Printer Friendly VersionRecently, I was asked to review a fascinating book titled: The
Unexpected Legacy of Divorce by Judith S. Wallerstein.
Twenty five years ago, Wallerstein recruited and interviewed
131 children and their families. For 25 years now, she has been studying the
effect of divorce on these children.
“The major impact of divorce does not occur during childhood
or even adolescence. Rather, it rises in adulthood as serious relationships
move to certain stage.” The book then describes five adults who went
through divorce and five who did not.
Then Wallerstein makes a statement that really captured my autistic:
“The children of divorce carry the template of this relationship (between
mother and father) into adulthood and use it to seek the image of their new
family.”
Template – a gauge, a pattern, or mold…something that
establishes or serves as a pattern.
When I read this it suddenly dawned on me that mature Christianity
(Christlikeness) is only possible when the old template of sin is replaced
with a new one: Jesus of Nazareth. For Christians, Jesus becomes the gauge,
the mold, that serves as a pattern for our lives…we carry this template
with us and use it to seek the image of our new life.
Daily Devotions, public worship, discipleship, witness and service…we
order our lives around these five core values because Jesus of Nazareth is
the template, the gauge, the pattern…the mold that establishes or serves
as a pattern or model.
Let’s go to the gospel of Mark and examine and try to describe
the template: Jesus of Nazareth.
In today’s passage , Mark 1:14-20, we see Jesus involved
in two very important activities: proclaiming the kingdom of God and preparing
followers. Two brief observations.
I. Jesus ’ Mission Was the Proclamation of the Gospel
1. Mark 1:14 reads: “Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming
the good news of God. The time has come. The kingdom of God is near. Repent
and believe the good news.”
2. This was Jesus ’ mission to get the word out: “Times
up! God’s kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message.”
3. Folks, Jesus is our model, our pattern, and our template.
This is to be our mission too! We are to carry this template with us as we
seek the image of a new world. This is our mission…to complete the work
Jesus began. This is not our mission…it is His!
4. What is it that we are to proclaim to the world? Well, what
did Jesus proclaim to the world?
5. God’s reign is coming. In fact it is, even now, breaking
into this world , into the present time. Paul said the kingdom of God is righteousness,
peace , and joy in the Holy Spirit and guess what: It’s breaking into
the world, this world, your world . This is gospel! It is an announcement
of victory!
6 Jesus also said: “And now is the time for you to enter
the kingdom reign of God.” Mark 1:15 – the time has come! (Eugene
Peterson – Times up!) The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe
the good news.
Repentance is not just sorrow for sin. It is not just adjusting some things
in your life. Repentance is the total re-direction of one’s life. Your
core values change. Repentance is organizing your whole life around Jesus
of Nazareth. (this is the fruit of repentance).
This is our mission; to proclaim the gospel of the total re-direction
of one’s life!
Pastor Bud, won’t people resist this message? Of course. Why? Three possible
obstacles that the message of repentance will encounter.
(1.) The human tendency to become upset whenever anyone tries
to suggest we need to change.
(2.) Our contemporary culture’s shallow view of sin. In
the Book of Common Prayer, there is a prayer of confession that, quite frankly
, gets real serious about sin. (Read) But people don’t like it so someone
re-wrote it so that it is a little more palatable, politically correct, and
a little less offensive.
“Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed
from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires
of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone
those things which we ought not to have done. But Thou, O Lord, have mercy
on us. Spare those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore those who are
penitent, according to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus
our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, that we may hereafter
live a godly, righteous and sober life; to the glory of thy holy name. Amen.”
(But some people find references to sin rather old fashioned. .so it was re-written.
Benevolent and easy-going Father , we have occasionally been
guilty of errors of judgment. We have lived under the deprivations of heredity
and the disadvantages of environment. We have sometimes failed to act in accordance
with common sense. We have done the best we could in the circumstances and
have been careful not to ignore the common standards of decency and we are
glad to think that we are fairly normal. Do thou, O Lord, deal lightly with
our infrequent lapses. Be thy own sweet Self with those who admit they are
not perfect; according to the unlimited tolerances which we have a right to
expect from thee. And grant us, as our indulgent Parent, that we may hereafter
continue to live a harmless and happy life and keep our self-respect.
Folks, let’s get serious. Sin is anything that is not like
Jesus in us; our words, actions , and attitudes. And we need to get serious
and repent of them, change them and keep the power of God’s spirit.
(3.) Thirdly, our contemporary culture has a shallow view of
repentance. The call to repentance has been heard so many times before that
many (some of you even!) have had enough inoculations of repentance to keep
you from getting the real thing! Maybe you have seen people get teary eyed
and come to an altar and pray and not change and so you’ve become a little
cynical.
Kind of like Mark Twain’s Huck Finn. His father, an alcoholic
“cried and cried when Judge Thatcher talked to him about turning over
a new leaf. And everyone hugged him and cried and said it was the holist time
on record. But Huck Finn reported that that night, his father got drunker
than he had ever been before.”
No wonder some people are skeptical about repentance. They’ve
seen little of it in the church of Jesus Christ.
Well, even though there is resistance, repentance continues
to be the message!
II. The Methods Jesus Used to Proclaim the Gospel
1. Two-fold: preaching and disciple-making.
2. Mark 1:16-20
3. This whole process of making disciples Robert Coleman calls:
The Master Plan of Evangelism. Jesus selects disciples and associates. Jesus
imparts, demonstrates, delegates, supervises, and reproduces .
4. If Jesus is our template, our model, our gauge, our pattern
, then these two methods should become our method, right? Preaching and discipleship.
That’s why public worship, which includes preaching and small group discipleship
are two of our core values here at Stillmeadow.
5. Mature Christian, are you discipling someone else? If not,
why not?
6. Seeker, have you decided to follow Jesus …make him your
template?
The time has come, or as Eugene Peterson has said: “Times
up!” God’s kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the message
.
Mark is the master storyteller. And this is one of my favorite
stories recorded in the gospels.
That’s why this was a hard sermon for me to write. There
are so many ways I could approach this passage of scripture. I could write
the sermon from Jesus’ perspective.
For instance, I could focus in on how much Jesus loves the weak,
the crippled, and the disabled. How do we know this? Did you know that 25
out of 34 miracles recorded in the Gospels are with people with some form
of disability? “On practically every page of the four Gospels,”
writes Joni Eareckson Tada, “you see Jesus interacting with disabled
people: befriending them first and then touching them at their point of need.
Jesus’ friendship with people with disabilities serves as a model for
us. We can’t go wrong if we imitate the way in which he identified with
people with disabilities.” (Barrier-Free Friendships by Joni Eareckson
Tada).
Or, I could write this sermon from the perspective of the crippled
man. Like the man with leprosy I described in detail last week. I could try
to increase your compassion, sensitivity, understanding, and identification
with hurting persons. Much like Ken Gire in his devotional book: Moments With
the Savior, I could describe for you what this paralytic’s life was like
before his encounter with Jesus: a life of “dependency, humiliation,
boredom, loneliness, frustration, shame and despair. These are just a few
of the entries in the thesaurus that defines life on a three-by-six mat.”
(Moments With the Savior: A Devotional Life of Christ. Ken Gire).
Or, I could try to help you imagine what the man’s life
must have been like after his healing and forgiveness. No more bed sores and
no more blank stares at the ceiling. Now, the man was able to rise with the
morning sun, socialize in the streets, step outside for a breath of fresh
air, walk off his frustrations, feed himself, go to the bathroom by himself,
clothe himself and go to the synagogue, even the Temple with his friends and
family. After his encounter, he was free: .physically, emotionally , and spiritually.
Or, I could preach this sermon from the perspective of the crowd
or the disciples or the guy whose home got turned into a busy intersection
or the scribes and Pharisees that were present. Any one of these approaches
would make a bodacious sermon.
But today, March 4, 2001, I feel led of the Holy Spirit to preach a sermon
about four guys who are not recorded in the scripture. . four friends of a
crippled man who did nothing less than carry a friend into the presence of
Jesus. (By the way, can you think of anything more important ; any activity
more significant than picking up the corner of someone’s mat and carrying
them into the presence of the Master? I can’t! The truth is, that’s
what Jesus has commissioned each of us to do. This activity has a name-WITNESS
. Some important truths we learn about witnessing from those four guys.
I. Christian Witness Begins with Friendship.
1. One of these four guys (maybe more but at least one of them!)
befriended this man, got the ball rolling, and went out of his way to be a
friend to someone in need.
2. Joni Eareckson Tada writes: “We don’t live in a
world where personalities and circumstances mix at random to create real relationships.
We have to take this initiative.” She concludes: “I ask that those
of you who are not disabled take the initiative. You need to take the risk
of looking past the wheelchair, the sunglasses and prostheses to see and engage
the person that lies hidden there.” (p.22)
3. According to a Harris poll done in 1991, 57% of people without
disabilities felt uncomfortable with disabled people. In fact 47% polled felt
afraid of disabled people.” (p.27)
4. Well, Pastor Bud, I’m not one who feels uncomfortable
or is afraid of disabled people. Good. But let me ask you this? How many friends
do you have that have been “disabled” by the disease known as sin?
5. FACT. Most people in the kingdom of God today are there because
of the influence of a family member or friend who left their comfort zone,
and be-friended someone and introduced them to Jesus. “Hey friend, Jesus
is in town. I’d love to introduce Him to you.”
6. Witnessing is nothing less than imitating Jesus who was charged
and found guilty of being a friend to sinners. Jesus is this intimate friend!
II. Christian Witness Requires Some Innovation
2. “Friend , do you want to go see Jesus?” Yes. Goes
out gets three guys and together they carry the man to the house where Jesus
is teaching and healing (TEAMWORK!)
3. But when they arrived they found a great crowd. Excuse me,
would you let me through? YEAH RIGHT? Man, this is impossible. Too many barriers
too big of a task!
4. But at least one of them, in a moment creatively and innovation
said: WAIT. How about if we take him on the roof and let him down with ropes.
5. Possible negative responses: “What will the house owner
think?. Maybe it’s not meant to be. If it weren’t meant to be, Jesus
would find a way to reach him or the crowd would part or something and what
will Jesus think?
6. But one, at least one, said: “Look , the roof is flat.
We can use those stairs to get up on the roof. The beams are three feet across.
We can move the brushwood, lower him down , and apologize later if we need
to but look how close Jesus is. Whatever it takes , we’ve go to get our
friend into the presence of Jesus.
7. If you think about it, little has changed. Brian McLaren.
Reinventing Your Church. Barriers to witnessing still exist. Pluralism. ..
relativeness. .skepticism. . . secularism. The new crowd! If we want to be
an effective witness, we must be creative and innovative in new methods in
sharing the gospel , even developing a new rhetoric. Old communication patters
are less and less effective in the new world. Truly we must take to heart
Paul’s challenge: “By all means win some!”
III. Christian Witness Expresses Faith
1. Each of these friends had faith in Jesus. The prayer warriors,
the friend, the innovator, and the one who simply picked up his corner of
the mat and helped lift the crippled man. These were all acts of faith ; faith
in Jesus of Nazareth.
2. Pastor Bud, how do we know this? Look at Mark 2:3-5 (read)
When Jesus saw their faith. This is the one thing these four or five nameless
men had in common, faith in Jesus, and Jesus saw it…not in words but
in their faithful deeds. It wasn’t what Jesus heard that moved Him to
forgive and heal. It was what He saw.
3. The Christian witness is the one who is convinced that if
they can just somehow get their friend in the presence of Jesus that Jesus
has the power to heal, is the authority to forgive sins and that this carpenter
from Nazareth is Lord…the answer
4. Which leads one to conclude that the most effective form
of witness is simply this: make a friend and when the opportunity avails itself,
simply tell them about Jesus and what he has done for you.
Let’s pray.
Dear Son of Man,
Thank you for you for the handful of faithful friends who once
carried me on their shoulders and brought me to you. Thank you that no matter
how lame my excuses, they refused to leave me resigned to my pallet.
Thank you for mothers and fathers and pastors and friends. Thank
you for their faith. Thank you for all the trouble they went to.
No matter how large the crowd, they were willing to find a way
through. No matter how steep the stairs, they were willing to climb. No matter
how thick the roof, they were willing to dig.
For all the obstacles they overcame to bring me to you, I thank
you, Lord Jesus.
Thank you for how much they loved, how much they cared, how much they prayed,
how much they shouldered. I will never be able to thank them enough—or
you.
Thank you for giving my life back. Thank you for making me whole.
Thank you for being so understanding and so willing to forgive.
In remembrance of the grace shown to me, help me now to turn
my heart to those who are bent or broken or bedridden. To those who are confined
to wheelchairs or to hospital beds or to quiet, lonely rooms where the light
of human friendship seldom shines.
Help me to be a friend to someone whose body is a prison, knowing
that you have called me to visit the prisoners as though in prison with them,
and knowing that when I have done it unto the least of these, I have done
it unto you.
Help me to be sensitive to other forms of paralysis that lie below the surface. To those crippled by some debilitating set of circumstances. To those immobilized by some chronic disease of the soul. To those stunned by divorce. To those numbered by the death of a loved one. To those buried under a heavy load of depression. To those bearing an injury of the heart. To those shattered by a broken relationship. For any crippling influences that have devastated their lives, I pray, Lord Jesus. Help me to put a shoulder to my faith by lifting them up in prayer, by bearing their burdens, and by bringing them to you to find mercy. Especially I pray for _______. . .
