Transformed Life: John Mark

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It's good to see you all.

How are you all doing this morning?

Hey, okay, that's good.

You guys look good this morning.

Thank you.

I was waiting for that.

Okay, very good.

Very good.

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Once in a while, I mean, yeah, me and Spencer are matching more or less.

And so yeah, great, great, great Sunday.

You guys can open up to, you guys can open up to Mark 14.

We've been going through a series that has been talking about being transformed.

And the truth about transformation is that sometimes there's transformation that is sudden and it is immediate and it is obvious and people are forever changed.

You can think about, you can think about Paul potentially in the Bible as somebody who was persecuting Christians to then being somebody who with one interaction with Jesus changes his life forever.

You can look also at somebody like Peter, who we looked at him a few weeks ago, man, it's going on a month almost now, but he went from someone who was a dutiful follower to someone who identifies and is motivated by the cross.

Then we looked at the life of John as somebody, this was in house church, if memory serves from somebody who was a son of thunder to someone who identifies as being the disciple whom Jesus loved.

And we said that there are characteristics in all of our lives that God totally eradicates when we become Christians and he's trying to fight to, hey, you cannot be this way.

I'm super rude, disrespectful, fill in the blank.

But then there's also characteristics that God uses in your life to refine you a little bit.

And John was someone who was quick to, was quick to shoot.

He becomes somebody who's very meticulous in the way that he shoots, but you can read in first John and when we looked at it in house church, he does shoot though.

Last week, this is actually by happenstance, it wasn't something that me and Kyle had talked about, but he talked about Zacchaeus as somebody who went from this empty tax collector to somebody who is filled with repentance.

The story of Zacchaeus last week was one that was abrupt, right?

It was shockingly so.

We don't, we're not told it, we're told that he's in a tree and then at some point he decides from the tree, he comes down, he brings you and he says, I'm going to totally repent.

Whatever I, if I've wronged anybody, I'm going to stop doing that from now on.

But I'm also not only going to stop wronging people, I'm going to pay back everybody that I've wronged.

The narrative today is a little bit different than that though.

Instead of this abrupt change, I want to put before you that the change of, of this man was one that was much more gradual, the one that he had an exposure and an understanding of Jesus, of faith from a young age.

And there, there was a lot of transformation that had to occur in different moments and different times.

I think this is going to speak to anyone who's, who grows up with some sort of faith.

Maybe you grew up with a Christian faith, maybe it's in this fellowship of churches or maybe in a separate fellowship of churches, but perhaps you've struggled to jump in entirely, or there's something that's lacking or something that is holding you back for whatever reason.

This is going to speak to you, or that's the prayer this, this morning.

I believe you'll look at the life of John Mark and see there's characteristics in you that you can relate to him with.

And so we're going to go through this.

And so work with me here.

We have this interaction where we meet John Mark.

This is not the way that anybody would choose to meet a character in the Bible.

It says in Mark 14, this is Jesus.

Right now he's on his way to be crucified and it, this is Mark writing.

So when we say John Mark, there's, there's one other interaction or one other experience basically that, that writes his name is John.

Otherwise he's called Mark.

He's the one who wrote Mark and he wrote it from a Peter's narrative, basically.

He's kind of Peter's communicator in that way.

It says a young man wearing nothing but a linen garment was following Jesus.

When they seized him, Jesus, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind.

And so the first time we get to see and interact with Mark, it's, it's him naked.

As a young man, this is one of the most desperate times.

How do we know it's Mark?

Well, most theologians will say in the same way that a great artist will paint himself as one of the background images of the background people, just his little signature.

You'll say that people agree that, that he's talking about himself right here.

He's an unnamed man, but he's talking about, Hey, I was that guy.

And you think about this is, you know, many years over 30 years after this experience actually occurred.

Think about the security in Christ.

You must feel if you're going to say without any context that, Hey, I was the guy that, that fled naked, basically.

This is the first time that we see him.

And we'll, we'll keep going though.

It's now, now we go to a spot where we get to meet his mother.

There's at least now an eight year gap in a period, Jesus rose from the dead.

And there's been a series of years and a series of time where, where, where there's this, this growing of the church to, to, to some extent, but we get to, we get to meet his mother here in verse 12, it says when they, when this had dawned on him, this is talking about Peter.

Now Peter's in jail.

The disciples are praying for him and the jail miraculously opens when this had dawned on him.

He went to the house of Mary, the mother of John also called Mark where many people had gathered and were praying Peter, not that the outer entrance and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door.

When she recognized Peter's voice, she was so overjoyed.

She ran back without opening it and exclaimed, Peter's at the door.

And so this is, this is now work with me here where we're getting to know a little bit about, we're getting to know a little bit about Mark.

He was a guy, certainly a little bit older at this time, his, his mom had some kind of faith.

There was a little bit of exposure to it.

He probably didn't have the greatest understanding of all of the struggle, but he was present for some of, some of the struggle.

It's interesting.

It's traditionally thought that this was the house, the house of Mary.

There's a lot of Mary's in Jesus's life.

This is one of just a little brief study, I think about five Mary's at least that are mentioned in different places.

This is another one.

This is not Mary, the mother of Jesus.

This is not Mary of Bethany.

This is a different Mary, Mary, the mother of John Mark.

This woman had some kind of affluence, we're not taught exactly or told exactly what kind of affluence or how she had some money, but she had a house that it was in many traditions will hold that this was the house that Peter actually preached this sermon at Pentecost.

The sermon that said, this is when we've got to turn our lives around and follow Jesus.

He's the one you persecuted and we understand what happened.

So many became disciples from that day.

And so there's some kind of connection and closeness that Peter clearly feels with Mary.

That's the house that he ends up at when he's thinks he's sleepwalking, but it's actually going on that he escapes from prison.

We don't know this.

This is where we're surmising a little bit and we're, we're trying to put some meat on the bones.

But I bet you, you know, John, John, John Mark might've been somebody who was a little bit entitled.

He grew up with enough affluence to have a house that's decent enough size.

He had some experience with Jesus and the gospel.

He probably talked, I could see him talking a little bit above his pay grade.

Like he knows what's going on when he hasn't actually experienced what's going on.

Maybe we've been there.

I know for me, I've been there and I can talk about, Oh, the old days, this is man, the tough, you know, starting a mission team, uh, I was five years old when my parents moved from Milwaukee to Madison.

And so, but to say, we moved here to start the mission team.

I imagine there's some of Mark that would, would say something like that.

You understand a little bit of the struggle, but you've only, uh, you're only struggle adjacent, if you will, uh, there you go, there's a bit of spiritual entitlement.

I, I wonder if when he's interacting with, with people, he says, yeah, yeah, my mom, that's, that's where, for Peter preached his big lesson, no big deal, but you know, uh, yeah, yeah, I was, he, he might not even at that point, he might not even identify that, that he bled naked.

Maybe he's still working through it.

He might say, yeah, I was, I was with Jesus on the last day.

I was there with him.

What happened after that?

Don't worry about that, you know, but I was there, you know, I was one of those guys.

There's a little bit working out maybe, maybe in, in your life and your spiritual journey, you can identify there being moments when you thought you knew a little bit more than you did when there was, there was an entitlement inside of you that felt like, I think I know the answers to this.

I've been around them long enough.

Uh, I haven't, maybe I haven't fully embraced them, but I'm, I'm there.

I've learned about it.

I know the stories.

You can't teach me an awful lot that I haven't already heard all of whatever little Bible books that we've read.

My parents prayed with me when I was young.

I kind of get it.

I've got it.

I know what's going on.

Yeah.

Maybe there's an entitlement inside of your heart, uh, right now that, that says that.

But if anyone wants to become a Christian, like a true follower of Jesus, you have to die to that entitlement.

So now we, we, we see that Jesus, uh, rather that, that, that Mark joins these, these two men on their journey, uh, in Acts, Acts 12 says when Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission, they returned from Jerusalem, taking with them John also called Mark.

And so now you've got whatever kind of intern guy that, that you can imagine, he's still young, younger than these two men, but he's able, he's, he's, you know, brushed up against them long enough.

He said, I want to go.

I want to go.

I want to go so much so that he's, he's actually, he's actually willing, willing to go.

We're going to look at there.

There's a lot of negatives that we can probably identify in the life of Mark.

One of them is not that he was willing, uh, what I, what I want to put before us, how amazing is it?

Uh, we're, you know, we're going to talk about him deserting, but right now we, we, we realized that Mark was somebody who was willing to go, uh, I, I want to challenge us.

You know, I think the desire to be willing to go is often reserved for those who are younger or those who are immature and we identify, there's not a whole lot of wisdom.

You know, I don't know if you got what it takes and yet, uh, there's something so beautiful about being willing to go, uh, you know, I, I, as I think about this work with me here about somebody being willing or the, the idea of somebody not, maybe they count some of the costs or maybe according to the value that they can gain, it's not worth it.

When I think about somebody who is willing in our church, I don't think there's anybody who I think of more than, than Joe lay.

Uh, he's, he's, I know that guy, uh, he, he, he's probably the quickest to say yes of anybody that I've ever met.

And it's yes to things that, uh, where's Joe?

I don't want to, I don't want to, there you go.

It's yes to things that he's not, that he might not be very good at, uh, right.

You want to go play basketball?

Sure.

You want to, you want to ride bikes?

Sure.

You want to go do an open mic comedy?

I bet, I haven't asked him yet.

I don't plan to, but I bet you he would say, sure.

Yeah.

Work with me here though.

All that stuff, that's all well and good, but do you want to be on a mission team with a 28 year old who you've never met before?

Sure.

We can, we can look down and we can, we can look down on people who are, who are willing and we can say that they are those who are, they're naive.

They don't know what's going on.

They haven't counted the cost, but, but without people who are willing, we, we'd struggle to go anywhere.

Who are you naturally?

Are you naturally a willing person?

Are you naturally somebody who's, who's willing to go for, willing to try something new?

You know, I, I, uh, this, this false sense of confidence or this, it's, it's almost a, what I would have put before you though, is at some point you were very willing because when you were young, I bet you, you were extremely willing to do virtually anything that somebody asked you to do.

And you probably thought you were the best at it.

Actually, if you, if you talk to a group of, uh, of, of young boys, um, probably from, you know, three, four to about seven, and I've done this and I've done this with boys.

Uh, you know, some of them are like, they can run, they're very coordinated and others, you look at them, you're like, you're going to be, you're going to be alignment, uh, you're, you're a football player.

Uh, would you ask, would you ask any of them who's the fastest, are you doing okay there Owen?

Go ahead and grab a seat, brother.

That was the Lord saying something to you, brother.

You can, you can, you can, any, any kind of shape and build you ask, you get a group of enough little boys together, you say, who is the fastest?

They're all going to raise their hand.

They're all willing.

They all think they're the fastest.

And you look at them, you're like, I know that you're not the fastest.

I'm not sure between you two, but I know you're not, you know, my, my, my, my daughter, uh, we were talking about practicing basketball.

She's three and a half years old.

And she just said, next time you practice basketball, I'm going to come, I'm going to come help you.

And I got really excited as a, as a father, I feel like it's one thing that I haven't shown.

I I'm trying to, I'm trying to, there's a balance.

I don't know what the balance is, but I don't want to like push my daughters into stuff they don't want to do, but I want them to try new things.

And so I was super excited.

This is over, over dinner.

And I was like, yeah, absolutely.

We can do it together.

And she said, no, no, no.

I just need to help you be better.

There, there's, there's this, this willingness though, right?

Or you work with me here, this, this naivety, you can attribute it to that.

Or you can just say this, this person's willing to go.

We need those in our fellowship who are just willing to go.

Don't automatically attribute, uh, if you find your willingness to be lacking, don't automatically attribute it to wisdom before you identify if there's perhaps some cowardice inside of you as well.

Don't attribute to wisdom what is actually cowardice.

Wow.

It doesn't all go well though.

It says, uh, they, they go on this mission and then, um, Acts 13, 13, it says from, uh, Paphos, Paul and his companion sailed to Perga in Pamphylia where John left them and returned to Jerusalem.

So we've got, we've got John, um, John, John Mark.

He he's willing, he goes and, and he fails.

And he failed in, in a more dramatic way perhaps than, uh, than even when he deserted, when he deserted Jesus's side, uh, maybe I'm sure he doesn't leave naked, but he, he likely left that.

This is what people will look at is there's only a few conversions at this time.

And what I want to put before you is that it was extremely inconvenient for him to, to leave.

So here, uh, very briefly.

So underneath here, um, or here, underneath here is Jerusalem where he goes back to, uh, they, from my understanding, they start about here, they, they sail, they preach, sail, preach, they get up here and Mark at some point says, I've got to go all the way underneath, basically underneath here, back to Jerusalem, it was inconvenient for him to leave.

And so you, you'd ask, well, well, why did he do it?

We don't, we don't exactly know why, uh, you know, after this, after this, after this, after this point, um, there's some amazing things that, that happened though there there's, it's difficult, but this is after this point when, uh, Paul and his companions keep moving on on along.

This is where Paul gets, gets, uh, basically rocks get thrown at him.

He gets stoned left for dead.

He gets out of the city and he goes right back in the city.

And imagine, imagine the faith that that's built.

When you see that the guy who I'm alongside with just got beaten up, left for dead.

Then we get them out of the city and he goes back and preaches that same day.

You're leaving feeling like I'm, I'm pretty encouraged.

You know what I mean?

Like we, we've got a dog, we've got a dog here.

Mark didn't get a chance to see that there's, there's more hardship, but, but think about what he missed out on by, by not staying with them.

I have to imagine somebody doesn't, the plans have had to have been laid for Mark to leave or perhaps a series of weeks or months, right?

Think about walking alongside some of your, your close friends, some of your, your idols, those guys in the faith or in whatever career that you're in, that you look up to you're at some point, you're kind of planning, you know what?

I'm not gonna, I've got to get back to where I'm from.

I'm not going to be able to do this.

They're going through difficult times.

Things are not going well.

I'm pretty hungry.

I'm not sleeping that well.

You could fill in, fill in the blank of whatever.

I don't got what it takes.

I betcha, I betcha Mark was probably pretty unsufferable for, for a series of, of weeks to, to Paul and his companions.

I wonder if they're like, man, we got to pray for this dude.

But I don't know.

I'd imagine at some point Paul's like, Hey, this guy better head out.

You know, it's probably better that you just, you just go.

And yet, and yet he decides, he decides to leave, you know, for, for each of us on this spiritual journey.

Some of us have been doing it for many, many years.

Some of us are new in the weeks, months, a year, a year or less, wherever you're at though.

I don't know if you're, you're going to go through a difficult time.

Maybe you're in the midst of what you identify as a very difficult time.

Maybe you're in the midst of what you might identify as the most difficult time of your life, or at least the most difficult time that you've been working with God spiritually.

You've been through harder times, but not, not with God yet.

The call, uh, it's, it's a tough time, but I would say, keep pushing, keep, keep going for it.

Whatever, whatever that looks like.

Don't desert your faith.

Don't desert what you've decided you are going, you are going to do.

There, there's, there's always blessings at the end of the road.

You talk to anybody who has been on a spiritual journey for a series of 10, 20, 30 years, and you ask them, Hey, what's gone poorly in your life and you know what they'll do?

What they'll share about what's gone poorly in their life.

You ask them what's going well in their life, and they're going to keep going on and on and on and on.

These difficult times, they're, they're, they're going to last, but only for only for a certain amount of time.

There's always blessings at the end of the road.

If we're following Christ, amen.

They're not in the way that we'd like to see it.

You know, I don't know if you ask Mark in his worst day and you say, Mark, you're heading back.

Hey, just so you know, uh, Paul's about to get, man, he's about to get some rocks thrown at him.

He's about to get stoned.

Uh, Mark would say, yeah, that's exactly why I'm leaving.

And so you, you, you talk to anybody who's, who's going through difficult times, we're about to go through and it's about to fail and you say, it's going to get harder.

They're going to leave.

But if you talk to Paul about that, or you talk to his companions about the act of him being beaten to a pulp and you say, was it worth it?

Yes.

How do we know?

Yes.

Because in the Bible, it literally says afterwards, there's amazing things.

They worship God.

They said, we must go through many hardships in order to do the work of God.

And Mark wasn't able to say, we must go through many hardships in that time because he chose to bail.

Wow.

Don't do that.

Then we see though that Barnabas, some, some way, shape or form, he wants him back.

Uh, sometime later, Paul said to Barnabas, let's go back and visit the believers and all the towns where we preach the word of the Lord and see how they were doing.

They are doing.

Barnabas wanted to take John also called Mark with, with them, but Paul did not think it wise to take him because he had deserted them at Pamphylia and not continued with them in the work.

They had such a sharp disagreement.

They parted company.

Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and left commended by the believers to the grace of the Lord.

He went through Syria and, uh, Cilicia strengthening the churches.

We've got Barnabas.

We've got Paul.

Uh, want to ask a question rhetorical, but think about it.

Who do you sympathize with more in this, in this passage, you say, all right, Barnabas, what a good dude.

Are you, are you more like, you know what Paul, Paul had his reasons.

I get it too.

Um, the Bible doesn't take a stance on who's right and who's wrong.

I don't think it wise for us to take a stance either because the reality is in some ways they're both right.

Uh, I, right there, there, there, they had a sharp disagreement.

I don't know what it looked like.

I don't, I'd rather disagree with the son of encouragement, which is what Barnabas is known as then.

I've been to disagree with Paul personally.

Um, I'm, I'm a little bit more scared of Paul than, than the son of encouragement, regardless though.

Uh, they're, they're both right.

They're either, either one, you know, Barnabas is, uh, we, we know this from the text.

Barnabas is actually, uh, he, he's actually, he's actually Mark's uncle.

Um, and so there's this, this familial connection, um, and the text says that it's not, it's not me.

I forget where it's a little bit back, but it says that Barnabas is Mary's brother.

Um, I think about, you think about being Mark, what an amazing feeling though, to feel believed in again.

I know I bail.

I know there's some time that passes, I, I, he still believes in me think about being Paul.

And he'd say, you know what?

Good that, that, that you go take them and do your thing.

We've got, we've got a greater mission at hand.

I've got, I've got more to do.

You know, there's times in our lives when people let us down, uh, you certainly you've been somebody who's let somebody down at some point, but there's times when we let, let people down.

Um, I think that the truth is we can be Paul or we can be Barnabas and neither is, I can't tell you, Oh, that's definitely the right way to do it.

That's definitely the wrong way to do it.

We just got to be accountable to it afterwards.

If you want to let somebody back in your life, you want to work with them, you want to help them, you want them to help you, then you've got to be accountable to that.

If you say, you know what, out of, out of love and we'll see it's out of love that I'm going to distance myself a little bit, then you have to be accountable to that as well.

Um, you know, I, what I would say is that, uh, at least for me, maybe you're different, but at least for me in my life, I think I've probably given, uh, my, my missions a little bit more weight and, uh, and in doing so excluded people who probably should have been included.

Um, I'm not, I'm not going to Pamphylia and Cilicia and all these different places.

You know what I'm saying?

I'm, I'm kind of like build up a campus ministry when I was in Milwaukee or I'm trying to build up a church when I'm, when I'm here, I, I would say that I've given my mission too much weight and in doing so I've, I've separated or distanced myself from, from those who could be great help.

Uh, I, I hope you guys don't do that as well.

I think in my, my early, uh, my early days of leadership, it was marred with just an unrealistic view of myself and an impossible standard that no one could measure up to.

Uh, and I, I have names written down here of men who I look back and I've had to apologize to every single one of them.

Uh, I'm sorry for being rude to you.

I was, I was messed up.

I was trying to, my heart was good, but my actions were not good.

I was trying to spur you on, but it didn't work.

And one of these men had to call me, uh, years later and then stuff that I had communicated to him, um, that I really thought I was following advice.

It was done with a sincere heart.

I, I believe that I was trying to help him so much and yet, uh, it just wasn't, it wasn't helpful.

It was, it was rude, disrespectful.

I, I, in, in my leadership, I'd limited his, what he, what he believed he could do so much so that, that four years after I communicated it, he felt the need that he had to call me because there was stuff that he still hadn't worked.

Um, the impact we can have on people is, is immense.

The impact that certainly the impact that all had on, on Mark was immense.

You think that Mark didn't think, man, Paul, Paul doesn't really want me.

Uh, I, and, and what's worse is he said, he doesn't really want me and I actually deserve it.

Uh, cause it's one thing to say he doesn't really want me, that's on him, but he doesn't want me and I deserve it.

We're going to, we're going to bring this in pretty soon here because it's amazing that, that now this is about 25, 30 years after, uh, Paul first meets Mark and he's writing, this is, I believe the last letter that, uh, the latest in chronologically, the latest letter that Paul writes, um, in second Timothy, uh, right towards the end of his last letter that we have, he's asking, uh, for, for people to be by his side, he says, man, I poured out my whole life.

I finished the race.

I've done it.

He says, only Luke is with me.

Get Mark and bring him with you because he is helpful to me in my ministry.

So you look at the trajectory of, of Mark and you see him as being somebody who, uh, deserts, deserts Jesus.

Certainly everybody, every man did it.

It's interesting.

We see that it's pretty likely that the women were the closest to him and the men were the ones that ran away, uh, at the end.

But any, anyways, he deserts Jesus.

He's willing and he goes, he deserts again.

He's on, I'm, you know, in disrepair, I don't, I don't know what to do.

And then Barnabas says, come on, come on, nephew.

I got you.

And he must do a great job, I'd imagine, right?

Because then by the end of Paul's life, he says, come on, Mark, get over here, man.

I really need you.

He's helpful to me in my ministry.

Consider, consider being Mark as you, uh, as you know, as you hear somebody say, Hey, you've got it.

You've got to come over and help Paul.

I think you're dropping whatever you're doing and going to help Paul, right?

Yeah, man.

I can, I can, I can get some, maybe I can see him on his, on his last day.

Maybe I can deal with them when he transcends from earth and his soul goes on to heaven.

I'd love to be there for him in that moment.

Right?

I mean, it must be amazing to just hear what kind of refreshment you'd feel you're useful to the same guy who you bailed, who said, I don't want you, uh, I can't take you along with me anymore.

But you know what?

That it doesn't happen.

If Barnabas doesn't say, come on with me, let's go, right?

If Barnabas doesn't say, come on with me, let's go, then, then this, I don't think is ever written because Mark never proved himself.

Mark never grows.

Mark, Mark, never, uh, certainly nothing to say.

Maybe Mark's stills in heaven at that time.

Fine.

But Mark isn't, I doesn't have the opportunity to then be fully reconciled with Paul.

So what, what does this mean for you?

What does this mean for me?

Good question.

I would say, think of it from these three lenses.

At some point, all of us, all of us are Mark, right?

At some point.

Um, one of us in this room is always Mark McFannin back there.

But some of us, some of us, I'm sorry, sorry.

But, but some of us, some of us are, are, are spiritually, we're, we're Mark.

We got good hearts.

We want to go, but we, we just, we haven't encountered the cost.

There's something that we've, we've not considered and, and, uh, some of us, we've, we've proven ourselves to be unreliable in different areas and aspects of our lives.

Um, I'll say it's not the end, it's not over.

We can look here and say that there's, there's more to come.

Uh, maybe you, maybe you look and you say in some areas and we're, we're, we're Paul.

Uh, and there's truth to that.

We can't bring along everybody every single time.

We have to be focused and at times you have to be okay with hurting feelings, but not forever, just for a limited amount of time.

And then, and then some of us though, uh, probably all of us, and this is hopefully the area, or this is the person that we can most identify with as Barnabas.

Being somebody who sees there's, there's a lot that needs to be done.

Um, but, but looks at people and says, there's potential to be realized.

I see that there's something good that's going to come from this person.

I believe in them.

I'm going to restore them.

I'm going to stick, I'm going to stick myself out on a limb in order to bring them along with me.

You think about Barnabas as he's interacting with Paul's like, no, no, I got this guy.

God's going to work.

He's going to move.

You don't have to trust me.

God, trust me.

We're going to do it together.

What we need to be that for people though, right?

If, if, if the only way that anybody ever saw you was as, as a Mark, um, you wouldn't be where you are today.

If the only way that anybody ever saw you was as a mess up or somebody, especially on the spiritual journey, right?

You can look back.

I bet you, I look back at my time and I don't know why people gave me the time of day.

I don't know why people showed me the grace.

They showed me.

I don't know why they communicated.

I still believe in you.

I have no idea why they did that.

And yet I'm here today because that's exactly what they did.

But I, and I'm here today as well, because there were people in my life like Paul who said not for you and not right now.

Uh, and that motivated me as well.

You know, we need, we need all three of these people in our lives.

I, if I had to identify, if I had to ask you, who's your Mark right now, uh, don't say their name out loud, but, but we ought to have people who are marks who were like, I just see them as, as better than they are.

I just, I know they're going to make it.

I really believe in them.

They're going through a tough time.

They're going to make it.

We need, we need marks in our life because we need to be giving the people we pause in our life that are going to tell us the truth.

And we all need Barnabas's in our life that see us as close to as Jesus and our mom.

See us as possible.

Right.

Yeah.

Maybe my mom might be the one.

Uh, we all need those in our lives at times.

We all need to be willing to be those people.

Uh, you know, I, I, I think, well, this isn't stepping on a limb.

Jesus communicates this the best you can go to Luke nine.

We're going to prepare for, uh, for communion, but the challenge is something for you to consider is where does this, your transformation and what process or what step are you at in, in this transformation?

This was a gradual change over the course of 27 years for, for Mark.

Where are you in that?

Have you, have you grown, uh, are you willing, but you, you lack reliability or maybe you are skeptical and quick to write somebody off wherever you are in, in your journey, whoever you identify with most, go ahead and make efforts to find the other two in your story.

Um, Jesus, Jesus, he says it so well, it's in it's Luke nine 57.

Um, so as they were walking along the road, a man came to him, I'll follow you wherever you go.

This wasn't Mark.

I imagine it's kind of the heart of Mark.

I'm going to follow you.

Jesus replied, boxes of dens and birds of nests, but the son of man has no place to lay his head.

He said to another man, follow me.

But he replied, Lord, first go and bury my first.

Let me go and bury my father.

Jesus said to him, let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.

Still another said, I'll follow you, Lord, but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.

Jesus replied, no one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.

Jesus understands that it's, it's not just one.

It's not just the other.

He does it perfectly.

And he does it in a way to say that certainly those who are willing, you, you've got to grow.

You've got to be, become reliable if you're not there yet.

But if you're not willing, you're not going to be able to experience that the goodness of God in the fullest extent, because he says, follow me in the guy says, I'm willing, but I need to do this thing.

And he says, no, no, no, no, you can't do that.

You can't be half hearted in your followership of me.

And then, and then, uh, another says, I'm going to follow you, but I'm kind of, I'm divided in my interest.

And he says, no, no, no, you need to be fully invested in me.

If you're going to be able to experience the blessings that I have prepared for you.

No, right now, communion is a time in our week where we can identify what's going on in our lives, what the good, the bad, the ugly.

But I think I believe more than that communion is a time for us to really look at Jesus and look at how he perfectly believes in us.

He perfectly calls us to his amazing standard.

He has an immense amount of grace.

We can't even talk about the grace that he has for us, even to allow us to be here, listen to this message that we can pray to him and we don't have to be on our knees and we can say words that almost make it seem like he's our friend because he is, it's, it's audacious.

The, the, uh, the way that we can approach his throne, even as we take communion.

And so this is that time to acknowledge that, that we, we, we can't stand up before Jesus, but we are grateful that he sees us as, as, as we can perfectly be.

Amen.

Uh, right now let's pray.

And, and there's going to be a time of silence after, uh, after we pray that trays are going to be passed.

My encouragement to you guys is, is to consider, uh, to consider your life and consider where you fall short and, and call on Jesus to, uh, to, to deliver you from that and then let's pray.

Dear God, we, we come before you and we are, we are honored.

We are undeserving to call you our father.

The, we, we don't deserve it.

The, the term, the title Holy father is those, those are two, um, juxtaposed words that, that are totally different from each other.

And yet that's, that's who you are to us.

And we're so grateful for your son, Jesus.

We're, we're grateful that you, that you saw us as we could be.

And you saw us as worthy of your blood.

You saw us as worthy to, uh, you, you went above and beyond and in the most difficult trying circumstance, you had every opportunity to turn back and you would have been justified to do so.

And yet you decided these, these people are worthy of my blood.

They're worthy of my loneliness.

They're worthy of my emotional pain.

They're worthy of, of, of me creating a distance, uh, from, from the father to become sin and die and die as fully as sin, we, we don't deserve it.

We, we can't stand up.

If we think about it, Lord, we, we come before you, Jesus.

And we just, we feel so grateful for your sacrifice.

I pray that this, this morning that, that we will, uh, look to you and in, and in looking at you, our lives can be forever different Jesus.

This is in your name that we pray.

Amen.

Thank you so much for listening to the Kalamazoo church of Christ podcast.

If you're in the Kalamazoo area, we'd love to get connected.

Please go to Kalamazoo.church and fill in your information to come to a Sunday service or any other event that we have going on in any case, you'll be hearing from us next week.