Sermon Transcript
Well, you know, one of the fun things about being together today is that the year’s not yet over. We’ve had a great year so far, but we still have the summer ahead of us, and that’s why we put that brochure into your hands this morning. We want you to make sure that you also finish the year by participating in the summer activities. There’s so many great things that have happened. I’m so grateful to have so many of our teachers here today and staff from LACS because That’s been such a significant part of the year that we’ve shared together, and part of that was, you know, made better because of the remodel on this building, and we’ve got to enjoy this building from a whole different perspective than ever before.
Anyway, it’s just been such a good year. One of the things that we didn’t mention was Daring Faith, but do you remember that study? How good that was for us as a church, that 40-day focus where We thought about our faith and how without faith it’s impossible to please God. And so we just encouraged each other to get involved in these daily devotions over a 40-day period and then the 6 weeks of focusing on that in different life groups and groups. And I think a lot of great things came out of it.
I mean, even for me personally, some of you have heard some of this story. Just one of the very early weeks there, I was walking around, I walked out in the lobby and I met a person who was brand new to the church I didn’t know that at the time. I just said, hi, I’m Dave, and found out that he was here for the first time. I asked him why he came, and he said, well, I’m actually exploring my faith. I’m trying to figure out, you know, faith and how it fits into my life.
And so he had gone online and saw the Daring Faith, you know, logo that we had out there and decided to come. So we had a really nice conversation. I encouraged him to get in touch with me. Maybe we could get together again. And he got in touch and we got together, and actually we’ve been continuing to meet.
We’ve been continuing to talk about faith things. He went to the Silicon Valley Prayer Breakfast with me. Not only did he go, but another one of my unchurched friends who I met at 24 Hour Fitness came along to the Silicon Valley Prayer Breakfast. And part of the prayer breakfast— how many have been to the Silicon Valley Prayer Breakfast? Yeah, many of you have.
You know that this event is actually an event that’s connected to our church and our Altos Foundation, and they are the ones who put the event on. And I don’t know, they had like 900 people plus at the event this year. It was incredible. And obviously they always bring in these amazing speakers who are sharing their faith stories. And so my 2 unbelieving friends are there and they’re just trying to sort through their spiritual beliefs and they’re hearing them talk about these faith stories.
And then at the end of that time, they encouraged you just to kinda have a conversation around the table. So we’re talking a little bit about faith around the table there, and these 2 friends, I was sitting between ’em, started engaging each other in a conversation about spiritual things. I just sat there and wanted to cry, seriously. I was just, you gotta be kidding, this is really happening right now as they’re exploring together where they are in faith and where they’re trying All of that’s just to simply say, you know, there’s just so much like that that’s happening in the life of the church right now. So some of it, yeah, we see in a programmatic way, but hopefully in a more important way, we see it in a personal way in the lives of people and what’s happening in their lives.
So it’s been a great year already, and as I’ve already suggested, you know, Do use this brochure, as Steve helped us see, to, you know, get these dates on your calendar, be planning for these things. One of the things you’re gonna wanna do is make sure you participate in the message series, the new message series that’s going to start next week when we start talking about the stories Jesus told. You can see it there promoted. We’re gonna look at the parables over the summer, so We’re not gonna be able to get to all of the parables, but we are going to get to several of the parables. And as we’ve done over the last few years, we’ve tried again to put together a Scripture workbook to help you get more out of, to help all of us get more out of these Scripture studies that we’re gonna be having on Sunday morning.
So out in the lobby this morning is one of these workbooks for you. It doesn’t cost you a thing. The only thing is, is that we would encourage you to not just pick it up and, you know, place it somewhere in the house and then forget about it. But what we want to do is we want to work together to get into the scriptures in deeper ways so that, Lord willing, the scriptures will change our lives. You know, it’s interesting, they’ve done some studies on this in terms of ultimately, what is it that changes people?
People that come to worship like this on a Sunday morning, if you look at the other factors that are a part of their life spiritually, what is it that ultimately is transformative in their spiritual progress? And you know what they found? They have found that the number one matter is their own personal spiritual quiet times, their own personal spiritual growth. So one of the best things that we can do is to connect Sunday morning and the studies that we’re doing to the rest of the week and the studies that we’re doing at home. And so that’s part of the incentive behind this, okay?
Inside story for you. That’s part of the incentive. We’re trying to connect what we’re doing on Sundays to the the lives that we’re living the rest of the week. And I honestly believe that you and I will get more out of the messages, we’ll get more out of the scripture if we won’t just listen to it here, but we’ll also study it before we get here, and then we’ll study it even after we leave here on Sunday. So all of that’s to say, bring your Bibles, you know, get into the scriptures, write things down.
In this particular workbook, again, we’ve given you a way to do an inductive Bible study, so you can do an inductive inductive Bible study all throughout the summer on the focus of the stories of Jesus, the stories Jesus told. We also give you a little information in here about interpreting a parable. There’s some actual matters that you want to be aware of when you’re interpreting parables, and some people could go crazy with parables. We don’t want to go crazy in making everything in the parable type of something that’s yet to come, okay? So there’s some information here that could be helpful to you.
All of that’s to say that’s gonna start next week, but before you leave this morning, you can pick up this guide, this workbook, this scripture workbook, and begin to study with us as we look toward this new study. Well, that said, there are a lot of things you could do this summer, right? I mean, hopefully you’re gonna have a lot of fun. Over the summer months. I trust that you’ve got some fun planned into your calendar, some good things that you’re going to do.
Hopefully it’s going to be a time of rest and rejuvenation for you. If you’re looking at your calendar already and thinking this is not going to be a time of rest and rejuvenation, I feel terrible for you if that’s the case, because isn’t that what summer’s supposed to be? It’s a time to, you know, kind of regroup and get it back together and get ready for next year. And so So, I hope you have that time. I also hope that summer for you is a time of reflection, a time of reflection on this past year, you know, the many things that God has done.
Maybe you’re a journaler like I am. I usually journal every day, and so I’m able to go over my journals and just kind of go back over what’s been going on this year and some of the significant things that God’s been teaching me and that sort of thing. I don’t know how it works for you. But summer’s a great time to reflect on, you know, the things that we’ve been doing and what it is that the Lord wants us to do. I thought in light of that one factor, especially this matter of reflection, that this morning we would just look together just momentarily at a passage that’s found in Mark chapter 1.
So if you have your Bible, would you mind opening it to Mark chapter 1, please? If you got a message bulletin, you’ll find on the inside there a message note sheet that you can follow along. If you don’t have your Bible with you, but Mark chapter 1, I just want to focus on just a couple of verses that are found there. It’s a passage that Mark presents to us regarding some of the early things that Jesus did in his ministry. And his ministry that detailed— is detailed here by Mark really is the ministry in and around Capernaum.
And this ministry included times there where he called his first followers, Peter and Andrew and James and John. It includes, if you look through the account in Mark chapter 1, his teaching, his early teaching in the synagogue. And as he taught, people were amazed at his teaching. They said that he taught with authority. It included a time where he cast a demon out of a man, verses 23 to 26.
You can see it there. He was hanging out at Peter and Andrew’s home. Along with James and John. You see that in verse 29. In fact, as He got to this home, He found out about Simon Peter’s mother-in-law who was sick in bed with some kind of a fever.
And it tells us in verses 30 and 31 that Jesus went over to her and took her by the hand and raised her up, and the fever left her. Who would not want a friend like that? You know, can you make my mom well? Or whoever it is that’s sick in the home right now. So that was a part of the experience that they had there in Capernaum.
And that same day, this is after he’d already cast a demon out of somebody in the synagogue, and he’s now healed Simon Peter’s mother-in-law. That same day, all kinds of people, verses 32 to 34, come over to Simon Peter’s home, and they’re looking for Jesus to heal them and to cast demons out. And it tells us that he healed many of them. And he cast many demons out of these, these people. So what you have a picture of in Mark chapter 1 is kind of a picture of something that you might identify with.
It could be something like what your year has been like, maybe up to this point in time, or maybe something as you look back on this week. Nonstop activity, one demand after another, always something more to do, another person to help. Another need to address. That’s kind of the picture. But what’s worth considering, this is what I wanna focus on just for a couple moments, what’s worth considering is what Jesus did the next morning.
The next morning after this super busy Sabbath day. This next morning after a nonstop day of activity. You know, because when we think about the day after a nonstop day, of activity, you know, we’re probably thinking about sleeping in if we can and, you know, taking the morning off because yesterday was so hard and those kinds of things. But what’s fascinating here is what Jesus does on the next morning, all right? After this busy, crazy busy day, demanding day, the next morning, this is what Mark tells us Jesus did.
Mark chapter 1, verse 35. Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, went off to a solitary place where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed, everyone is looking for you. Now, what did Jesus do? It’s pretty obvious.
The next morning, he got up early before sunrise, For what purpose? You see it there? For the purpose of solitude and for the purpose of what? Prayer. So he gets up early after a crazy busy day.
The next morning he gets up early for solitude and prayer. Why? So that he could be alone with his Father, so that he could commune with God, and so that he could make sure that his will was aligned with God’s will. Now, we’re not told what Jesus prayed. We can only surmise what that time must have been like.
Maybe there was a conversation where he said, Father, you know, it was a great day yesterday. I mean, it was so incredible to be able to be used by you here in Capernaum and, you know, just to give Simon Peter’s mother-in-law her health back. I mean, that was a special moment in the day, and to cast that demon out of that that guy in the synagogue, and to actually, you know, have people respond to the teaching of your word with excitement and thankfulness. And we know that later in Jesus’ ministry this doesn’t always happen. And so, you know, to have that kind of response, maybe you talk to the Father about that.
Maybe you talk to him about, you know, all those people you brought in the evening and how one after another, Father, you healed them. And you cast those demons out of those people. I mean, it was an amazing day, and I’m just so fortunate to be able to be here and to minister on your behalf. And so I just wanna make sure that if, you know, we jump into this next day, that I’m gonna be doing exactly what it is that you want me to do, and I wanna be right where you want me to be.
Moments like that with God. Maybe they come after a busy day and you do get up early in the morning, or let’s just say you’re not an early morning person, but at some point, you know, some point closely after these demanding days where you saw God do a great work, you get up and you say, Lord, it was really a good day. What do you wanna do in my life today? I mean, is that something important to do? Well, Jesus saw it as something important.
What’s also fascinating about this is Jesus’ response to Simon and his companions, Andrew, James, and John, because they come and they track Jesus down, and the language that’s used here is a language that speaks of hunting someone down. So they hunted Jesus down, and when they found him, they wanted him to know that these people now were coming back, and you know, he needed to just get back there because the startup had really gone well. Now if we talk about it in Silicon Valley startup language, I mean this startup ministry that Jesus has here in Capernaum has got off to a great start. What he’s doing is being well received. The people are amazed at his teaching.
If you’re a part of the startup team, you’re probably feeling like, this is really good. This could go big. This could go viral. And one thing is for sure, Lord, you don’t got time now to be alone and to have these prayer times and solitude and all of that. I mean, we gotta get back to the task at hand.
We gotta strike while the iron is hot. That’s what we need to do.
And so they hunt him down and they say to him, people everywhere are looking for you, which is to say, you need to get back here right now because day 2 has greater potential written all over it than day 1. And they were obviously expecting Jesus to get up and get right back there and keep on going with what it was he had started the day previous. But Jesus instead, verse 38, replies to them and he says, let us go somewhere else to the nearby villages so I can preach there also. This is why I have come. Now if you look closely at that statement, that’s a 3-directional statement.
He told them there was something that they needed to stop doing. He told them there was something they needed to keep doing, and he told them that there was something they needed to start doing. They needed to stop doing what it was that they were doing the day before, the work in Capernaum. He said, let us go. We did a great work here, but at that moment in time And this time evidently in solitude and prayer with the Father confirmed this for him.
At that moment in time, he knew that they needed to move on from the work that they had begun. Now, if you follow his life, you know that he’s gonna ultimately come back to Capernaum, but not yet. So he says, so it’s time for us to get going. We got to stop ministering here, but we’re going to keep ministering. We’re going to keep on preaching the good news of the kingdom.
I mean, that’s the whole reason why I came, to tell people that I am the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And that’s, that’s the gospel, isn’t it? Jesus was all about helping people come to understand that God wants a relationship with all of us. And he was going to make it possible through his life and through his death for everyone to have a relationship with him by faith if we receive him as our Lamb of God. The healing and the casting out of demons and all of that, all that was was an authentication of the fact that he was the Messiah.
He authenticated his claim to be the Messiah by his healings and by his casting demons demons out of people that were possessed. So he was gonna continue to do that, but they were going to do that now in another location. So he was telling them, we’re gonna stop ministering here. We’re gonna keep on preaching the gospel, and we’re gonna start doing this, notice the word, someplace else, to the nearby villages, and we’re gonna go there, and we’re gonna preach the good news to the people there, because that is in part why I’m here. It’s not just for Capernaum’s sake, But it’s for the whole world.
And so verse 39 says, so he traveled throughout Galilee preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons. That new ministry came about because Jesus had spent some time in solitude and prayer asking the Father, Lord, what is it that you want me to do? And out of that came There was something that he needed to stop, there was something that he needed to keep doing, and there was something he needed to start doing. Now what I hope we can see this morning is the application of this for all of our lives because my guess is, is that most of us sitting in this building this morning have had a very busy year. That if we look at our calendar, it’s been pretty full throughout the year.
And it’s very possible that now as we get into the summer months, that the busyness can continue. And I wouldn’t be surprised. It often is just a part of life right here in the Silicon Valley. So I think one of the best things that we could do is actually learn from what it was that Jesus did after a busy time of ministry. And that simply is this, is that it would be so good for each one of us to carve out some time soon, even if it’s an early morning time, but to carve out some time soon where we got alone with the Father and we asked the Father 3 questions.
Lord, what do you want me to stop doing?
Lord, what do you want me to keep doing? And Lord, what do you want me to start doing? Now think about that just for a moment. What do you want me to stop doing? He may want you to stop doing something that’s good.
It was really good what it was he was doing in Capernaum, right? I mean, come on, are you kidding? It was very exciting what he was doing there. It would have been very easy to stay there and see more success, but in God’s plan for what it was that Jesus was here for, the Lord wanted him to move on. And sometimes the Lord wants us to stop doing something good in order to do something else.
And there may be something else that the Lord has for us. I’m not saying that it’s always gonna be the case, but it’s very possible. And one of the ways that we would come to understand whether or not the Lord has something else for us, something to stop, is just to take the time and get alone with the Lord in solitude and say, Lord, Am I doing right now what it is you want me to be doing? Are there some things that are a part of my life and my schedule that need to change? I think of Francis Chan, who in 1994 started a church in Simi Valley.
It was a church that they started with 30 people. The ministry quickly grew to thousands of people, but then in 2010, Francis resigned that ministry because he said, God was laying a new work on his heart. Really? I mean, things were going great in that ministry in Simi Valley at Cornerstone. God was laying a new work on his heart, and as a result of that, Francis said, I gotta stop doing this and I gotta follow God’s lead, and where God led him here is to the San Francisco area.
And so Francis now for a few years has been in the San Francisco area, He’s come to the city where he was born. He’s come to the city where his mother died while giving birth to him.
And he’s come to a city that he deeply cares about, and God is doing a new work through Francis Chan in the San Francisco area, but that would have never started had he not stopped doing something that was good in order to do something else. Such an important question to ask. Lord, what do you want me to stop doing? And the second question is, Lord, what do you want me to keep doing? Well, obviously Jesus was gonna continue to preach the gospel.
He was just gonna do it in another place. Obviously he wants the same thing for us. He wants us to preach the gospel. When Francis left Simi Valley and ended up here in the San Francisco area, he’s continuing to do what he did there. It’s all about disciple-making.
That’s his life’s calling. Works. He’s doing a lot of church intensives in San Francisco as he’s making disciples. And not just, you know, Jesus and Francis Chan, but hopefully it’s that way, it’s that way for all of us. The number one thing, regardless of what changes in our lives, is that the Lord wants us to make disciples, right?
If we’re a Christ follower, he wants us to go, he wants us to baptize, and he wants us to teach. He wants us to help people come to Christ. He wants us to help people become like Christ.
One of the conversations that I had this past year with Nancy Carpiano, who you heard Steve talk a little bit about last week, he had the privilege of helping the family by doing the graveside service for Nancy.
But those of you that know Nancy know that she was a person that was so committed to the Lord and she was so committed to helping people come to faith in Jesus Christ. And one of the conversations I had with her this past year concerned her witnessing and I asked her how her witnessing had changed since she found out that she had cancer. And she was continuing to talk to people about Christ. I mean, she could’ve just said, oh well, you know, I guess I’m just gonna roll up and die and not share my faith anymore. If anything, it actually gave her even stronger incentive in whatever days of life that she had left, and she didn’t know how many days of life she had left, but it gave her stronger incentive to just faithfully talk to people about Christ.
And as we were having this conversation, she said, you know, Dave, I’ve been talking to my doctor, my primary physician about Jesus. And part of this, she said, came in this conversation because he said, we’re gonna have to turn you over now to a different kind of care. And I said, well, tell me, who is this primary physician that you have? And she told me, and I said, no, really? She said, yes, that’s him.
I said, well, that’s my primary physician. She said, you’re kidding. I said, no, I’m not. This is fantastic that God put you into his life and that you’re sharing your story with him. And then when she died here recently, I thought to myself, and you know what, Dave, you’re still left to keep that conversation going with that doctor.
Yeah, things don’t change, do they? I mean, the point is, is that wherever we are, whatever it is we’re doing, whatever conditions we’re in, we can still bring people to gospel of Jesus Christ. And then there’s probably something that the Lord would want us to start doing as we sit with him and we say, Lord, what is it that, you know, I’m not doing that I could do better? What do you want me to change?
How can I do better what it is you’ve called me to do? I was reading this week a blog by Stu McLaren, and Stu was writing about the whole matter of entrepreneurship and family and how tough it is for him as a person who is in business and he’s trying to translate his Christian values into his business and, and to find balance with his family. And he’s come to be very successful, and that’s great on the one hand, but on the other hand, it’s causing him some tension problems related to his time and And so anyway, this blog just had to do with some guidelines that he has set in place here recently that he’s seeking to live by. We could call them some very important matters that he’s trying to implement into his family to keep his family a priority. So for instance, he’s established cutoffs for work time.
He said in the blog, you know, mornings, evenings, and weekends are for my family. Now wouldn’t you love to have that schedule? But he said, you know, but I’m making that work for me. And for some of us, you know, to start something like that with our family would be a really good idea. It would be really good for us to get alone with the Lord and spend some time praying and saying, Lord, as you think about, as you show me the different areas that I have responsibility in, what do I need to stop doing, keep doing, but what do I need to start doing?
And maybe one of the things I need to start doing is I need to impose I need to impose limits on my use of time. I need to impose limits on how much time I’m putting into work when I’m at home. Maybe I need to just change some things there. And Stu went on in this article to talk about how he felt that he needed to create more space for his family, especially after he had been away on business trips because he travels a lot. And so he said, you know, so one of the things I’ve started is I’ve started this rule.
It’s a rule I’ve given myself and it’s simply this. For every 3 days I’m gone, I give my family an entire day. For every 3 days I’m gone, I’m giving my family an entire day as soon as I get back. What a great thing to start. What about us?
I just wonder if If we were to sit with the Lord and we were to say, Lord, what is it that you want me to start doing that I’m not doing right now that could make a world of difference in my relationship with you and my relationship with others and my relationship with my family? You say, how does that kind of thing happen? Well, I think it just is the fruit of getting alone with God. See what I’m going after here this morning? I’m not trying to get you to live by our church schedule or any of that sort of thing.
I, ’cause I believe the best thing that could happen you and the best thing that could happen for me is that we would be doing the things that God wants us to do and not everybody else.
And if Jesus would have done the things that everybody else wanted, he would have turned right around and went back into Capernaum and said, Peter, you’re right. I gotta get back at this wonderful thing that’s already started here in Capernaum, because man, This is like what you minister for, to see people respond like they are. But that wasn’t ultimately the audience that he was playing to. It was God. So my hope and prayer for all of us this morning is as we get into this summer, that this is a summer of rejoicing, yes, and that this is a summer of resting, yes, and that this is a summer of of refreshment, yes, but I think one of the best things that we could do would be that we would include in our summer some time for reflection, for reflection, yes.
Most of us need some time alone with the Lord and before the Lord asking him, Lord, what is it that you want me to stop doing? What is it that you want me to keep doing? What is it, Lord, that you want me to start doing? Mother’s Day, Bernice and I went over to Starbucks. That was my treat to her.
The line wasn’t very long there, probably a lot shorter than the line that you went through at the restaurant that you went to. But the barista there was really happy that day. He kind of knows us, he’s seen us from time to time. He said to Bernice and I, we’re standing, he said, what college did you go to? I thought, that’s interesting.
I never had a barista ask us what college we went to. So I said, so we went to Westmont College. He says, really? I said, yeah, it’s a college in Santa Barbara. It’s a small private Christian college in Santa Barbara.
There was a girl that was sitting there. She spoke up because she overheard this, and she said, I’m a student at Westmont. We said, really? Are you kidding? I mean, this is— thanks for asking the question, you know, to the barista.
And she started to talk about how she just finished up the, you know, the year at Westmont, how she’s here for Mother’s Day, how she’s planning on driving back to Westmont and Santa Barbara that afternoon, how she was hoping the next day that she was gonna be able to get out and land an internship for the summer and then be able to stay in the Santa Barbara area for the summer. And then she said, and then I have my last year of college. I’ll be a senior next year at Westmont, and then my hope is, is that I’ll be able to stay and live in Santa Barbara after that. And we’ve heard this before. In fact, we said to her, you know, actually, that’s been our dream since we were at Westmont.
We’ve always thought, wouldn’t it be great, Lord, if you brought us back here and we got to live in Santa Barbara and, you know, enjoy this weather and, you know, had a job here and all of that? And I said, you know, we got really close one time, really close. In fact, there was this church that was asking us to come and to be their pastor, and they had talked to us, the staff had talked to us, and the elders had talked to us, and some people had talked to us. They were at the point where they said, we really think you’re the guy, and so they invited us to candidate to become their pastor. And Bernice and I said, well, we just need some time to pray over this.
And so we spent 24 hours. We decided we would make it a 24-hour time of prayer and fasting. And at that end of the period of time, we decided during this prayer and fasting time we wouldn’t talk to each other the matter that we were praying about. You know, Lord, do you want us to go to Santa Barbara? Because we’ve always wanted to go to Santa Barbara, so we really hope you want us to go to Santa Barbara because we’d really like to be there.
We just said we’re just gonna see what the Lord does after this, and so we waited 24 hours and then we got together and we talked about it, and I kid you not, between us, we had about 25 reasons why the Lord did not want us to go to Santa Barbara.
25, seriously. So we called the church up and said, you know what, we can’t come. I mean, we would love to come. We’ve given God every opportunity to say yes, but he’s really made it clear that it’s a no. So we’re sorry, we’re gonna have to say no.
You know, as I look back on that, I don’t think that would’ve happened that way had we not spent time in solitude. Gratitude and prayer. Had we done what we wanted to do, we would have gone to a place God did not want us to go.
Now, I think that that can happen, don’t you? I really do. What do we want? We want to be right where God wants us to be, don’t you? And it’s possible that you’re right where He wants you to be right now in terms of whatever it is that you’re doing, and that’s great.
So let this be a confirmative time for you this summer where the Lord just confirms, this is right where I want you. Keep going. But he may have some other things that he wants for you, and you don’t want to miss out on what those other things could be. So let’s pray and ask the Lord to help us make this also a part of our summer. Father, thanks for this wonderful story that we relate to that can be such a big benefit even to us this summer, so that whatever schedules we’re living under, whatever demands we’re living under, we confirm with you the desire that you have for us, that we might be doing what you want us to do in the place that you want us to do it but at the time that you want us there.
I ask that you’d help each one of us sort that out soon, and this would be a summer that not only would include that rest and refreshment and enjoy— enjoyment, but it would also include time for reflection and preparing ourselves for what it is that you have in store for us next. Thank you for this wonderful time of celebration this morning. As it continues and the lunch follows, may it just only give us more delight in the relationship that we share with you and each other. And it’s in Jesus’ name that we pray, amen.
