WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.320 Bibles again to Mark chapter 2. As we close our missions week, as we continue to ask ourselves 00:00:08.320 --> 00:00:13.939 the question, why does mission matter? We recognize we've looked at that from a number of different 00:00:13.939 --> 00:00:19.640 angles. Last week we were thinking about the reality that God has been on his mission for 00:00:19.640 --> 00:00:26.620 his glory from the beginning. We spent time in the middle of the week praying for unreached people. 00:00:26.620 --> 00:00:31.839 We prayed for Scotland, which used to be reached and now needs to be reached again. 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:40.020 On Friday we welcomed people in. We showed hospitality in Jesus' name. We've heard this 00:00:40.020 --> 00:00:46.740 evening about the needs of communities here in the UK and in Latin America. There are many reasons 00:00:46.740 --> 00:00:50.159 to help us to think about mission. But here's another one I want to think about. 00:00:50.159 --> 00:01:00.099 And it's the invitations of Jesus that we find here in Mark chapter 2. That God's grace is the 00:01:00.099 --> 00:01:07.900 fuel that drives global mission. So we continue the good news mission of Jesus, as we discover from 00:01:07.900 --> 00:01:15.219 Mark chapter 2, because we have found in Jesus what the world is looking for, what a lost world needs. 00:01:15.219 --> 00:01:22.760 We find wonderful, gracious invitations from Jesus here in Mark chapter 2, which serve for us as 00:01:22.760 --> 00:01:29.219 Christians to be our motivation for sharing good news. And if you're here and you're not a Christian, 00:01:29.340 --> 00:01:36.739 they serve as a personal invitation from Jesus to faith. Here's the first one. It's the invitation 00:01:36.739 --> 00:01:45.560 to forgiveness. So in chapter 1 of Mark, we're already introduced to Jesus as good news as the Son of God. 00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:52.939 We have already seen him showing power and compassion in his healing ministry. We are reminded that Jesus 00:01:52.939 --> 00:02:01.739 cares for body and soul. And then in chapter 2, we come to the town of Capernaum. Busy house, 00:02:01.739 --> 00:02:10.340 busy teaching ministry, that very dramatic entry as the paralyzed man is lowered into the house. 00:02:11.139 --> 00:02:19.900 The need is clear, but so too is Jesus' first priority. Verse 5, when Jesus saw their faith, 00:02:19.939 --> 00:02:27.199 he said to the paralyzed man, son, your sins are forgiven. And what we have in this moment, and the 00:02:27.199 --> 00:02:35.179 Pharisees, in a sense, help us to recognize this. It's the authority of God. Why does this fellow talk 00:02:35.179 --> 00:02:40.019 like that? Who can forgive sins but God alone? He talks like that because he is God. So it's the 00:02:40.019 --> 00:02:50.000 authority of God and the grace of God resulting in forgiveness that flows from Jesus, the Son of God. 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:57.699 As much as this man was physically paralyzed, like all of us, left to himself also spiritually 00:02:57.699 --> 00:03:06.780 paralyzed, unable to deal with his deepest problem, the problem of sin. And Jesus comes and addresses the 00:03:06.780 --> 00:03:13.000 deepest need, the deepest need that all of us have, is that left to ourselves, we stand under God's 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:20.199 judgment, we are far from God. And so Jesus brings that deep healing, and he shows he has the authority 00:03:20.199 --> 00:03:25.460 to do that as he performs the miracle of physical healing afterwards. 00:03:28.159 --> 00:03:33.479 We've mentioned it a few times. The Times newspaper in the early 20th century, after the outbreak of the 00:03:33.479 --> 00:03:39.000 First World War, had an editorial asking the question, what's wrong with the world? And G.K. 00:03:39.319 --> 00:03:42.400 Chesterton responded this way, the Christian author. He said, 00:03:42.400 --> 00:03:50.300 the answer to the question, what is wrong, is or should be, I am wrong. Until a man can give that 00:03:50.300 --> 00:03:58.219 answer, his idealism is only a hobby. Chesterton understood the heart of the problem in the world 00:03:58.219 --> 00:04:05.580 is the problem within the human heart. And what we find in Mark chapter 2 is the grace of God coming as 00:04:05.580 --> 00:04:16.699 the answer to our guilt. People today, even if we have done away with the idea of God, even if we have 00:04:16.699 --> 00:04:26.360 forgotten any reality of sin, still wrestle with the reality of guilt. Forgiveness is a great need and a 00:04:26.360 --> 00:04:32.740 great gift that Jesus came to give. We can think of that in the storyline of the Bible right at the 00:04:32.740 --> 00:04:37.819 beginning. There were Adam and Eve living in a perfect relationship with God and with one another, 00:04:37.900 --> 00:04:43.759 but then as they rejected God and his word, as they rebelled against him, they find themselves 00:04:43.759 --> 00:04:50.680 feeling a sense of shame and a sense of fear. And their response to that was to try and hide with fig 00:04:50.680 --> 00:04:58.579 leaves and to try and hide from God. But they could not deal with their shame and their guilt. But God's grace 00:04:58.579 --> 00:05:06.879 in the garden was to offer a sacrifice to clothe them, to cover their shame. And Jesus came for that 00:05:06.879 --> 00:05:16.620 very same reason. The Son of God went to the cross bearing our sin, our shame, and our guilt, facing the 00:05:16.620 --> 00:05:25.599 punishment that we deserve to graciously invite us to forgive them. And here is why then mission matters. 00:05:25.600 --> 00:05:31.460 Local mission, local mission, global mission matters because of the realities, the dark realities of sin and 00:05:31.460 --> 00:05:38.960 guilt and judgment, and the wonderful realities of the gospel, and the forgiveness that gives us a way back 00:05:38.960 --> 00:05:46.960 to the God of love. So we go on mission to invite people to forgiveness that's found in Jesus. 00:05:46.959 --> 00:05:55.739 We heard this morning from the Reannuals. Maybe if you think back to their video, if you were here, 00:05:56.379 --> 00:06:02.799 as they minister in Colombia and around Latin America, we were hearing that it's God's grace 00:06:02.799 --> 00:06:09.779 that makes forgiveness possible in difficult family situations where churches are struggling. And it's 00:06:09.779 --> 00:06:19.000 true for us as well. That the invitation to forgiveness from God is an invitation to hope and to joy, 00:06:19.659 --> 00:06:28.579 just as David sang about in Psalm 32. So Mark chapter 2 reminds us of the invitation to forgiveness as part of 00:06:28.579 --> 00:06:37.539 our motive for sharing the gospel with others. But there is also an invitation to friendship, 00:06:37.540 --> 00:06:47.400 which is also quite remarkable here in verses 13 to 17. Every society has a pecking order. 00:06:48.340 --> 00:06:53.860 First century, 21st century, there are those at the top of the ladder, those at the bottom of the ladder. 00:06:54.000 --> 00:07:00.200 And in Mark chapter 2, we are introduced to both ends of the spectrum. There are those at the bottom, 00:07:00.300 --> 00:07:04.860 the tax collectors and the sinners, and there are the religious leaders, the Pharisees. 00:07:04.860 --> 00:07:11.220 The ones at the bottom were there because of lifestyle choices, there because of rule breaking. 00:07:11.500 --> 00:07:17.139 They were on the wrong side of the lines, and they were considered in a religious society to be unclean, 00:07:17.439 --> 00:07:24.379 to be unwanted, to be unwelcome. The message that they would hear, if they would even get close enough 00:07:24.379 --> 00:07:29.740 to hear from the religious leaders, was, you get to God by being like us. You're not like us, 00:07:29.740 --> 00:07:38.960 therefore you have no hope. Jesus deliberately explodes this system, this false system, by his 00:07:38.960 --> 00:07:46.660 grace. So picture what's going on in verse 13. Jesus is surrounded, as he often is, by a huge crowd, 00:07:47.019 --> 00:07:53.460 and he's teaching. But then as he walks, all his attention focuses on one man, focuses on Levi, 00:07:53.459 --> 00:07:59.539 the tax collector. And instead of addressing the whole crowd, now Jesus is addressing this 00:07:59.539 --> 00:08:07.859 one man with this call to follow me. And all of a sudden now we understand, how is it that a person 00:08:07.859 --> 00:08:16.359 can know God? It's not by our efforts, it's through the gracious invitation that comes from Jesus himself. 00:08:16.360 --> 00:08:24.100 And in this moment, the ultimate outsider becomes an insider. This call to follow is a call to 00:08:24.100 --> 00:08:33.060 friendship, is a call into the family of God. And we see how radical this invitation to friendship is 00:08:33.060 --> 00:08:40.440 in verses 15 to 17. Here's the next scene. Levi's all excited that Jesus has welcomed him in. So what he 00:08:40.440 --> 00:08:46.800 does is he invites all his friends. And so here we find Jesus, the Son of God, sharing a meal with the 00:08:46.800 --> 00:08:53.920 so-called bad guys of society, the untouchables. And Jesus is glad to be with them, and they're glad to 00:08:53.920 --> 00:09:00.820 be with him. The people that never got invitations, now they're invited to experience God's grace 00:09:00.820 --> 00:09:08.760 through friendship from Jesus. And when the accusation comes, why does he eat with tax collectors and 00:09:08.759 --> 00:09:18.580 sinners? Jesus says, this is my purpose. He's like a spiritual doctor. And a spiritual doctor knows he 00:09:18.580 --> 00:09:25.580 needs to come to those who are spiritually sick and who recognize their need. I have not come to call 00:09:25.580 --> 00:09:37.659 the righteous, but sinners. And so when Jesus offers friendship, he's offering the remedy, the antidote 00:09:37.659 --> 00:09:44.319 to the shame, to the separation that people like Levi had known all their life, both within society, 00:09:45.179 --> 00:09:54.600 but more importantly, an end to the separation from God. How will Jesus do that? We're at the beginning 00:09:54.600 --> 00:10:01.319 of Mark's story, at the end of Mark's story, Mark chapter 15, Mark records the death of Jesus. And there in 00:10:01.320 --> 00:10:13.320 verse 38, as Jesus dies, down in the temple, the curtain, the dividing line between the people and 00:10:13.320 --> 00:10:21.140 God's most holy place is torn in two. And so we discover that through the sacrifice of Jesus, 00:10:21.800 --> 00:10:29.160 people who trust in him can now be invited all the way in, into the presence of God, 00:10:29.159 --> 00:10:37.799 into friendship and fellowship with Jesus as Savior, the one who laid down his life to make enemies into 00:10:37.799 --> 00:10:49.019 friends. This invitation is good news. It's good news in our loneliness epidemic. We have the opportunity 00:10:49.019 --> 00:10:56.360 as a church to be a community of grace, a community of hospitality, welcoming people in Jesus' name. 00:10:56.360 --> 00:11:05.480 But this invitation is and always will be good news for those who are reckoned to be on the outside. 00:11:06.600 --> 00:11:12.039 I was reading this week about the church in India and the people that are responding fastest to the 00:11:12.039 --> 00:11:20.539 gospel are the Dalit people, the lowest of the low in society. But they hear that invitation to grace 00:11:20.539 --> 00:11:28.480 into friendship and they come in droves because Jesus, our Savior, sees and he loves and he welcomes. 00:11:29.740 --> 00:11:36.719 And that gracious invitation then stands as good news for all of us, regardless of our past sins or our 00:11:36.719 --> 00:11:44.360 present sins, regardless of how we are viewed in society or how we view ourselves. Jesus invites us by 00:11:44.360 --> 00:11:53.080 faith into friendship with him and with our God. It's a great motivation for global mission. Here's 00:11:53.080 --> 00:12:02.200 the third one. It's the invitation to freedom. Verses 18 to 28 is a reminder. There's lots of things that 00:12:02.200 --> 00:12:07.320 we could say, but one thing we are reminded of is that within the world there will always be these two 00:12:07.320 --> 00:12:16.780 alternative paths to salvation. The one that goes nowhere is salvation by works. Here in chapter two, 00:12:16.879 --> 00:12:25.060 it looks like, for example, an insistence on fasting. Or it looks like, let me set up a whole load of extra 00:12:25.060 --> 00:12:32.360 rules around how to keep the Sabbath. That's not how it always looks. It can also look like trying to be 00:12:32.360 --> 00:12:38.000 extremely moral, carefully constructing our own personal identity or finding freedom and salvation 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:46.620 and saying goodbye to all the rules. But the reality that faces everybody at some point is that our own 00:12:46.620 --> 00:12:53.919 efforts cannot make us good enough for a holy God. And our own efforts to construct our own 00:12:53.919 --> 00:13:03.699 salvation by works cannot give us hope beyond death. With the result that people trying to live this way 00:13:03.699 --> 00:13:10.240 will typically have a lack of joy, anxiety, perhaps being judgmental, really struggling. 00:13:11.059 --> 00:13:16.860 Jesus comes to offer something far, far better because Jesus comes to offer freedom. 00:13:16.860 --> 00:13:25.379 Because his way of salvation is not salvation by our works, it's salvation by his works. So it's salvation by grace 00:13:25.379 --> 00:13:32.860 alone as we trust in what he has done, what he will accomplish through his perfect life, through his perfect 00:13:32.860 --> 00:13:42.100 sacrificial death, and then his victorious resurrection. So that to know Jesus, it is to know freedom from that fear. 00:13:42.100 --> 00:13:48.779 Have I kept the rules? Have I done well enough? To know Jesus is to know the freedom and security of being 00:13:48.779 --> 00:13:55.519 accepted by God. To know life the way it's meant to be because of what Jesus has come to do. 00:13:57.680 --> 00:14:04.899 And so it's an invitation to freedom. It's also an invitation to joy. And as Jesus speaks to these folks 00:14:04.899 --> 00:14:12.080 locked into the idea that we save ourselves by our works, he gives pictures to speak of joy. The first 00:14:12.080 --> 00:14:19.820 is in verse 19, Jesus answered, how can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? 00:14:20.500 --> 00:14:27.240 Jesus is the bridegroom. His coming is the joy of a wedding. There's language of feasting. The purpose 00:14:27.240 --> 00:14:35.840 of Jesus is to come and win a bride for himself, purchasing the church, the bride of Christ, with his 00:14:35.840 --> 00:14:48.519 own blood through loving sacrifice. Verse 22, Jesus is this new wine that needs new wineskins. Jesus isn't 00:14:48.519 --> 00:14:56.040 something just a little bit different. He's something radically new. Here is the fulfillment of all God's 00:14:56.040 --> 00:15:04.180 gracious promises. Here's freedom from trying to get to God by works. Here's the joy of being able to rest 00:15:04.179 --> 00:15:11.159 in the work of the Son of God for us. And that's the last picture there in verses 27 to 28. 00:15:12.379 --> 00:15:18.879 The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the 00:15:18.879 --> 00:15:28.179 Sabbath. Again, a claim to the authority of God, but also a promise, an invitation from Jesus to true 00:15:28.179 --> 00:15:40.379 and lasting rest. Physical and spiritual, resting and enjoying our God. The promise of eternal rest and 00:15:40.379 --> 00:15:49.039 freedom to come. Why does mission matter? Mission matters because God wants to give us the freedom 00:15:49.039 --> 00:15:56.000 to experience life to experience life to the full, to experience true joy that comes from knowing him. 00:15:58.339 --> 00:16:05.500 If we think back, for those of us who are here to when Adam was sharing, how do we explain the 00:16:05.500 --> 00:16:13.319 ministry of Adam? Well, he's wanting people to have freedom. Freedom from religion that doesn't 00:16:13.320 --> 00:16:19.960 get people to get people to God, even when they're desperately looking for God, revealing Jesus as 00:16:19.960 --> 00:16:27.600 Lord, as the Son of God, as the only Savior. Mission matters because of the wonderful invitations that 00:16:27.600 --> 00:16:37.000 Jesus offers to us. And so our mission is about extending that invitation of Jesus to others as we love and as we 00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:46.240 share. An invitation to know forgiveness, to experience friendship, to find true freedom. So it's God's 00:16:46.240 --> 00:16:55.659 grace to us in Jesus that serves as the fuel of global mission. Let's pray briefly to thank him for his 00:16:55.659 --> 00:17:05.839 mission. Lord Jesus, we thank you for the account of Mark and the other gospel writers as to 00:17:05.839 --> 00:17:15.019 who you are as the Son of God and what you came to do in being the means of salvation for sinful people 00:17:15.019 --> 00:17:20.759 like us. Thank you for those invitations, that invitation to experience forgiveness. 00:17:22.220 --> 00:17:28.759 Lord, we recognize the reality of our sin and our guilt. So may each one of us know that freedom that 00:17:28.759 --> 00:17:35.599 David could sing of, of confessing and finding full and free forgiveness. Lord, we thank you 00:17:35.599 --> 00:17:43.659 for the gift of friendship and fellowship, that you haven't stayed a distance, but you've drawn so 00:17:43.659 --> 00:17:52.339 near as to become one of us, to live and die and rise for us, to extend grace to us regardless of who 00:17:52.339 --> 00:17:58.599 we are and what we are like. Lord, we thank you that we have good news to share. And Lord, we thank you 00:17:58.599 --> 00:18:05.939 that you offer us a true freedom, a freedom from trying to prove ourselves, a freedom from trying 00:18:05.939 --> 00:18:17.899 to earn our salvation, a freedom to enjoy full life with you through faith. Help us to know the joy of, 00:18:18.099 --> 00:18:27.459 of life with you every day, to remember how good the gospel is, so that we would feel motivated and 00:18:27.460 --> 00:18:32.640 mobilized to bring good news to others. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. 00:18:35.180 --> 00:18:42.019 Let's now close our time singing the hymn, Grace, and we can once again stand to sing. 00:18:42.019 --> 00:19:12.000 Let's sing. 00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:28.200 our home from death to life forever. And sing the song of righteousness by bliss and 00:19:28.200 --> 00:19:30.660 love, by merit. 00:19:30.660 --> 00:19:42.660 Your grace that reaches far and wide 00:19:42.660 --> 00:19:47.640 To every tribe and nation 00:19:47.640 --> 00:19:54.779 Has called my heart to enter in 00:19:54.779 --> 00:19:59.700 The joy of your salvation 00:19:59.700 --> 00:20:05.740 By grace I am redeemed 00:20:05.740 --> 00:20:09.779 By grace I am restored 00:20:09.779 --> 00:20:15.779 And now I freely walk into 00:20:15.779 --> 00:20:20.319 The arms of Christ my Lord 00:20:20.319 --> 00:20:31.480 Your grace that I cannot explain 00:20:31.480 --> 00:20:36.359 Not by my earthly wisdom 00:20:36.359 --> 00:20:42.399 The prince of life without a stain 00:20:42.399 --> 00:20:48.859 Was traded for this sinner 00:20:48.859 --> 00:20:52.899 By grace I am redeemed