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Letter to my Unmarried Sister in Christ

Dear sister,

I write this to you out of concern because it will break my heart to see you settle for less.

Let me reaffirm that the desire for marriage is a good thing. It is a good thing because God himself instituted it. God said “it is not good that man should be alone” and he made the woman. He then mandated both the man and the woman to exercise dominion over the earth.

However, this thought has silently crept into your heart: that marriage is the one thing that will make you happy. You believe that connecting with someone, companionship with someone, having someone – who you think – genuinely cares for you and is kind to you, is the point where your life has reached its zenith.

But I see that by your great desire for marriage, you choose to settle.

Sister, please hear me out. Even though I am a man of no experience, there are things in the Word of God that I have read, along with various other sources that have led me to this conclusion: that this life is not about us. It’s about God. Everything is about God, it always has been.

Look at the Scriptures with me.

Psalm 19:1“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”

Ezekiel 36:23“And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.”

Ephesians 3:10“…so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.”

1 Peter 2:9“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you from darkness into his marvellous light.”

God created the sky and the heavens to show his glory. God wanted to show his holiness to the nations through the nation of Israel. God wants to show his manifold wisdom through the church.

Most importantly, God saved you so that you would be his so that you could proclaim his excellencies.

All these verses are pushing one idea; that all things exist for God. Marriage is no exception.

You know what the apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 5 when he speaks about marriage. He says that marriage is a profound mystery because marriage actually reflects the relationship between Christ and his bride, that is, the church.

Now, do you see, dear sister, why I say you’re settling for less? Because your life is meant to be about making much of God, or in the words of apostle Peter “to proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” and your marriage is to be reflecting the “profound mystery” of the relationship between Christ and the church.

That is why it is of utmost importance that the man with whom you wish to be with, and eventually marry, understands the gravity of all this. If he does not see the high calling we believers have, and if he does not believe in the real purpose of marriage, you will most likely lose your way and worse, sin against God.

We haven’t touched on the fact that the Bible clearly states that marriage with an unbeliever is sin, in fact, I could have just started the letter with that, but God doesn’t just tell us to do or not do something just because it is right or wrong. He does it because he knows that to do right, that is, to follow him is life, and the opposite is death.

Sister, I know these are heart-wrenching words, but I ask you, please heed to them. Listen to those around you as well. These are brothers and sisters who deeply care and are very fond of you.

I hope you do see and I pray that God would make “your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus” – 1 Thess 3:13.

Yours lovingly
Brother

Author’s Note: This article also appears on Quiricus.

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Philippians Sermon

Gospel Humility – Philippians 2:3-11

Good morning church! We started a new series last weekend titled “Gospel Renewal” and we’ll be covering different topics over the next 2 months like prayer, humility, repentance but explaining how all of these fruits can only come about through the gospel.

What we mean by that is – in every other religion and moral science class – people unanimously agree that prayer, humility, repentance are good things to cultivate through self-effort.

However, the Bible stands in stark contrast to all of these – through Scripture we understand that all these things can only be truly produced by trusting on the grace of God through Jesus Christ. That’s why we call it Gospel Renewal. And after last week’s theme on Gospel centred prayer, today we will look at Gospel Humility from Philippians 2.

As we are turning to today’s passage, let me just highlight a few reasons why “Humility” is an absolute need for all of us. For that we need to consider the opposite of humility which is “Pride”.

Now usually when we think about pride – we usually imagine someone who says “I’m awesome, I’m great and I do all things well”. Although this is one-way pride expresses itself, however I just want to mention a few more subtle ways in which pride manifests itself in our hearts.

  1. Being over-critical about others: We’ve taken it upon ourselves to points out the theological errors or sin struggles in other people. As believers do we need to correct people? Yes, but if we see a pattern where we are always the ones correcting others or if we are more concerned about the sin and issues in other people rather than our own, it’s pride.
  2. Prayerlessness: Prayerlessness ultimately arises out of pride which makes us feel like we don’t need God as much. We can figure things out and fix ourselves using self-effort.
  3. Not confessing sins: Our pride often prevents us from admitting that we have messed up and sinned against God. We usually end up minimizing the sin or getting defensive or innovating new ways to fix our sin problems apart from God.
  4. Not asking others for help: Even though we might be struggling in our faith, we’ll never ask our brothers and sisters to help us. We’ll never reach out to them or even if someone offers to help us, we’ll not take it seriously because in our pride we wouldn’t want to be perceived as helpless and weak.

And I want to be the first to admit that I’m prideful and God has been working on my heart over the last so many years humbling. I hope we realize that in many ways like this we all struggle with pride and we need the gospel to help us and change us to produce true humility.

3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,[a] 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,[b] 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,[c] being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (v3-11)

We see in verses 3-4 how Paul instructs the Philippian church in humility to count others more significant than themselves and look to the interests of others and not just our own.

But he knows that all of these instructions will be empty and futile apart from the gospel…apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. In a sense he was saying – unless you immerse yourself in the gospel, you will not be able to produce humility. And he mention 3 ways does that:

1.Looking up to Christ (v5-7)

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,[a] 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,[b] 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,[c] being born in the likeness of men.

I remember while I was growing up – I somehow got very simplistic answers like “The best way to live your life is to be like Jesus”. Pretty quickly I realized how impossible it was to live like Jesus.

In fact I found following the model of Jesus to be very intimidating because with every passing year I realized how further away I went from becoming like Jesus. But all of that changed when I became a believer.

Reading the Bible, I realized that the secret of the Christian life is that Jesus is now united with us in a relationship so deep and intimate that now He lives His life in and through us!

Jesus isn’t just a model but the motivation for our lives! Jesus isn’t just the inspiration but the enabler for our lives!

And so when we read the word “have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus” – realize that it’s not as though we are forced to follow someone else’s philosophy but rather as believer we earnestly desire to have the mind of Christ.

To look at the world in the way He does. To imitate Him. Because He is a part of us and we are a part of Him! What is the mindset of Christ? Let’s read v6-7. Its astonishing if we have to read it carefully.

Jesus Has the same nature and image of God –

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.  (Heb 1:3)

And yet He did not consider equality with God as something to be seized or something to be held to for advantage. In a world where people fight for position and status – unwilling to give up their position of power…this seems to be unbelievable!!!

Paul takes it one step further when he says 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,[c] being born in the likeness of men.

The idea of emptied himself means “willing to come down to no reputation”. Jesus didn’t lose His divinity (He didn’t stop being God). Jesus didn’t lose His purity.

But He did empty Himself of aspects of the richness of His glory and majesty to become like us. He took the form of weakness by putting on our flesh. Jesus is the Creator God becoming like a creature.

The word “servant” is Greek is the word “doulos” which means bondservant or slave. Here the Master of the entire universe took on the form of a slave – one of subservience.

The Son of Man came not be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many (Matt 20:28)

In another place in Galatians it says that Jesus was born under the law. Think about it – Jesus gave the command of circumcision to Abraham in Genesis and centuries later Jesus Himself got circumcised on the eighth day.

Jesus Himself gave the law and commands to Moses and centuries later He lived in obedience to that same law. It’s humiliating when you think about it.

He was willing to lay down and give away His reputation to be with us. He’s not disconnected from us and our issues. Here is our God who identifies with us by emptying Himself and taking our form and living in the very same broken world that we live in.

You feel pain and hurt? Jesus fully understands. Do you experience temptation? Jesus knows exactly what that feels like. If this doesn’t humble us, nothing else will. The God of the universe becoming like us! Amazing! 

2. Looking at the Cross

8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

When we think about the cross nowadays – it’s placed above church buildings signifying that it’s a church building. In the early 2000s wearing a cross used to be also a style statement.

And I was a new believer in those days and I also starting wearing a cross. One uncle from church who used to take bible studies for us once asked me a question: he asked me if the cross is a faith statement or a style statement?

For the first time, I began to question why I wore the cross because deep down I knew it was a fashion statement. So even though nowadays the meaning of the cross is quite different from what it was in NT times.

When Paul wrote this letter to Philippians, they knew what the cross meant. It was capital punishment in the Roman empire.

Only the guiltiest criminals, the worst of the lot, people who would cause violent uprisings against the Roman government – only they would receive this punishment. Not only was it the cruellest way of killing criminals and but it was extremely humiliating because it was done publicly.

And we see our Saviour Jesus Christ – even though he was innocent and sinless – willingly giving up Himself on a cross. Why? Let’s remember that we deserved to be on that cross – not Jesus because of our sins.

The horror of the cross is a reminder of how serious the charge and penalty that was levelled against us. But at the same time, the cross is a declaration of God’s love and mercy toward us.

Jesus Christ was willing to be humiliated by even dying on the cross – if that is what it meant to save us from the wrath and punishment for our sins! Here is our God who protects us by laying down His life! He loves us so much that He takes our punishment upon Himself so that we can eternally live in a relationship with Him! It’s mind-blowing!

Did we earn this favour? No! Did we deserve this? Absolutely not! And that’s what humbles our hearts. When we realize that we were once condemned prisoners who have been set free by the sacrifice of our Saviour!

3. Kneeling before Christ

9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (v9-11)

Imagine you were invited to meet the President of a country. In that place where you are going to meet him, there’s a gathering of the entire army of the country, the officials and governors.

And when you attend the meeting, you won’t go and announce “I’m so and so and I’ve done all these things in my life”. Instead, you’ll be humbled at the sight of the President and everyone else gathered there.

John Piper says something like when you go to the Grand Canyon…you don’t go there and think of how great you are or how good you look…why? You’ll be blown away by the breath-taking beauty of your view! You’ll be humbled at the creation of an amazing God!

Similarly, these verses tell us that the name that has been given to Jesus is so honourable and so great – that at that name every knee will bow down in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord! Wow!

I think what it means is that when Jesus Christ returns and King and Judge in His glory – every person on the earth – believers and even unbelievers will kneel and acknowledge Jesus Christ when they see Him!

What does that mean for us as believers now – is that We’ll never know what humility is unless we’ve learnt to humble ourselves before Christ!

Humility comes from an awareness of who Jesus Christ is and who we are in relation to Him. Humility involves surrendering to the will of Jesus Christ! 

In my experience, I’ve seen how God had used the gospel to humble my heart while listening to the Gospel being preached or when a brother has applied the Gospel to my life situation or when my heart melts with the Gospel during my Bible readings.

It doesn’t happen through self-effort or self-improvement. It happens when we look up to Christ, look at the cross and kneel before Christ!

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1 John Sermon

Gospel-centred Prayer – 1 John 5:14-15

After doing a year of expository preaching on the Gospel of Mark, we will now be focusing on a series of topical preaching called ‘Gospel Renewal’. What I mean by the word Gospel is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the redemption of mankind.

We’re using the word Renewal because even though we hear and use the word Gospel often times in our verbiage we still fail to understand the depth of it and for the most part we don’t know how to apply the Gospel in our daily life and live for the Gospel.

Therefore, the aim of this series is to learn how the Gospel changes and impacts everything we do, that anything and everything we do is only a response to God’s love and grace that He has shown us in Christ. The ultimate goal is to glorify God.

Today’s topic is going to be on the subject of GOSPEL PRAYER. The passage I chose to study and preach is 1 John 5:14-15.

To give you a bit of a context, John is writing this letter to the believers in the Church of Ephesus.

After giving a long list of instruction to the church on the doctrine of Christ, Obedient living & Devotion, John is almost concluding his talk, and in chapter 5:14-15 he says

14 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

Last Sunday Jeff reminded us that our primary call is to be with Jesus. That, before we are called to do anything for Jesus, we are called to be with Him and abide in Him.

And it is through prayer and devotion that we get  to be with Christ and to enjoy Intimacy with Him.

Brothers & sisters, Prayer is the most important spiritual discipline for every Christian.

But, have you wondered why our Prayer life becomes the most neglected spiritual discipline of all? That’s because, our prayer life is the prime target of the enemy and he will do anything to distract us from approaching God in prayer.

Last week while Jeff and I were in Taiwan going through the City to city Church planter intensive training, one of the topic that really blessed me was the topic on prayer by a pastor called Jon Hori.

One of his statement that stood out for me was when he said “I’m not worried when I hear that the church isn’t growing even though the people are genuinely praying, I’m worried when I hear that the church is rapidly growing but people aren’t praying”

This is what it implies – Any growth in our lives, whether in church, at work, in college, in finances that isn’t grounded in prayer is a dangerous endeavour.

It’s a dangerous endeavour because it will damage our faith and (leads us into misery / leave us feeling hopeless and miserable). Without prayer, we will drift away from God’s plan and purpose and end up in a place where we were never intended to be.

It will damage our faith because when we apply worldly wisdom to achieve things on our own strength, we will end up disregarding God and take pride in our own achievements and abilities instead of giving glory to God. We will stop believing in the Gospel and lose faith in Christ.

If you are convinced that prayer is most important to us, let us now look at how we need to prayer. As we look into today’s passage, I want to talk about the essentials (Saar) of prayer and the methods of praying.

In the passage as John is encouraging the people to pray he is saying two things that I believe is most essential when we think about prayer.

14 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

1. Our prayer needs to be rooted in Christ, with confidence in Him and His finished work on the cross.

What I mean by that is when we go to God in prayer we don’t go with a self-righteous and prideful heart like the Pharisee in Luke 18 who goes to the temple and prays ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

Have you noticed, often times we fail to go to God in prayer because we think we’ve failed to live a perfect and obedient life, one that is pleasing to God, and that God is not interested in me or in my prayer unless I do it right.

Brothers & sisters, God knows our heart, he knows our struggles, he knows our failures, he knows our short comings, he knows the repetitive sinful tendencies we struggle with. And yet he does not expect us to fix all that and then approach Him in prayer.

Rather, he desires that we go to Him as we are, sinful & broken like the Tax collector who stood at a distance, with His eyes on the ground, beating his breast and praying, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

What Jesus accomplished for us on the cross is far greater than what we can ever imagine.

In 1 John chapter 1, John writes

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we go to God in prayer with the attitude of ‘I am right & have no sin, therefore God hears me’ then we deceive ourselves. No matter how hard we try, we can never match up to the standard of God’s holiness.

Rather when we go to God in prayer and confess our sins, then he is faithful to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Let’s not forget brothers and sisters that once we were alienated from God, we were his enemies because of our evil behaviour. But Christ came to this world, lived among us, lived the righteous life we were supposed to live, and through his death on the cross he absorbed the wrath of God that was upon us and presented us holy in God’s sight, without blemish and free from accusation.

This is our identity in Christ, and this is the confidence in which we approach God in prayer.

2. The second thing we learn about prayer from this passage is that we ask according to his will and not ours.

Often times, this aspect of prayer messes up with our pride, our self-gratifying nature & our dreams & desires, Isn’t it?

The reason it messes up is because often times we think we know what is better for us. But in doing so we fail to realise the ultimate goal of God in this universe He created us for himself and for His pleasure. We forget that ultimately He is in control  of everything and calls the shots on us.

No matter how many dreams and desires you have for yourself. If they are not as per God’s will for your life and it they don’t serve his ultimate goal, then what you are chasing after will never satisfy you.

And therefore, to be in the perfect will of God should be the ultimate goal of our life. Nothing else in life can satisfy our inmost cravings and longings – not wealth, pleasure, comfort or people.

Even Jesus, while teaching about prayer in Matthew 6 teaches us to primarily pray for God’s kingdom and Gods will to be done in our lives.

What John is saying is that whatever you ask, if it is the will of God for your life, He will provide.

So, how do we pray in a way that we seek His will.

James 4:13-15:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

Seeking for God’s will as we pray is the right thing to do.

I hope I’ve initiated a spark in to your heart to revive your prayer life. Please don’t let it go off, rather flame it to fire and live for God.

The other thing I wanted to share is our prayer postures. Often times we think of only one or two ways in which to approach God in prayer. But let me conclude by suggesting a couple of more prayer postures or methods that has personally benefited me.

Prayer Postures:

  • Quite time behind the doors
  • Prayer Journalizing Eg. King David
  • Prayer Cards
  • Walk & Talk
  • Family devotions
  • Community prayer

“Our prayers may be awkward. Our attempts may be feeble. But since the power of prayer is in the one who hears it and not in the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference.” – Max Lucado

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Mark Sermon

Responding to the call of Jesus

Good morning Gathering! It’s a joy & a privilege to be with you this morning as we open the Scriptures together. I just returned from Taiwan where I, along with Saju and about 150 other pastors and leaders, explored what church planting looks like in the Asia Pacific. It was such a good reminder for me that God is doing the same work throughout the world. He is filling the earth with His glory here in Mumbai, in all of India, in South Asia and to the ends of the earth. And the beautiful thing is that he’s doing it through you, the church. He has chosen to use His church to accomplish His purposes!

I was also reminded this week of how much of a sacred thing this is. We have the unbelievable privilege to come to God, as people who have been redeemed by Him. As people who have been brought back from the dead. We get to gather in His presence and experience the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, as His Word performs surgery on hearts. And that is certainly my prayer for us this morning. That God would transform us for His glory. That we would be changed, not just for our sake, but with the goal that the whole earth would be filled with the glory of God through us.

So, I’m going to pray for us to that end. As I begin to pray for us, I’d invite you to turn to Mark chapter 3 in your Bibles. That’s where we’ll be this morning; Mark chapter 3. Let’s pray together.

Now, you might be wondering, “Why on earth are we going to Mark chapter 3” given the fact that we just wrapped up a series in The Gospel of Mark that has spanned a year and a half. That’s a great question! And the answer is that I want for us to consider our response to The Gospel of Mark. We mentioned throughout this journey the fact that Mark was driving us to respond to the coming of God’s Kingdom. He’s driving us toward a response to the call of Jesus in our lives. That’s the consistent message of Mark; that God is doing something new, something glorious, something that He has purposed to do from before the foundation of the world. And then he calls people to respond. So, if we’re not thinking toward a response to the coming of God’s Kingdom, then we’re sort of missing the point.

So, I want us to consider that by looking at three successive interactions that Jesus has in Mark chapter 3, verses 1-15. As we read this, I want for you to ask yourself this question: “How do I respond to the call of Jesus in my life?” I want you to have that question on the forefront of your minds and your hearts as we read this together.

Because this is the primary question in your life; it’s what is most important. If you’ve been around the Gathering for any length of time, you’ve heard me say this time and time again. There is nothing more important in your life than the issue of what you do with Jesus. How you answer this question is more important than your family and your job. It’s more important than anything else because it determines your eternal destination. So, let’s be thinking of that question as we read;

“How do I respond to the call of Jesus in my life?”

“Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” And he strictly ordered them not to make him known. And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons.”

We see 3 responses to Jesus in this text, and they aren’t very different from the responses that we see to Jesus in our culture today. So, for the sake of clarity, I want to break these responses down into 3 categories. I’ll give you these up front in case you are taking notes:

  1. FOE
  2. FAN
  3. FOLLOWER

FOE

Let’s start with the FOES of Jesus. I don’t think we need to spend too much time on this one because it’s pretty straightforward. But, I do want to say a couple of important things. The religious leaders, who have set themselves up as foes in response to the revelation of Jesus Christ, are people who are spiritually blind. Yes, they oppose the Kingdom of God. But it’s because they cannot see the truth. Yes, they miss who Jesus is. But it’s because they lack an understanding that God is doing something new, something beautiful & something different.

I think there’s a lot that I could say about this, but I believe what’s most important for us to recognize is this: We were all, at one time, enemies of God. I don’t care what your spiritual condition is right now. I don’t care how long you’ve been walking with The Lord and how much intimacy you have with Him right now. You were at one time His enemy.

Colossians 1:21 — “We were all once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds…”

Romans 5:10 — “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”

There are many other verses that point out this truth. Our natural spiritual condition (because of the fall) is one of enmity with God. Our natural posture toward God is us running as far away from Him, as fast as we can. And that’s true of every single one of us at one time in our lives.

We were defined by pride, self-righteousness and rebellion. The same things that defined the religious leaders who were continuously opposing Jesus. Those things defined us at one point in our lives.

Now listen, some of you might fit into that category right now. You are standing opposed to the things of God because you have been blinded to the truth of who He is and how He loves you. You might think you know Him. You might think you’re following Him, but you’re really worshipping some version of Jesus and following some version of Christianity that you’ve invented.

Can I tell you something beautiful this morning? You’re not here on accident. God purposed, from before the foundation of the world, that you would be here and you would hear the truth that:

You can spend a lifetime trying to figure out how to find peace, and joy, and satisfaction and fulfilment. But, all you’re really searching for is how to be reconciled to the God who created you and who loves you. And the world & your flesh would have you believe that you can find what you’re searching for in any number of other things. But it’s a lie! The only way to be reconciled to God; to be made right with Him; to have peace with Him, is to embrace the Kingdom of God by submitting your life to the One who died in your place. His name is Jesus!

He died, taking on the sin of the world (taking on your sin), and offers you His righteousness — His right standing with God — in return. That’s the truth of the gospel. It’s the truth that you don’t have to be an enemy of God anymore. You don’t have to oppose Him. You don’t have to run from Him. You don’t have to try to earn or find things that you can never earn or find apart from Jesus Christ. The good news of the gospel is that, where there was separation, now there can be reconciliation by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

So, that’s the first type of reaction we see to Jesus. It’s people who oppose Him. They are His foes. The next type of response to Jesus isn’t quite as clear, and I think we have to dig a little bit to uncover it.

FAN

This is what I would call fans of Jesus — the crowd that followed Him. I want you to think about what’s happening here.

As Jesus removes Himself from this conflict with the religious leaders, a mass of people followed after Him. And it’s not just Jews from the region that were following Jesus. This was a mixture of Jews & Gentiles, and they were coming from all over. They were coming from places like Tyre & Sidon, way in the North of the region. They were coming from Idumea, way down in the South by the Dead Sea. They were coming from the Decapolis, across the Jordan in the East. And from the Western shores of the Mediterranean. People were coming from all over the place because they had heard what Jesus could do. They had heard stories about Him.

In fact, so many people followed Jesus that He had His disciples set up an escape boat so that, if things got too crazy, they could just jump in the boat and not be pressed into the sea by the crowd.

Here’s the thing about these crowds. They didn’t really care about being with Jesus. They cared about what Jesus could do for them. They cared about what they could get from Him. We know that for several reasons, I’ll just give you one. There are many times in the gospels where Jesus would say a really hard thing and everyone in the crowd would leave except His actual followers. The best example of this is probably in John chapter 6 when people were following Jesus because they wanted food from Him. They had heard what Jesus had done to feed the multitudes and now they are looking for food from Jesus. But Jesus tells them, “if you want to follow me, you have to eat my flesh and drink my blood.” And, after He said that, everyone left Him except His true followers.

You see, these fans of Jesus wanted things from Him, just as long as it didn’t cost them too much! Do you know what the definition of that is? That’s consumerism. Getting maximum return with minimum investment is the definition of consumerism.

And that’s where much of the world who says they follow Jesus actually lives. They live in nominalism, easy beliefism, luke-warm attempts at Christianity. Like, “I’m good with Jesus, as long as He can do things for me.” “But, if things get difficult, or weird, or are going to cost me too much, I’m out!”

Much of what we see in the modern day church has produced a lot of fans of Jesus. It’s produced a lot of people who claim Jesus with their lips, but not with their lives. And, if you really want to evaluate if you fit into this category, just think about how you relate to the church. How we relate to one another in the church is a direct reflection of how we relate to Jesus. You can’t get around it because He’s the head of the church & the church is His bride. If you take a consumeristic posture with your church, I’ll guarantee you, you have a consumeristic posture toward Jesus.

I have to tell you this morning, that must change. We must repent where that’s happening, because Jesus hasn’t called us to be His fans; He’s called us to follow Him. In our text, we see Jesus retreat from the crowd. He retreats from the masses, from the people who want things from Him. He retreats from His fans to do what? To call and to charge His followers. That’s our 3rd category;

FOLLOWER

I want you to listen closely to what He says to His followers, because this is the call to His followers today. Listen closely to this, because if you are here and actually want to Follow Jesus. If you don’t want to settle for some luke-warm, comfortable, consumeristic version of Christianity (which isn’t Christianity at all). If you want what’s real. If you want Jesus, because you know that He made it all, He paid for it all, He claims it all & He rules over it all. If that’s what you want, then hear His call this morning. Let me read it again; it’s verses 13 & 14:


“And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach”

Mark 3: 13-14

He says, “Be with me and preach my gospel.” That’s the charge that Jesus gives His followers then, and it’s the call that He lays before His followers this morning. Just think about these things for a moment. “Be with me.” Isn’t that incredible? We get to be with Jesus? As in, be in His presence. As in, have a relationship with Him. We don’t deserve that! We deserve separation. We deserve death. We deserve His wrath. But, because of the substitutionary work of Christ for us, we get to be with God again.

We can finally have that thing that has been echoing in our souls since the garden when we were separated from Him. And it’s all because of His goodness & His loving-kindness toward us in Christ.

When is the last time you just sat still for a little while and pondered the fact that you get to be with God? You know what weeds out the fans? This is that John 6 passage that I referenced earlier. Is your goal really just to be with Jesus, and you don’t care about anything else?

The second thing that Jesus says is “Join me in the work.” Which is equally incredible! Listen, God does not need us to accomplish His mission. He chooses to use us because He loves us. And, because being with Him will necessarily mean that we’re on mission with Him because He is a God of mission.

We get to walk in joyful obedience and follow closely behind the One who died for us. We get to be with the One who bought us back from Satan, sin & death. We get to follow Him and be with Him as He leads us. Church, I promise you, there is no better place to be. Let’s not be a group of fans. Let’s not just be interested spectators as God works to redeem and restore a broken world. Let’s be obedient followers as He calls us into that work.

Let me close by saying this:  Your inclusion in the Kingdom of God means participation in the kingdom of God. Jesus is calling you to be with Him & to be about His work, no matter the cost. The question is:  “How do you respond to that call?”

If you’re here this morning and this is new for you. You don’t know Jesus like this, or you don’t know if you know Jesus like this. Every word in Scripture is meant to drive you to this one overarching truth:  Jesus Christ is your righteousness! Please don’t miss that. Because, ultimately, that’s the call this morning. JESUS CHRIST IS YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS! He is the door. He is the path. He is your all-in-all. He is life itself. He is the only way for you to be reconciled to God. No amount of good behavior, or religious activity or anything else will give you right standing with God. The only one who can save you, redeem you, restore you, and make you righteous is Jesus Christ Himself. And we only experience that by grace (which is a gift) and through faith in Him.

If you’re here this morning and you are a Christian. Let this fall fresh on your heart this morning. Your primarily calling is to be with Jesus. That, before you are called to do anything for Jesus, you are called to be with Him and abide in Him.

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Mark Sermon

Gracious Giving

Good morning church! We will be finishing our preaching series on the gospel of Mark today. It’s taken us a year and a half to complete the entire gospel and I know that the Spirit has enabled us to grow in our love and obedience to Christ as we’ve studied these passages.

We will end our series with a passage that we couldn’t cover earlier from Mark 12:41-44. It is a familiar passage on the story of the poor widow who gave two copper coins. We are going to learn about “Gracious Giving” as we look through this passage.

Should we talk about Finances at our church? That was the question that both Saju and I have contemplated for a while. Both Saju and I have seen a lot of abuse in our church experiences over money and finances. We’ve seen how churches have asked for money and donations so that they could spend it on beautifying their own church buildings and also seen church leaders use offerings to spend it on their own luxurious lifestyles.

We really didn’t want this to describe our church and our ministry and that’s why at this present time we both are bi-vocational and don’t take a salary from the church. That’s also probably one of the reasons why we’ve not preached a sermon on “finances or giving” in the last 4 years. However, as we thought about this and read it God’s Word & had conversations with other brothers, we were reminded again how God is deeply concerned about our hearts in relation to money.

What’s astonishing is that Jesus has spoken more number of times about money in the gospels than the subject of hell! If it is important to God, then we ought to preach and talk about this. We’ll today try to understand what “Gracious Giving” looks like and why does it need to be emphasized in the lives of believers through the story of the poor widow.

I believe this passage tells us 3 things about Gracious Giving:

  • Gracious giving is Hidden

It needs to go unnoticed. Right before this passage in v38-40, Jesus condemns the actions of the scribes. They are the super-religious guys who love to show off, receive greetings from people in the marketplace, at the synagogues they have the best seats of honor and make long prayers to show that they are super-spiritual and religious. Not only was this bad enough, they also exploited widows who were one of the most weak and helpless people in the social structure of that time.

What we need to realize is that in biblical times, widows were in a very difficult position. Financially many of them would end up being in poverty in indebtedness because their husband who was the main source of economic support passed away. They had very little or no inheritance rights and after the death of their husband, the relationship between the husband’s family and the widow would be very shaky. They were so isolated and underprivileged in society that the early church actually had laid a special emphasis on helping and ministering to widows.

James 1:27 says Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

And we know from the Bible how God is a defender of the weak and the powerless. Right across the whole bible we’ll always see how widows have a special place in God’s heart.

Now where I’m I getting to. Think about this whole scenario of Jesus sitting in front of the treasury seeing people put their offerings in the collection box. The God of the whole universe is watching people “give” their offerings to Him. Rich people are putting large sums of money…others are giving their offerings but Jesus notices the poor widow who nobody noticed. She was poor, helpless and weak but she found her audience in the King of Kings and Lord of Lords! What a wonderful thing.

Now compare that with the religious folk who gave more than this lady. They were the ones who argued with Jesus, tried to trap Jesus, wanted to arrest him and even kill him. Right there we understand the truth that God is more interested in what goes on in your heart as you give. It’s not merely the “amount” or the “giving” but the motivation of your heart that matters to God.

I believe that’s the crux of the issue when Jesus says in Matt 6: 2 “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

And if you think about it – it’s countercultural in the world and also sometimes in churches. Some places they honor and give out mementos to people who are like the top “donors” when in fact Christ actually tells us to give in private. It’s in the secrecy and the hiddenness of giving that pleases God. It’s not for the people around you to notice or to commend you for the amount that you’ve put in. Gracious giving is in fact hidden from other people. Gracious giving goes unnoticed in public. Gracious giving won’t receive any applause or praises from people but it pleases the heart of God.

But not only is gracious giving Hidden, but

  • Gracious giving is also Sacrificial

You can imagine the jaws of the disciples drop when Jesus tells them that this poor widow put in more than all the other people. They were probably quite confused because if we compare the amounts, this widow had actually put in much lesser than all the others. The value of the two copper coins actually amounted to 1/64 of a denarii.

A denarii was the daily wage for a labor worker. What she put in was 1/64th the amount of that. Then Jesus explains to them that all the others contributed out of their abundance but she had contributed out of her poverty.

For the others it was merely a contribution, for her it was a sacrifice. It was going to cost her not just something but everything. It was going to seriously affect her livelihood. Now I don’t think we should oversimplify the application to be – the poor widow put in all her money in the offering box so all of us need to put in all our money in the offering box.

But I think what it is telling us is this: God sees and views our giving not on the basis of what we don’t have but on the basis of what we have! Which means that God is not comparing the amounts of our giving against each other but God desires us to sacrificially give on the basis of what He has given to us individually at this present time.

Sometimes we hear people say things like “If God were to give me more money, then I’ll be able to give more to the church and to the poor”. Not necessarily. We know that with more money there’s in fact greater temptation to spend more on ourselves. That’s why God isn’t asking you to give on the basis of what you will have a few years later. He desires our obedience on the basis of what He has given right now. 

The important key here is the word sacrifice! The word by definition implies a cost & surrender– it’s going to cost us something & we’ll need to surrender something. Now when was the last time we gave an offering where it actually costed us something? When was the last time we had to surrender something in order to give an offering?

Now I know that not all generous people in the world are believers. But shouldn’t all true followers of Christ be generous? Because we have understood God’s mercy and sacrifice firsthand! We were “impoverished” in our sin. We were helpless and wretched and broken in our sinful state. But God being “rich in mercy” sent His one and only Son Jesus Christ to “empty” Himself by taking the form of man and then dying for you and for me.

He rose again on the third Day defeating sin, Satan and death so that we can receive the richness and wealth and privilege of a close intimate relationship with God. (2 Cor 8:9) God wasn’t stingy when it came to showing you grace. Shouldn’t people who have experienced this amazing eternal grace of God be overflowing with generosity?

Brothers and sisters, my aim is not to guilt people but rather to challenge us to think differently about giving. Sometimes we view giving as comfortable contributions but gracious giving involves sacrifice and generosity. Please don’t get me wrong…I’m not saying that we should never spend a penny on ourselves.

But what I’m saying that as believers we should be defined not by our spending but our giving. What’s the world’s notion on money and salary? Spend it within the first week of receiving it and then live as a miser till the end of the month. As believers the gospel changes the way we utilize our money. We give radically so that the gospel advances in places where there’s no gospel presence. We give radically to empower the weakest and poorest in the community around us and when they ask us why we do it – we point them back to Jesus who is the source of grace!

  • Gracious giving is Willing

The poor widow delighted the heart of Jesus because she willingly put everything that she had to live on! Not reluctantly but willingly she gave everything. The passage doesn’t give too much of a description about this widow but her actions certainly tell a lot about her faith.

  1. She believed that God owns everything in her life so he deserves everything as well. By her one action she displayed whole-hearted surrender.
  2. She also trusted God to sustain her even though she gave everything that she had to live on.

I really believe these two things impact the willingness to give to the Lord.

  1. Ownership: Do we believe that God is truly the Giver, Owner and Master of our whole lives including our money? Or do we think we are the owners of our own lives?
  2. Security: Do we trust God enough to know that He will continue to provide for all our needs even if we give sacrificially? Or do we think that our giving will ultimately result in us being needy all the time?

I hope we don’t miss the point how our “giving” goes much deeper than just an external act of obedience. Our giving actually points to who sits on the throne seat of our hearts! Our giving actually tells a lot about who we believe is our Provider. In whom we believe keeps us secure! Is it Jesus Christ or is it us?

2 Corinthian 8 tells us of a wonderful story about gracious giving. Paul and his companions were raising funds to help the poor & suffering believers in the Jerusalem church.  Paul informed all the churches in his network about this need. Now the churches in Macedonia actually had their own set of problems – it says they were going through severe test of affliction and extreme poverty. But the moment they heard this need, they begged earnestly telling that they really wanted to join in to help the saints. And they went over and above their means to help out. (v1-5)

This is how 2 Cor 8:5 puts it: 5 And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us.

Their commitment to God overflowed in an expression of giving willingly! One tough question I had to ask myself is that when needs come up suddenly, do I get impatient & frustrated? Or do I eagerly and willingly desire to help in whichever way I can? Is it reluctance or eagerness?

7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Cor 9:7) I might be giving “sacrificially” but if it is done in reluctance then it doesn’t honor God. We might as well not give it than to dishonor God by giving our offerings unwillingly. It doesn’t show God to be most valuable. He is not seen as worthy of glory!

Brothers and sisters, if we are truly honest, I think we would admit that we would need to grow in these areas of gracious giving – be it hidden, sacrificial and willingness. What I hope we’ve realized that our giving is not just tied to our pockets but our hearts in a way that’s much deeper than what we think. We need renewal and we need God’s grace.

It’s a question of Ownership and Security. If God has convicted our hearts, we must turn away from all those areas where we see clear patterns of sin and greed and convenience. Let’s turn back to Jesus Christ who is our Owner and our Provider and ask him to change our hearts and our lives so that we can be “Gracious Givers” just like Him.