my lawn.
Mark Clark [00:26:12]:
So I don't get them to do that. They help with the hedges, but when they come. When they come to your house, you can get them to do anything you ask. That you take out the garbage can, you come back next Wednesday and water my plants. They'll do anything. Because you're being invited into a family. You're being Christians and live this isolated, nonsensical life. You're not welcoming.
Mark Clark [00:26:33]:
You're mean spirited, you're jerks. You show up to church late, you leave early. There's no hospitality in life. You sit in the same seat every week. And if someone sit there, you get mad. Shut up. Repent. This is family.
Mark Clark [00:26:49]:
My brain's broken. My brain. So you gotta. And village. We gotta get better at this. We gotta be inspired by the Mormons. All right, don't just tweet that in isolation. But the point is, man, is there's a.
Mark Clark [00:27:09]:
Listen, listen. Okay, so let me come at this with this angle. So the power of this is this. So you know how soldiers who go off to war come back and they go through massive trauma, ptsd, and they suffer. Oftentimes they're suicidal. In fact, there's a statistic, and you're not gonna believe this statistic, so you can go Google it later, because I didn't believe it when I first heard it. In Vietnam War. Do you know that more people died that came back from the Vietnam War and killed themselves than died in the Vietnam War? You know, so 65,000 people, soldiers from the US went to fight in the Vietnam War and died.
Mark Clark [00:27:55]:
65,000. More than 100,000 came back and killed themselves because of the reality of what went down. Now, here's what psychologists talk about. On the one hand, part of the reason is because what they saw on the battlefield. And of course, it's still the reality, whether you're a soldier in Afghanistan or whatever. The present reality, war is a terrible thing. And on the battlefield, what you see causes. Causes depression and suicide.
Mark Clark [00:28:17]:
Okay, that's part of it. But here's what psychologists tell us. There's another aspect of it, and you know what it is? It's they miss the camaraderie in the brotherhood that happened, and they lose it all when they come back into civilian life. That's the power of family, is they come back. And here's what we argue. We tend to think, well, if you come back to a nuclear family, that that's going to be enough for you. You come back to your wife, you come back to your grandparents, you come back to your kids. But psychologically, here's the crazy thing.
Mark Clark [00:28:46]:
We could go on about this for a long time. There's been a lot of psychological studies on this. I don't have time to get into it. But here's the thing. The nuclear family isn't enough. Your wife and your kids and your grandma and whatever, it's all great. But the human soul desires deeper things. Different relationships, different experiences, different conversations, different personalities.
Mark Clark [00:29:11]:
The family, your natural family, psychologically isn't enough. You need something else. And this is the beautiful thing the church comes in and offers. It, says, you're not alone in the world. You're not isolated in the world. We are a body. We're a family. We all come together.
Mark Clark [00:29:28]:
And the point is, some of you might be saying to yourself, yeah, but my time. My time is up. I did that already. And now I'm kind of taking a break. My gosh. Here's how Paul used it, the analogy of the body. And if the ear should say, because I'm not an eye, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. Imagine, you know, I'm not needed for a while.
Mark Clark [00:29:50]:
I'm gonna take a break for a while. I'm gonna do this for a while. Listen, that would be. Imagine. Imagine the heart decided to say, I'm gonna. You know, I've been pumping 40 years. Going to take a break for a year. I'm just going to chill for just a year.
Mark Clark [00:30:07]:
Just going to take a year off. Need some time to myself. All right, you're dead. It's over. Your Brain can't take a break. And Paul is saying, I don't care who you think you are, you're not needed. Your gifts are so small. You're different.
Mark Clark [00:30:26]:
That's the. The beautiful point is, look, don't say, because I'm not an eye, that you don't belong. You belong. I know you're not an eye, you're an ear. Whatever, it doesn't matter. You are necessary to the functionality of what the church is. I know some of you are like, yeah, but you feel odd. You feel left out.
Mark Clark [00:30:43]:
That's what the Corinthians were like, the church doesn't need me, or, I've already done my time, or, I don't need the church. Those are the two things Paul's saying, don't believe the lie. That's the lie of the enemy. The church needs you, and you need the church. You need to actually function in your role so that the church becomes effective. Jesus prays in John 17. He says, Father, I pray that they are one as we are one. And then he says, so that the world may hear about me and glorify you.
Mark Clark [00:31:09]:
The point is, the effectiveness of the mission is what the unity and the oneness is all about. And some of you are like, yeah, but you don't understand. There's a certain way that I do things, and it's not right. Listen, that's not the way it functions. You might be an introvert, and you might think, well, then I can't go to church events or something, because some of you, that's how your personalities are, right? You're like, imagine going to a church event. It freaks you out because you gotta talk to strangers. You gotta make small chat. You hate that.
Mark Clark [00:31:35]:
You're a total introvert. You just. The thought of putting hands on someone and praying for them when they're sick, like, might happen in a community group. You'd rather sit in a closet and die. All right, then touch another person's body, right? Or have a conversation about something. And you're just like. You feel totally out of whack. You're like, I don't know.
Mark Clark [00:31:54]:
I'm introverted. I can't. Or some of you are like, yeah, but, you know, I don't feel like I'm like the other Christians. I don't like Christian music. When I read Christian novels, I feel like throwing up. I feel left out. Paul's going, don't compare yourself to an eye or an ear or a foot or whatever. You're not those things.
Mark Clark [00:32:15]:
One of the most destructive things for your soul. And we've talked about this is comparison. Don't compare yourself to it. Don't compare your marriage, man. I'm telling you. You and your buddies sitting around talking, oh, this. What happened the other night. You're like, that doesn't happen for me in a month.
Mark Clark [00:32:32]:
And you start to compare and you start to resent. And you and the girlfriend said, oh, man, my husband just bought me this. We're going, yeah, well, that doesn't happen in a couple years. He doesn't get me anything. Compare, compare, compare. He's going, don't say. Cause I'm an. I am not useful.
Mark Clark [00:32:52]:
What are you talking about? You are needed. Every single Christian has at least one spiritual gift. And his point is, you actually are needed in the context of the church. Okay? And then he says. Then he says this. This is important verse. He says, for in one spirit. So he's constantly on about the unity.
Mark Clark [00:33:14]:
He says this. We were all baptized into one. Now, this word here is the word baptizo. And it doesn't. People have misunderstood this to mean water. And of course, water baptism. We're huge on it. One of the most brilliant things that we do, one of the great things that we've seen Jesus do over the last nine years, is baptize over 1600 people.
Mark Clark [00:33:37]:
1600 people in Canada. That's crazy. And every baptism's a story. Every baptism is a life change. And so that's an amazing thing that we do because that's what Jesus asked us to do. You die to self, you rise to new life. That's the whole symbolism of. But this word baptism actually doesn't mean water baptism all the time.
Mark Clark [00:33:53]:
It means to be immersed in something, to be fully marinated in it, dipped in it. And he's saying what we were marinated in and dipped in is the Spirit, right? It's this idea that we're baptized in the Spirit. Now here's. He's drawing on something that Jesus says. I want you to hear what Jesus says. Cause I think it's important reality he lays out when he's talking about John the Baptist. Jesus says this in Matthew, chapter three, I baptize you with water for repentance. But he was coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.
Mark Clark [00:34:25]:
This is John the Baptist talking about Jesus. And he says this. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Now, Matthew, chapter 3, verse 11. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. That's one option. That's what Paul's talking about. But the other option is fire.
Mark Clark [00:34:42]:
And in that one verse, you have the. You have the fate of every human being who has ever existed. Because here's the reality of Jesus. The world is divided up ultimately into people who've been baptized in the Spirit, people who've become Christians, people who've said, I repent of sin. I'm not gonna trust myself for salvation. I'm gonna give my life to Jesus, who came on a cross, died for my sin, rose again for my salvation. Gives me the Spirit to live a perfect life. He lived a perfect, perfect life in my place.
Mark Clark [00:35:15]:
A life of power, a life of just electrical reality where I have joy, I'm on mission. All of that is driven by the Spirit. That's a certain kind of person. And then Matthew chapter three says, but there's another kind of person who gets baptized into something else. Fire, judgment, hell, torture, agony, separation from every common grace the world has ever experienced. Jesus isn't just about good vibes and happy things. He's a God of salvation, but he's also a God of judgment. And the question becomes, in the end, there's only two kinds of people.
Mark Clark [00:35:48]:
People baptized by the Spirit and people baptized by fire. And it would be awful of me not to look at you and go, which one are you? Have you worked this out in your life yet? Because you have no idea how long you have. I got a text yesterday that someone, a couple in our church, it'll, you know, come out. Passed away yesterday in a car wreck. Instantly, Just going somewhere. You think your life, it's so fragile. You think you have it. You think you've got time.
Mark Clark [00:36:32]:
Jesus says there's two kinds of immersions in life. There's immersion in the life of the Spirit, and ultimately then there's immersion in fire, judgment, separation from God. In the end, separation from goodness, love, pleasure, delight, common graces that we all get addicted to and adapt to. Gone. So the question becomes, have we given our life to Jesus or do we continue to deny him over and over and over again? And the reality is that message, and I wanna end by praying with you around that one question, that whole message in what are you going to be immersed in the end? And what are you immersed in? Now? The spirit or fire is the most urgent possible thing. Like, think about the urgency that we have in our life. Think about the things that when we think they're urgent, we go and tell it. We make sure we're like, we gotta tell everybody this urgent thing has happened.
Mark Clark [00:37:37]:
All right? The most random Things in life, we get really jacked up if it's important, right? Like this week, I was actually. So my wife bought these roses, and she has this rose garden, and for some reason, I'm kind of. Cause my job. This is my theory on it, all right? My job is a little bit esoteric. Like, it's. It's gray a bit. You don't always know. It's intangible.
Mark Clark [00:37:58]:
You don't always know when you've made an impact or something. So watering something. That's why I love cutting grass. It's like I just shoo the Mormons away because I want a more. I want to cut my own grass because one of the things I can see is it was long and now it's short. I just love that. And so when it comes to God, I just, like. The most therapeutic thing for my soul is putting water over dry things.
Mark Clark [00:38:17]:
All right? Anyway, you're like, yeah, this guy's brain is broke, so. So she has these rose things. Now, my wife, bless her soul, she's bought a lot of flowers over the years, and they die right now. She's busy. I'm not judging her, right? But they die. They die this terrible death. And I watch from a distance, they're just like. And they all get.
Mark Clark [00:38:41]:
They all start to wither, and they get all dry, and they're just. They're looking at me like, water me. And I'm kind of looking at her, and she's kind of. You know, And I'm just like. But every time I try, she gets me in trouble. What are you saying? I can't water them? Is that what you're saying? What's with you all of a sudden, Mr. Water Pants? That's not a good phrase. I don't know where that.
Mark Clark [00:39:03]:
What are you watering all? Oh, now you're interested. All of a sudden I'm like, yeah. And I just watch them die. Just wither out the window. Slow death. Okay, whatever. Then we get new ones. And so she bought these roses, and she has a rose garden now.
Mark Clark [00:39:17]:
All right? So it's beautiful. She's like the Godfather out there. She's like, clipping little things. She's got her little gloves on, got her little table thing. She puts her hose. But I kind of get obsessed because if she misses a day, I kind of sneak it in, and then she finds out and gets me in trouble. She's like, there's a system to this. I'm like, gabby, the system was you were going to miss it, then it was going to die.
Mark Clark [00:39:36]:
So the other day I snuck one. So she was out and I got the hose and I started watering the plants, the roses, and out. So out front, we live in a cul de sac, and my kids are playing out front with one of the neighbors. Kids are over and they're hanging out, and all of a sudden I don't hear them anymore. And I'm watering and I'm one of those kind of like, I get giant, like, I'm like. I'm like, you know, I want to protect my kids. And so I shed water and water and I look over the fence and they're gone from the cul de sac. Now this doesn't happen, all right? You don't just.
Mark Clark [00:40:07]:
An 8 year old and a 10 year old don't just disappear for fun without telling me. That's the way I've raised my kids. Your kids might be a disaster, but my kids are good. So my kids don't just disappear. So I'm watering these roses and I look up and they're gone. I don't hear anything. And then there's a massive UPS truck. And I hear him back up.
Mark Clark [00:40:30]:
Beep, beep. And then he. And he tears off. Well, every movie is now in my brain. And I'm like, my gosh, the UPS man has stolen all my kids. So I throw the hose down, and this is not a joke. I run inside my house, I start yelling their names. All right.
Mark Clark [00:40:51]:
Hey, Nothing. Zero. I got three kids. One of them's not mine. On my watch that I have to watch. Where are you? Nothing. I go into every room. Where are you hiding? In the closet.
Mark Clark [00:41:03]:
In the other, I'm like, what's going on? I go outside. There's nothing. There's one bike. You know that horror scene and the wheels spinning. All right? And I'm like, what the crap? They've been taken by demons. So I'm like, oh, my gosh. The UPS guy has my day. I get in my car and I take off thinking to myself, I'll find the UPS chuck and I'll just follow him to wherever he goes to figure out whether my kids are in the back.
Mark Clark [00:41:32]:
So I. I go around, like, and I drive. I drive for like 30 seconds. And then I look over and there's the UPS truck and the guy's just delivering some package. I'm like, okay, well, that's probably a bad strategy if he's got the kids in the back. Just to continue doing the route. All right? So then now I go from morning to mad. And now I'm like, what? Where are these kids, man? So I go in the back and I wait and I wait and I wait.
Mark Clark [00:41:59]:
And then I see them come around the corner. One's riding a bike, one's running. And they have done the classic. They've chased the ice cream truck. They ran five blocks down to an ice cream truck and bought ice cream. I don't even know where they got money. I assume they stole it from me. They don't have money.
Mark Clark [00:42:21]:
They went and they're licking ice cream, and I'm like, what are you doing? And they're all like, what? I'm like, you can't just. And. And they bought. They bought ice cream from the ice cream man. And. And I'm like, how is this functional? And they're like, oh. I said, what if the ice cream man was a kidnapper and he wanted to throw you in the back of the truck and take you away forever? They're like, no, dad, there was a woman there buying something. They're fine.
Mark Clark [00:42:46]:
I'm like, that was part of the scam, idiot. Of course you could have a woman there. She's going to attract all the kids. Anyway, my point is this. When something is urgent, you get pretty jacked up about it, right? You go, man, you get in your car, you take off, because this is that important. It's a silly illustration to make a very important point, which is, in the end, there will be people, of course, who experience the love and the grace of God and the power of the spirit, but there will be people who come under the judgment of Jesus. And the question for you is, is that urgent enough to drive you to do anything different with your money and your time and your energy. I was supposed to share about the offering and the giving update because I'm supposed to give you a quarterly report of giving every year.
Mark Clark [00:43:41]:
And I didn't mean to do it at the end, but I'll just. I just thought of it right now because I was supposed to do it at the beginning, but I just wanted to give you guys a quarterly report and then I'll pray. So we. We have an $8 million, just over $8 million budget for the year. So our plan to this point in the year is 4,049,000. Just under 4 million has been the plan for operational to this point. And we. You have given 3,883,000.
Mark Clark [00:44:05]:
So we're just under $200,000 behind. So just so you know, we're halfway through the year, so organize your budgets, which, I mean, it's fitting it wasn't really planned to fit into this particular sermon, but it's fitting for you to know the data because everything about our life is driven by this exact mission. We want to see people baptized in the Spirit and have life in Jesus. And everything we do is driven by that. That's our whole mission to reach people who don't know Jesus because time is short and we believe in the judgment of God. That's reality. And so to be able to fund life, fund ministry, fund the staff, be able to have church services, be able to do the things that we do cost money. So we have to all, as Christians, as part of one body, organize our lives to be able to give to that.
Mark Clark [00:44:51]:
And I know people who are like, yeah, I'll just give to big projects and whatever. The reality is we have operational needs that go all year long so that we do youth ministries and student immersed ministries and leadership development and women's ministries and services and local mission, global mission. There's a million things that we're doing, over $8 million worth of things that we're doing every day that we need done. And so my challenge to you, even out of this text is becoming part of the one body, is you got to organize your budget so you make sure you're actually giving to that and your heart's in it. And some people who come to our church, they, they consume stuff and they don't give anything. And part of it's like, let the spirit wake you up and go, well, why would you be a consumer of religious goods and services? It be a non contributing zero that we give and we organize around the mission of the church. That's what drives us. All right, Father, we are grateful for your love.
Mark Clark [00:45:48]:
We're grateful for texts like this that drive us to be introspective so that ultimately we can do the work that you've called us to. Jesus, thank you for your grace, thank you Holy Spirit, that you do give us all these gifts, all these callings, the generosity of these things, so that we use them for the sake of the kingdom and that we would do anything but bury them. We know there are so many people who bury their gifts and people suffer because of it. The church suffers because of it. The world suffers because of it. Because they don't get to hear, they don't get to know, they don't get to be transformed. Do that work among us. In Jesus great name we pray.
Mark Clark [00:46:25]:
Amen.