Sermon Transcript
Thank you, Steve. Good morning, everyone. The passage from Scripture that Pastor Dan will be preaching from comes from Mark chapter 6, verses 16— or 6 through 16. And he went about among the villages teaching. And he called the 12 and began to send them out 2 by 2 and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.
He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff. No bread, no bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not to put on 2 tunics. And he said to them, whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there. And if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them. So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent repent.
And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them. King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’s name had become known. Some said, John the Baptist has been raised from the dead. That is why these miraculous powers are at work in him. But others said, he is Elijah.
And others said, he is a prophet like one of the prophets of old. But when Herod heard of it, he said, John, whom I beheaded, has been raised. May God bless the reading of his word.
Thanks, Danny.
Once upon a time, in between my undergrad degree and going to seminary, I served a brief stint as a software consultant. Right out of college I had a gap before moving on to theological education so I stepped out into the real world, full-on adulting. This company hired me, they put me through their little orientation week with the other new hires which the orientation week was the only module levels in there were things like how to turn in expense reports. They got the, the new people set up on the company insurance, gave us a little bit of the company history, gave us some getting-to-know-you games with the other new hires. But there was, uh, there was zero training on the actual work that we would be doing.
And then at the end of orientation, they said, next week, uh, you will go out to client sites And they assigned us each a client location. They said there’s already a team in place where each of you will go, so you won’t be on your own. That was good news. And today at the end of orientation, you need to go down to our travel department and they can get you set up with airfare, hotel, rental car, all that stuff. And I said, okay, that sounds great.
But I asked, I was like, this team that I’m joining, They will show me what to do when I get there? Because I’ve tried to be as clear as I can through interview process and this week, like, I have never used this software that y’all implement for other companies, and I’ve certainly never gone through an implementation myself. So they are going to show me what to do when I get there? Oh yeah, they said, they’ll show you. I’m like, okay, you want to fly me across the country to do a job I don’t know how to do?
Like, sure, why not? So I arrive, first day on the job, and there really was a team already in place as promised. It’s a good start. They get me a badge. Wonderful.
They show me where the coffee maker is. Important. Direct me to my workstation. Set me up with a login to the client system. And then they said, let us know if you have any questions.
Well, as a matter of fact, just one question. What am I supposed to do? I was woefully unprepared to enter that workforce, and I hope your first day on your first job was not anything like mine. But for all of us, there was a moment where we switched from learner to doer. And maybe our classroom experience prepared us for what we were gonna be doing first day on the job, or maybe there are a lot of you who are like me, zero idea what the expectations were.
But all of us went through a transition between being taught, receiving information, to producing on our own. And not everyone makes that transition, do they? Parents who have kids graduating from college kind of hold their breath, see what’s about to happen. Parents are thinking, I’ve poured so much into you for the last 20-plus years, and now I, I really want to see you spread your wings and soar, like go out and live your life, like find your groove. And of course, many college graduates make that jump, and of course, many college graduates don’t.
There’s a failure to launch. Here’s the question for us today: is there a similar need for our faith to launch? Is our faith in Christ just something that we receive like a student? We come to church, we listen, we study, we learn, someone else is paying the bills. All of that is wonderful.
We pray everyone has some experience of God here, but is that it? Or does there come a moment where we switch from simply listening and learning to also doing and producing? Jesus’ disciples had to make that switch If this is your first week here, we have been studying the book of Mark for the last couple months, and we have followed Jesus around basically from the vantage point of one of his disciples. And the disciples have seen Jesus teach, they have seen him heal people, perform miracles, push evil away from people. The disciples have seen it all, they have heard it all, they have learned, they have been students of Jesus.
Which, hey, if I’m honest, that sounds like a pretty good deal. I would love that. It would be wonderful to learn at Jesus’ literal feet. That would be amazing. But was that it?
Just learn and watch and follow? The end? Keep learning, watching, following? I mean, I’m sure they had internal growth. It says they were amazed.
They probably experienced peace. I’m sure they felt close to God. God, fantastic, but is that all there is to it? Just consume? Or was Jesus’ plan for his followers at some point to step out of the classroom and onto the field, so to speak?
And of course, we already know the answer. Jesus plans for all of his followers, the disciples back then, us today, all of us. Jesus plans like a good parent. He plans for us to launch. The classroom is not the end of the road.
The classroom is preparation for Jesus’ followers to go out on the field, and that is no surprise. But what we might not know, uh, is that Jesus and his disciples were following a familiar pattern of first-century rabbinic education. Um, rabbis, all rabbis had disciples. The term disciples was not unique to Jesus, and it worked like an apprenticeship. At some point, disciples would go out on behalf of the rabbi they studied under as the rabbi’s representative.
They would say, my teaching is of this teacher. I have been given authority to go out on his behalf. It’s like I’m a licensed franchise of that guy. And as we today would expect uniformity between different franchise locations— all Starbucks should look the same and taste the same right, so would first-century Israelites whenever they listened to the disciples of a particular rabbi. So with Jesus, Peter should be doing the same things, saying the same things as John, as Matthew, and all of them should be doing what Jesus had done.
Consistency across the organizational tree would be expected. That is not new. The teaching, the structure, the apprenticeship The worship structure, not new. But the message was. Jesus’ message largely had to do with the kingdom of God coming to earth.
Jesus said in Mark chapter 1, it says, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, the time is fulfilled. Like, it is now, it’s happening amongst you, and the kingdom of God is at hand. And believe the gospel. That’s His message. He is talking about heaven breaking through to earth.
The kingdom of God has come. It is here. It is at hand. He is even saying, it is Me. And consequently, Jesus is saying, you have a choice.
You can keep going the way of the earth and its corruption, or you can renounce the world, the kingdoms of the earth, the ways of the world. You can reject the way the world behaves. You can renounce all of that and accept a different kingdom, the heavenly kingdom. Again, he’s saying, it’s me. So which kingdom will you be a part of?
That’s what repentance is, saying no to the worldly kingdom, yes to Jesus’ kingdom. And that was largely Jesus’ message. So we would expect when the disciples go out, they would be teaching and doing the same message, which they do, and that’s our text for today. So as we study this section of Mark chapter 6, we will see a foretaste of the kingdom to come, how the kingdom advances, and finally the reality and futility of opposition to Jesus’ kingdom. A foretaste of the kingdom to come, how the kingdom advances, and then the reality and futility of opposition to what Jesus is doing.
So first, a foretaste of the kingdom to come. In Jesus’ kingdom, there is no sin, no evil, and no suffering. No sin, no evil, and no suffering. Again, Jesus’ message was largely heaven has come to you. The kingdom of God has come to you.
It is here now. And therefore, with Jesus, people saw an overturning of all the ways of the world. They saw a reversal of decay and destruction, right? Jesus healed people physically. They saw Jesus cast out demons, as they saw Jesus cast out evil, and they saw the reversal of sin when Jesus called people to repentance, right?
Jesus said, renounce the ways of the world and embrace the ways of my kingdom. So with Jesus, we get to see what heaven is like: no sin, no evil, no suffering. With him, heaven is here But at the same time, that heavenly kingdom is overlapping with the old kingdom, so we still have to deal with sin and evil and suffering. But the goodness of Jesus’ kingdom will eventually win, and it will completely eradicate everything from the old kingdom eventually. That was Jesus’ message.
That was his work, his ministry. That’s what his disciples had been training to do. So when the disciples go out as licensed franchises of Jesus, we would expect to see the same thing from them, and we do. Verses 12 and 13, like Jesus, the disciples called people to repentance. Like Jesus, they pushed out evil.
They cast out spirits that had been tormenting people. And like Jesus, they brought physical healing. They went around restoring everything that was broken in the world because they are agents of Jesus’ kingdom, the kingdom to come. And if we are followers of Jesus, if we are agents of his kingdom, we should be doing similar things. We may or may not be able to lay hands on sick people and see them instantly healed.
Some Christians still have those gifts. That still happens sometimes today, spontaneous healing. So certainly don’t be afraid afraid to try. But did you know the anointing of oil was actually their best shot at medicine of the day? They thought this anointing of oil you see in the passage, they thought there was all kinds of medical uses for oil.
So they’re really applying medicine to people, which means whether we have the gift of healing or not, all of us have in our power to make people’s physical lives better, to alleviate suffering in the world. And you can just ask yourself, Who do I know who is in pain and what can I do about it? Right?
All of us have people that we could think of in 4 seconds who are in a position of pain. People who you work with, people in your family, your friends, even the environment. Are all of them completely free of pain? Of course not. And then the question is, how can I help?
I may not be able to totally eliminate the problem, but I can do something. So how can I help? If we are agents of heaven, we should bring restoration to everything we see. We can help somehow. We have events at Bridges all the time to help put the world back together.
Steve is still adding people to take to Brazil this summer. We heard last week how we can help with Real Options. If we’re followers of Jesus, we should be involved in the physical restoration of the broken world. And similarly, all of us have it in our power to call people to repentance. We can tell those around us, there is a better way.
There is another kingdom. You have a choice. You don’t have to participate in the ways of this world. We probably have 85 opportunities to do that every day. There is so much pain and confusion in our world as a result of searching for worth or identity.
Around here, people tie so much of their self-image to accomplishments or knowing more than other people. It shows up when people are so defensive when they’ve done something wrong. People so desperately need to prove it wasn’t their fault fault and they scramble for some kind of excuse? You probably saw that 4 times this week, and if you see someone doing that, you can say, you don’t need to be blameless to have worth. There is a different way.
There is a different kingdom. You can be free from that scramble. You don’t have to fight for acceptance. Jesus fought it for you. You can have infinite approval.
Even when you are full of blame, even when you don’t deserve it, you don’t have to justify yourself for your mistakes. You can just be forgiven. There’s a totally different way of living in this world. So, renounce this other way that leads to just more and more and more insecurity and emptiness and turn to him. That’s repentance.
All of us probably need to do it every day. And if we’re agents of heaven, We should offer that heaven to people everywhere we go all the time. But notice with Jesus and his disciples, it’s not calling to repentance or bringing physical restoration or confronting evil. It’s all 3 at the same time because they go together. The disciples never meet a physical need without also addressing spiritual needs.
Needs for repentance, because doing just one of them would not be the fullness of the kingdom. There is a connection between repentance and restoration, and it is not some kind of quid pro quo, like if you repent, oh, then you can have restoration. That’s not, that’s not exactly it. The connection is that sin, evil, and suffering are all markers of the old kingdom, and goodness, healing, and life are all— and holiness are all markers of Jesus kingdom, and we either swallow one or the other. It’s a package deal.
We get all of one or all of the other. There is no dual citizenship between kingdoms because they are incompatible. We can’t drink poison and hope for health. It’s incompatible. We can’t dance with evil and somehow hope evil will leave our lives.
Is incompatible. We can’t walk in darkness and hope to find light, right? It’s one or the other. There is no way to experience the total restoration of the physical world to come without abandoning this world and its practices. We would like to think, probably all of us try quite frequently, can’t I just keep doing whatever I want and still experience, you know, the everlasting goodness and life with God?
Can’t I do that? Can’t I make up my own ideas of right and wrong and still get God and the physical restoration of the entire world? And the answer is no.
That’s actually been tried before. That’s what our first ancestors did. They tried to go their own way and keep the goodness of the world that God had originally created, and And it’s what brought all the corruption into the world in the first place. So, I don’t know what you’re into. I don’t know what evil you’re playing with.
We’re probably all into something, but we cannot pursue anything contrary to God and think it will lead us to God and goodness and wholeness, that we could have uncorrupted life forever. With all the evil we’re dancing around with. It won’t work.
We have to repent.
So, the disciples go out and proclaim this message. It’s the same message Jesus had been proclaiming. They want people to embrace the kingdom. They want the kingdom of God to advance in the world along with its wholeness and goodness, which, of course, is what we want as a church. We want God’s kingdom to expand more and more.
We want Jesus’ movement to advance. We’d love to see baptisms baptisms in here every week. And we don’t just want it for our church, we want it for the whole country, we want the whole world to experience the goodness of heaven come to earth. It was actually Jesus’ last instruction, right? Go into the whole world and make disciples.
Which brings us to our second point. How exactly is it that Jesus’ kingdom will advance? How does his kingdom move forward? Through willing participation. It’s willing participation.
I know you want me to say it’s a work of the Spirit, and that’s true. Don’t worry, we’ll get there. But the biblical idea of conversion, which involves renouncing the kingdoms of this world and accepting the kingdom of Jesus, the biblical idea of conversion is never coerced. Jesus says here, verse 11, if you go somewhere and you tell them the way it is, and they don’t want to hear it, shake the dust off your feet and leave.
You can’t force anyone into the kingdom, which gives freedom to people who hear the message of Jesus. We can’t make people Christians. We can’t even make people act like Christians. Christianity doesn’t win converts at the point of a sword. Although, full disclosure, if you didn’t know, there have been times in Christian history where we have tried that approach.
Crusades, conquistadors trying to advance God’s kingdom, like, through the power of the government. It has been tried, but that is not what we see in Scripture.
You may remember Jesus, when Jesus was accused and he was put on trial, the thing that he was accused of was that he was trying to advance his kingdom through like a government takeover. And then Jesus had to set the record straight. This is when Jesus was on trial. His accusers, this is the religious leadership, they claimed that Jesus was a threat to Roman power. They said, hey, Rome, you better pay attention.
Jesus is setting up a new kingdom. People are calling him king. So Rome, You better squash this insurrection while you still can. Jesus is going to overthrow your rule. He’s going to set up His own administration.
Those were the accusations that the religious leadership took to the Roman leadership. So, they get Jesus on trial and Pilate, the Roman governor, asks Him, is that what you’re doing, Jesus? Are you trying to overthrow Rome and set up your own kingdom? And Jesus says, Yes and no. It’s John 18:36.
Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. So yes, I do have a kingdom. I am establishing a kingdom, but my kingdom is not of this world. If it were of my world— of this world, my servants would have been fighting. They’d all have swords if it was of this world.
We would be trying to do an insurrection. They’d have swords, so I wouldn’t be delivered right now. But again, my kingdom is not of this world. Then Pilate ask Him, so you are a king. And Jesus answered, you say that I’m a king.
For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. Not everyone listens to my voice. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. Jesus says, I didn’t come here to fight.
I came here to bear witness to truth. And those who are mine, they will listen. My movement grows by willing participation. Anyone who is of the truth, they will join what we are doing. There is something inside of them that is drawn to me, and when they are drawn to me, everything about their lives will change.
They become entirely new people, and in that way, yes, the world will change. The old way of doing things will be completely overturned. So yes, Jesus tells Pilate, I am a threat, but not in the way you think. My movement will take over, but it will do it without firing a shot. It’ll do it without making anyone do anything against their will.
My movement is after people’s hearts. No sword is needed. No coercion is needed. We just have words.
A completely different way of doing things is here. We hold out that offer to people, and if people don’t willingly participate, we shake the dust off our feet and we leave them be. Heartbreaking as it is to see someone trapped in patterns or ideology of this world, as badly as we want everyone to experience the freedom and joy of Jesus, We can’t force his kingdom on anyone, just like we can’t force rehab on someone. There has to be something inside of us that compels us to leave the ways of this world and to follow God. It is only a work of the Spirit.
See, I told you we’d tie the Spirit in here. So some people hear the message and repent. Some people switch kingdoms. Other people hear the message they shrug their shoulders, they go their own way. And some people, when they hear the need for repentance, the need to switch kingdoms, they actively fight against it.
There are people who hate to hear about a better way to live. They find it offensive that anyone would say, only with words, it’s just words. But some people find it offensive that anyone would say, hey, there’s a better way to live. And they fight against it. But that shouldn’t surprise us.
Resistance shouldn’t surprise us. We see it here in this passage, which brings us to both the reality and the futility of opposition. The reality is there has always been and there always will be until new heavens and new earth get here, there will always be opposition to God’s kingdom. That is the reality. But the futility And the good news about the opposition is that the opposition will only always serve to advance the kingdom.
You can take John the Baptist as a case study. John the Baptist was beheaded by Herod, see a brief reference to that in verse 16, and then we didn’t read on past verse 16 today, but Mark gives a very detailed account of why John was beheaded by Herod. Herod, of course, was the puppet king put in place placed by Rome to rule over Judea, and Herod had a brother named Philip. Their family tree is actually way more complicated than 2 brothers. It’s ancient royalty, so there’s a good bit of intermarriage between family members.
It’s a total mess. But for simplicity of the story, Herod apparently fancied his brother’s wife. He stole her away while Philip was still living. We don’t know what happened to Philip. But we do know he didn’t have his wife around anymore.
So here is Herod, the quasi-king of Israel, essentially sitting on David’s throne, but he is in no way truly representing the traditions or beliefs of the Israelites, the people that he’s supposed to be ruling. He is publicly flaunting his immorality, being married to Philip’s wife. It’s no secret. He’s not trying to cover it up. Everyone knows.
You might call it a scandal, but Herod wouldn’t. Herod thinks it’s great. We don’t know how many Israelites were ever willing to say something directly to Herod. They probably gossiped about it all the time. But we do know at least John the Baptist talks directly with Herod about it repeatedly.
He says, it is not lawful for you to be married to your brother’s wife. You’re supposed— that’s the rules of Israel, not the rules of Rome. You’re supposed to be king of Israel, for crying out loud. Like, what are you doing? So, as a result of John’s call to repentance, Herod puts John in jail.
But then from the jail cell, John just keeps calling Herod to repentance. He’s like, this is not the way, Herod. For some reason, Herod kept visiting him. John kept saying, like, this is just going to lead to more and more disorder and drama and pain for everyone. Scripture teaches marriage is one man, one woman forever, and sex is limited to that context.
That’s the biblical way, Herod. That’s still the way today, by the way. John didn’t know this, but there is actually a recent study, you can look it up, just from a month ago, it’s hot off the press, entitled The Myth of Sexual Experience, and it links the number of sexual partners before marriage to the level of stability in marriage. And surprise, the most stable marriages are the ones where both spouses were abstinent before marriage. John didn’t have that data, but he still says, look, Herod, there’s a better way.
You’re just grabbing at whatever your heart desires in the moment and it is destroying everything. Think of your brother Philip.
I’m sure, Herod, you think it’s more fun or something, but it’s just making everything more complicated and dramatic and painful. Repent, turn from the patterns of this world, receive the life and goodness and wholeness that God offers, right? It’s just words. John can’t force Herod to do anything. He’s not going to try to go up a higher authority in Rome to try to make adultery illegal or something.
He’s not forcing— there’s no way for him to implement, like, biblical values on top of Herod. It’s just an offer. It’s an offer to a different life. But the words by themselves were offensive enough that John was eventually executed. It seems Herod’s wife, Herodias, was much more bothered about John’s words than Herod, so she schemes a way to get John the Baptist killed, and then he is.
Herod orders him to be beheaded. That’s the reality of opposition. If you are pointing people to God’s kingdom, there will be opposition. Not from everyone, not always in the same degree. Sure hope none of us ever get beheaded, but there will be opposition, guaranteed.
But here’s the good news: no matter what anyone does to you, no one can stop the redemption that God is bringing into the world. John 16:33, Jesus says, in the world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world. John the Baptist had some trouble, to say the least. He was silenced, but the message of the kingdom was not silenced. The message of the kingdom actually increased after John was beheaded.
Herodias has got to be thinking, I thought I stopped the problem. We killed John. That should have shut everybody else up too, but now there’s even more people out here calling for repentance. Jesus has released his disciples on the world, and that’s always the way it is. Evil is real.
It tries to stop what God is doing, and it thinks it wins, but it doesn’t, ever. Of course, the ultimate example of that, the climax of the story, is later on when the religious leaders thought they could shut down the entire Jesus movement if they executed Jesus. But did Jesus’ execution stop the movement? It certainly looked like evil had won. The one who claimed to be the Son of God had died.
An onlooker would have said, count 1 point for Team Evil. I mean, if you take God out, that’s a pretty big deal. Seems like darkness had won. Seems like false accusations had won. An innocent man had been killed, and yet what the religious leaders intended for evil, God intended for good, namely the salvation of the world.
The crucifixion was precisely God’s plan. Evil didn’t mess up anything. Jesus bore the penalty, what we owe for the evil that we have participated in. He suffered in our place so we could be free from the judgment that we deserve. And then when he rose to life again, he showed that death, the death that we deserve, was really defeated.
The darkness we’ve embraced was overcome. Light really won. Life really won. Goodness really won. God will always win, no matter how dark it looks to get today.
God always only allows evil to accomplish the exact opposite of what it is trying to accomplish. Evil never wins in the end. Darkness never wins. If it appears to win, just wait. The story isn’t over yet.
God is going to turn around whatever evil tries to do to be used for the goodness and restoration of the world, always. Now, there are 2 groups who need to hear that, especially, at least 2 groups. One group carries around a lot of fear and anxiety that the world is going to hell and we can’t do anything about it. A lot of fear and anxiety of the state of the world. If that’s you, you don’t have to raise your hand.
I already know who you are.
But you need to hear God is going to win.
Go read the end of the story.
It’s for sure. Whatever evil tries to do in the meantime is just going to be used to overturn what it’s actually trying to do. Our job is just to keep offering kingdom to people. Some people will say yes. Some people will say no.
Some people get mad, fight against us, but God will use all of that for the restoration of the world. That’s one group. It is going to be okay even if they behead all of us. It is going to be okay.
The other group who needs to hear God is going to win are those of us who are playing with evil. If we are resisting God, if God is bringing onto our hearts some conviction for some sin and we are fighting against Him, We want to go our own way. We don’t want to listen to God’s way.
And for those of us who think that, we need to hear, that won’t end well.
You won’t win.
Going down that path will lead to your destruction and the destruction of others. And you have 2 choices. You can keep doing what you’re doing, acting in defiance of God, and you will spiral farther away from his goodness. Goodness. And ultimately, if you never turn around, you will lose the possibility of the goodness of God forever.
That’s what hell is. It’s the rejection of God. And if that’s what you want, he’ll let you have it. If you want to walk away from light and you want to walk toward darkness, God is not going to force you to turn around, and you will only have yourself to blame. That’s one choice.
The other choice is to answer his call, to receive his goodness, to say, okay, Jesus, I’m in. Thank you for paying the penalty of my rebellion. I don’t want to rebel anymore. Like, I want to be with you, like, like always and forever. I don’t ever want to be without you, even though I’m sure I will stray.
I know I will. I know I’ll need your forgiveness, like, all the time. But please don’t ever let me go. Hold me close to you, God.
God. If you’ve never told him that, tell him today, and then we’ll get you baptized. Let’s pray. Father, thank you for coming, uh, to rescue us. Thank you for sending Jesus that we may have a way to turn from the darkness that we have created.
I pray, Lord, that the work of the Spirit will be in all of our hearts, that we would find you compelling that we would want to go your way, that we would willingly jump into what you’re doing in the world, Lord. Show us that we need forgiveness. Show us that we need redemption. Show us the pain and suffering that darkness brings ultimately, always, and let us joyfully receive the forgiveness that Jesus offers. May we turn to him, love him, and cling to him forever and ever.
It’s in his name we pray. Pray. Amen.
