Mark 4: 26-29 January 30, 2009

Interpretation: 

The kingdom of God. We’ve heard Jesus describe in the past two parables the word and the sowers of the word. ‘The word’ is news of His new kingdom. The news of this kingdom was exciting to the Jews because at this time, King Herod and the Romans were wreaking some havoc in their homeland. News of a new kingdom God conjured ideas of revolution and warefare and overthrow and this messiah was its commander. However in this verse Jesus breaks down exactly what His kingdom is going to be like.

He uses the analogy of a seed that is scattered on the ground. The farmer goes about his life and the seeds take root and grow. When the farmer looks at the ground he sees dirt. But under the dirt the seeds are active and eventually they push through the ground and feed the farmer. This is representative of God’s kingdom. The kingdom wasn’t going to come in a swift revolt or a long war. Jesus’ kingdom was spiritual and and was slowing advancing against the adversity that surrounded it.

Then in verse 28 Jesus describes a kingdom that will come in stages. First the blade then the ear then the full grain in the ear. Essentially Jesus’ kingdom comes in stages. It wasn’t all at once it isn’t finished. The full glory of God’s kingdom is building. The global church as we know is a stage of that kingdom. In verse 29 the harvest is immediately had once it has grown to its largest stage. Meaning that once this kingdom of God has reached full glory it will be reaped by God. 

Application: 

There are times when we get taken by the grinding monotony of church. At least, I find myself bored or tired at how things seem so the same and so repetative.  Well I should say I did feel that way. 

But there is a myth that this is it. That this church is all we’ll ever know. That one day after our ears are done ringing from all the hymns a we can stomach and we die comfortably in sleep we’ll end up in heaven. Some of us fear that even heaven will still be the same ‘Glory Glory Halleluiah’ we’ve heard our whole lives. But the truth is God’s kingdom is growing itself and building itself.

All around us God’s glory is mounting. And eventually it will all culminate in the grand finale He has planned (check out the book at the back of your Bible). After all this His kingdom will be completed. It will be a thousand times more amazing than the white clouds and golden gates we’ve imagined. It will be so amazing we’ll have a hard time discussing anything other than God’s glory.

The question we have to ask ourselves is this, and here’s your application:

Is the culminating Glory of God’s Kingdom worth it? Your first answer was probably yes. But here’s the challenging thought – how many people are suffering before this kingdom comes? How many people are being raped and tortured? How many people die without hearing the Gospel? How many people die period? It’s been two thousand years since Christ left His Kingdom to build on earth. After really assessing the cost, we need to be supportative of God’s kingdom even if we think its coming to slowly.

Mark 4: 21-25 January 29, 2009

Interpretation:

Jesus tells a parable about a lamp. Ultimately this parable is about how the Word divides and separates belief from unbelief.

The lamp and the light are the news of God’s new kingdom in men’s hearts. The lamp, the word,  should obviously not be put under a bed (see above image).  A lamp is meant to illuminate.  When we spread or preach about the salvation Christ has to offer nothing is hidden. It cuts to our core. If the person listening is hard of heart it becomes exposed. If the are open to than it is also obvious. If not to us then definitely to the Lord. He reinforces this with verse 24-25 when reminds us to pay attenition to the second part of this.

The measure in which you hear and receive the Word determines your understanding of it. I look at this as God’s sifting of those who believe and those that do not. If you do believe and seek to receive and understand the Word, not only are you given the word but the Holy Spirit indwells you and illuminates the bible and your life to increase your understanding of God exponentially. However if you do not have a heart to hear Gods word your understanding will become so confused that at a certain point you cannot understand God’s message.

If you seek the God your understanding will be increased. If you don’t it will be decreased. And whichever person you are, you’ll be exposed to the Lord as such because the exposes what is hidden.

Application:

This passage is both encouraging and frightening. If you seek God your understanding of Him will increase. In fact, God Himself will dwell inside you and illumante things you would never imagine that you’d understand.

Because, again, this parable is more about God’s reign over our hearts (salvation / faith /etc.) I find it dealing with believers and those who don’t believe more so than the various grades of christian faithfulness. The application can certainly be made that the more we pursue Him the more understanding of Him we’ll have because that is the Christian walk, pursuit of Christ. It is a Promise He’s made many times; the more we pursue Him the more spiritual understanding and presence He’ll pour onto us. But the Holy Spirit lives inside of believers! So instead of focusing on the pursuit of holiness lets apply the meaning of the parable: how the Word divides and separates belief from unbelief.

Let the Light Do the Dividing: This parable gives a believer an awesome hope that we take for granted. When we peach the truth about our salvation through Christ we, in at the very least a cursory level, can discern what people think about it. The light has a way of exposing a man’s true heart; who they really serve. But the hopeful aspect of this discerning is that it’s not you doing it – it’s the Word. Like a lamp that exposes the darkness the word exposes the darkness of the world. And once it has determined which is which it acts in one of two ways: pouring understanding or taking understanding away.
It’s that easy! We just preach the truth and He does all the hard work! This week, when you find yourself in converstation with someone about God, share the truth in love and let the Lord handle the rest.

Mark 4: 10-20 January 28, 2009

Interpretation

We discussed the parable in general in yesterday’s post. In Mark 4: 10-20 the apostles and those with them ask Jesus to explain the parable. It’s important to mention that before He explains the parable He relays the purpose of parables.  Parables are essentially stories that convey a hidden spiritual message that is clear to the faithful and hidden to those who are not. But Jesus explains this one to His disciples and consequently to us.  He breaks it down like this:

Sower is sowing the word and people are the soil: This sower is clearly Jesus Christ and those who heard Him are the soil. This sower can be looked at as someone who is faithfully preaching the word.

Soil devoured by birds: This represents a person who is indifferent to the truth.  Someone who hears the word of God and the devil easily plucks it away from them. I imagine this person as a NASA employee who sees God’s amazing creation in detail and knows there is a God but who’s atheistic ideology or belief immediately dismisses it.

Soil that is shallow: This represents someone who is excited about the word and hears it with joy but is poorly rooted in the truth. I imagine this person as a camp christian. Someone who has heard the truth and is excited but forgets God once they leave camp ultimately showing their faithfulness.

Soil choked by thorns: This represents someone who hears the word but the desires of the world choke it. This is someone who hears the word. Knows it to be true, maybe even acknowledges that it is true but because of infatuation with sin ignores it anyway. This is someone who loves premarital sex so much that they refuse to follow the Word.

Soil that is good: This represents the faithful who recieve the word and choose to follow christ and who persist. This is someone who hears the word knows its true and relies on it. They wake up in pursuit of the Lord, seeking to ground themselves in His truth, so they will not be decieved by the enemy or consumed by pleasures of this world. In other words … me (just kidding.)

Application

Christians usually suffer from one of two extremes. Let’s name them the Good Man and the Bad Man.

The Good Man: We all know him/her. They are the ones saying halleluia for reasons other than praising God. The Bad Man hates him because he looks soo good. And the more we look into the Good Man’s life the more reasons stack up to call him a hypocrite. You’re probably a ‘Good Man’ if you hear Jesus’ parable and you immediately think you are the good soil.  The truth is – faithful believers are. But the Good Man lacks humility, honesty, transparency, and grounding in reality.

The Bad Man: Most people fall into this category I think. They are the ones coming to this parable and looking at all the bad soils and saying – this one is me. Or, worse yet, they consider themselves worse than any of those particular soils and think they in ways all of the soils combined. If you are a faithful follower of God and are concerned that you are a Bad Man and all the poor soils be encouraged! Take heart that you are the good soil if you’re concerned about whether or not you’re honoring God in your actions. This extreme can be taken to the point where you hate everyone who doesn’t think they are the dirtiest, most rotten sinner that walked the earth. Again ‘The Bad Man’ is missing the point.

The Christian Man: You are the good soil.  You are an idiot too. This is a Christian Man. You recognize that you sometimes ignore God. You recognize when the enemy tempts you and you give in. You may even recognize that your understanding of God is shallow and it gets you in trouble. But read verse 20 again. The good soil is the person who hears the word and accepts it. Have you? The one who accepts it bears good fruit. Do you? This parable is discussing those who hear the word and have accepted it. Its about the outcome of that acceptance. This is about those who don’t believe and why. If you hear the word, accept it, and pursue it relentlessly you are the good soil.

Which soil are you? This is almost an irrelevant question if you believe. This question is regarding salvation. Are you saved? Yes?

Here’s a better question:

How much good fruit will you yield? 3o fold? 60 fold? 100 fold?

Free Online Bible Resources January 27, 2009

The Electronic Bible

You probably know that you can read the bible for free online. You may not know that almost every english version is available for free.

http://www.biblegateway.com/ – Over 100+ versions of the Bible and 50 languages. Also AUDIO BIBLES.

http://www.bible.org –  The NET Bible (New English Translation) and tons of articles and resources.

I think the most important asset of these online bible’s is their searchablity. You can search the entire word for whatever verse you’re trying to remember or search a passage for a specific word (ctrl+f). If you want to practice… search for the verse ‘God helps those who helps themselves’ and leave a comment on where it is!

The Electronic Preacher

The internet is amazing for many many reasons. One is free access to information. There are thousands of hours of great biblical teaching available to you for free. Pastors everywhere have RSS feeds, Podcasts, and Streaming Video. Heck even Hessel has an MP3 archive of Pastor Rich Cundall’s sermons (http://hessel.org/media_archive.php). Below are a couple resources you MUST take a look at (Click them they’re links). Download their podcasts and listen to an amazing sermon while you’re waiting at the bus stop!

Pastor Mark Driscoll, Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington

Pastor Francis Chan, Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, California

Pastor John Piper, Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Blogs Worth Mentioning

http://eternaltruthworldwide.com/

http://theresurgence.com/blog

http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/

http://churchcrunch.com/

Mark 4:1-9 January 27, 2009

Interpretation:

In this passage Jesus again starts to preach at the sea of Galilee. Except this time the crowd is big enough He needs to get into a boat and preach from the sea. The difference between this and Jesus’ previous ‘escape’ in Mark 3: 7-12 is that He is able to teach this group. Using the boat as a stage Jesus tells many parables and Mark  describes the parable of the sower.

As Jesus himself describes it to the apostles in verse 4: 14-20 the sower sows the word. The following examples of where the seed falls points at different hearers and their downfalls. The last example is of someone who hears the word of God and does it – very similar to Jesus’ point in Mark 3: 31-35. Instead of interpreting this in great detail, since the next 10 verses do so better than I, I’d like to look at some of the particulars of this passage that will give it a bit more depth.

If you’re like me farming is not your bag. The ESV Study Bible had a couple notes on this passage that caught my eye.

Spray n’ Pray Farming: Apparently in them days it was common practice to sow before plowing the field. Meaning a farmer went out into his dingy field and started tossing wheat seeds all over and then he’d start tilling. Today we carefully place each seed (note image above) in prepared soil. This means Christ’s perspective on evangelism was not one grounded in overly selective strategies but in dispensation of the truth over everyone leaving the responsibility on the hearer.

The Bountiful Harvest: Another interesting tid-bit is the amount of wheat the good soil yielded. Jesus said in verse 8 ‘ And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.’ In the ESV Commentary it states that fivefold to tenfold was considered a good bounty from your soil. This means the soil who hears and obeys his word will offer a supernatural or execeptional yield to God.

Application:

We’ll discuss the obvious application of the parable tomorrow: ‘which soil are you?’ But for now lets focus on the sowing itself.

Are you sowing like Jesus sowed? Jesus considered it worth it to preach in a way that wasn’t hyper selective. You do see Christ not speak or speak in parables but remember the context of the passage. So many people want to touch or be healed by Him that the only way He can get them at listening length is to hop in a boat a paddle out. The point is we are not the seed but the soil. This parable is about the onus of spiritual survival being upon those who receive the Word. Christ was preaching and teaching the word at a crowd of many. In effect he was demonstrating the parable. There wasn’t all one soil out that day. That group of people represented the rough field a farmer would sow his seed on before tilling his field.

If your waiting for the perfect audience you’ll wait forever. Christ had an audience of mixed soil but for some reason we expect everyone we tell the word to will recieve and believe or we’ve failed. Here is the application: all our lives we walk on that field and were doing our best to cover it. Now Jesus has plenty of teachings on what to say and how to say it, I’m not telling you to ignore those things, but I am telling you we need to start sowing.

Are you only preaching to good soil? Do you really know what good soil looks like?

Mark 3: 31-35 January 27, 2009

Interpretation:

Jesus and His disciples are still in the same place as verses 20-21,  a home in Capernaum. In this passage Jesus’ family is in the crowd and looking for Him. When the crowd makes it known to Jesus He uses the situation as an opportunity to describe ‘real family.’ Christ explains that whoever obeys, or does, the will of God is His family.

I’ve always looked at the Jesus in this verse as critical towards His parents. As if somehow He was being disrespectful of them. But before Jesus says anything He first looks at who was with Him in verse 34.

34 And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”

Instead of Christ being disrespectful of His physical family in favoritism to His spiritual one Christ was looking at what really is important. At the moment, His physical brothers and physical mother were skeptical of how Christ was approaching ministry. His brothers were without faith. It was only in verse 21-22 that they said Jesus was out of His mind.  His family should have been with Him and amongst the disciples but they were not. This is why He captures the importance of obedience with verse 35.

Application:

You could boil down this passage into one mathematical statement:

Obedience = Christ’s Family

Because Christ says ‘whoever does the will of God’ we know that it can be anyone. Anyone who decides to do the will of God is considered His family. Doing the will of God requires three things:

1. Reading the Word
2. Understanding the Word
   
3. Doing His Will
   

Reading the Word

We need to read the Word. How can you do the will of God without knowing what it is? I don’t have to point out the fact that we need to read the word more than we do. If the first thing at the top of most people’s New Year Resolutions is ‘loosing weight’ the first thing at the top of most people’s spiritual check-list is ‘Read the Bible more.’ But ask yourself, how much do you read the word? More than your homework books? More than the video games you play? More than the bike-riding you do? More time than putting on your make-up? More time than practicing guitar? For most of my life I spent less time reading the bible than I spent brushing my teeth! In order to do the will of God we must learn what it is.

Understanding the Word

This may seem insane… but reading the bible simply isn’t good enough. We need to understand what we read. When I was a younger believer it felt like the bible was written on mars. The English used is sometimes difficult because your bible has, hopefully, been translated from Greek and Hebrew. There are cultural meanings and references that can subtly change the meaning of a passage. There are contextual concerns that stem from an understanding of the historical setting and the character of the author. All this to say that The Word is rich and full and difficult but absolutely worth it. There are tons of resources to help you understand. Free online study tools. Free online bibles. Almost every pastor ever has free sermons and podcasts. I’ll put together a post with some of these resources but understanding the word is the most important part about reading it.

Doing His Will

This, what should be the easiest, is the hardest part.  I can’t remember who said it but a good measure of spiritual maturity is the time it takes from knowing God’s will to doing it.  The shorter that time the more mature you are.

How spiritually mature are you?

W.E.L.D. Adventure Night January 24, 2009

W.E.L.D.

What is W.E.L.D.? Come find out?

Saturday 24th

11:59 pm

Hessel Church in Sebastopol

What to expect – What to bring

You need to expect the unexpected. This is going to be an unbelievable event! Be sure to bring your bible, your sleeping bag, toothpaste, and tooth-brush. Maybe a pillow. Maybe a flashlight. There is just no way to expect what is going to happen. Get amped to here about Hessel’s plans for the college group and young adult groups. It’s been amazing to watch the plans of this unfold we cannot wait to share it all with you

See you there! Don’t forget to DRESS WARM!!!

Mark 3: 22-30 January 22, 2009

Interpretation:

Scribes then come from Jerusalem. They could not deny Jesus’ power. Clearly only God could have done what Christ was doing. The scribes, knowing it was with the Holy Spirit that He cast out demons instead  attributed His power from possession by Satan. Christ refutes them with two parables and then offers stern condemnation.

Satanic Civil War: In verses 23-26 Christ’s asks a simple question. Why would  Satan cast out demons? Was there a civil war everyone was unfamiliar with? No. The enemy is united against God.  If his forces were divided the whole of Satan’s united front against God would attack and destroy itself. If that were the case God’s promises of His destruction of the enemy would be false and God cannot be a liar. So Christ reasoned with them that it could not be that the enemy is divided.

A General Bound and Gagged: Verse 27 reinforces verses 23-26. Christ points toward the fact that the enemy’s sphere of influence had finally come to an end. In the wilderness Jesus illustrates to Satan that there was one man without failure – who was good and without blame – Himself. Christ makes the Godly claim that he had defeated their general and cast him aside. Satan himself couldn’t overtake Jesus. Now that it was clear that this ‘strong man’ (Satan) was bound (by being defeated by Christ) Jesus could plunder (build His kingdom) his house (Satan’s control over the earth).

Then Christ drops a sun-like fire bomb:

“28 Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— 30 for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”

This passage freaks people out. If it does – that’s a good thing. There are about 4 different rationales of what this passage means.  The unforgivable sin has 3 parts :

1. A clear knowledge of who Christ is (the Son of the Living God) and the Holy Spirit working through Him.
   
2. A willful rejection of this knowledge.
   
3. Then slanderously attributing the Holy Spirit’s work in Christ to Satan.

Application:

If you’re like me you hold yourself as an example of all that is bad in the bible. In all of Christ’s parables I think I’m the one who is destroyed. But the fact is that our salvation is held safe by the Lord. There is no power of sin that the Lord cannot overcome. How come then an unpardonable sin? Here’s an answer from Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology pg.506-509:

In this case it is not that the sin itself is so horrible that it could not be covered by Christ’s redemptive work, but rather that the sinner’s hardened heart puts him or her beyond the reach of God’s ordinary means of bringing forgiveness through repentance and trusting Christ for salvation. The sin is unpardonable because it cuts off the sinner from repentance and saving faith through belief in the truth.

To explain these passage from Dr. Grudem a little better – his point is not that Christ can’t save that person but that the person has looked at God’s gift seen it as absolutely true and real and purposely rejected it. These is someone that has heard the good news and believes and someone who has seen miracles but still chooses to give God the finger.

Are you afraid this is you? If you are that means you still desire to please God. You cannot desire to please God in ANYWAY for this to be you.

If you are afraid how can you change and serve God today?

Mark 3: 13-19 January 21, 2009

Interpretation:

This passage is pretty straightforward. Christ has removed Himself from the crowd via boat. He goes up a mountain, Mark doesn’t identify the mountain, and He invites select disciples to follow Him up the mountain. After they meet Christ he sets aside 12 of the disciples to become apostles. A simple way to keep ‘disciple’ and ‘apostle’ straight is to remember a disciple is a follower of Christ and an apostle is one sent out by Christ.

Then the 12 apostles are listed:

1. Simon (Peter)
2. James the son of Zebedee
3. John the brother of James
4. Andrew
5. Philip
6. Bartholomew
7. Matthew
8. Thomas
9. James the son of Alphaeus
10. Thaddaeus
11. Simon the Cananaean
12. Judas Iscariot

I say they are ‘listed’ as those named apostles by Jesus because understanding Judas’ position is complicated. But simply here, he is named as an apostle. There will be more on Judas as we progress through the study.

The passage ends with the mention of Jesus’ return home with His apostles and disciples. The same crowd Christ avoided had now returned to His home and were crowding His apostolic entourage so badly they couldn’t prepare dinner or eat. His family, probably trying to save His life, attempted to pull him inside. At this point Jesus’ family thought He was ‘out of His mind.’  Take this for what it is – His family trying to protect Him. There is not, in this passage, much more that Mark is providing.

Application:

This passage, while simple enough, carries a lot of theological baggage and its easy to get caught up in it. There is Judas who is listed as an apostle. There is Mary and her sons’ preception of Jesus being ‘out of His mind.’ But instead of getting mired in theological terminology lets hold ourselves only to what is in scripture and from that draw an application. I see two.

1. The Apostles were Chosen: The apostles were chosen. Simple concept made difficult. Whatever your perspective you have to realize that in scripture men are chosen by God. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, John the Baptist, and now the apostles. The apostles were men  hand picked by God to be His light in the world.  We try to escape this with complex philosophies in order to reconcile the fact that Judas was included in the list. No doubt, these men chose to follow God but Judas chose not to.  No matter how hard we try to make it about us and about choice let these verses stand true: ‘13 And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. 14 And he appointed twelve’
2. His family wrongly tried to protect Him: If you’re are following Christ, at some point you will be in danger; financial, physical, or relational danger. When this danger present’s itself to you people who love you will try and save you from it. Simply because they love you. Unfortuantely, even if they think us crazy and unwieldy we need to stay the course. If the scripture is clear on something and your doing it and your in danger that is. If they are trying to save you from doing something stupid and extra-biblical heed their warnings. However, if the Lord has been clear about something it is your utmost duty to follow Him.

Mark 3: 7-12 January 20, 2009

Interpretation:

After Christ defies the false law of the Pharisees he leaves town with His disciples. Christ tells his disciples to set up a  getaway boat. The escape was prompted  by massive crowds wanting healing and demonic testimonies he wanted to avoid. I thought initially that this passage painted Christ like a coward. Why is He running, and avoiding these people? I thought it was out of Christ’s character to avoid the risk of being crushed like in verse 9. There are two crucial things to understand about this passage before you can assess Christ decision to get out of town; the increase of Christ’s fame and Christ’s real role as shepherd.

1. Messiah vs. Hordes: It’s important to understand that, given the areas mentioned in verses 7 and 8, Christ has become a well known person at the time. His ministry had grown from a Galilee centered tour to nation sweeping phenomenon. This man was healing and forgiving sins and people knew about it. Even areas that were primarily gentile are listed as pursuant of Christ for healing. The sheer amount of people, all more interested in healing than Christ himself, probably motivated Christ to get out of town. Mostly for the second reason.
2. The Real Mission: Christ’s mission wasn’t to come make people comfortable. He wasn’t here to become a physician. He was here as the great physician – a spiritual one. What were these people after? Christ’s teaching? His love? No, I think the evidence given that they all reaching for His cloak point towards their motive; they would have his healing. Does this match Christ’s mission? No. It was an outpouring of His characteristic love, but the healing was not the point.

If you take Christ’s mission to heart and then look at this passage it makes sense. He wanted to continue and move and preach the good news, that He had come.

Interpretation:

What do you want from Christ? Harrowing question isn’t it. What do you pray for?

This question haunts me because while we all understand the right answer our real answer lingers at the tip of our tongues. We want heaven. We want protection. We want safety. We jobs. We want girlfriends. We want healing. We want college. We want a lot. And like heavy smoke in a small room forces its way into our nostrils we can’t help but think about our ‘needs’ that are really our ‘wants.’ I will no doubt face criticism for this view, but isn’t begging God for these things selfish? Even heaven is selfish if in your understanding it is the end and Christ is the means. It is an understandable transaction, a fair one, to exchange gold for fine services. So ‘cashing in’ on Christ’s sacrifice for personal gain is understandable- but it’s still selfish.

So again the question: What do you want from Christ?