SIGNAL CHURCH CAPE TOWN
Guy Chennells:- Jesus: A Day In The Life Of Jesus. Pt.22
- I am, I am. - All right, tell everybody, it's a real privilege and an honor to share the word with you this morning. I really do it with trepidation and, yeah, like a real, it's an uncomfortable joy. So the discomfort is I really have no nothing to give. The joy is I really believe that God quite digs it when someone's in that space and then gives a lot. So I honestly have quite a high expectation for this morning, but none of it comes from my confidence in myself, I just have a high expectation that God wants to share something impactful this morning. So I hope that's good. We're going through this series on Jesus and today we're doing a day in the life of and just some sort of framing nuggets before we get into it. The first thing that struck me going through this is it was a big day. We're gonna go through this day, it's 24 hours, literally just a day in the first chapter of Mark and a lot happens. And for someone who's sort of been involved in a bit of ministry before, Jesus must have been exhausted at the end of this day, a huge day. And I was just struck by the stamina and perseverance of Jesus. And it was just a small thing, but I felt a little bit challenged about becoming a bit soft. I feel like a bit of a softy. Quite used to comforts. And I just had this sort of image of Jesus as quite a rugged guy, you know. We're out on the trail a lot, having sometimes multi-day extended periods of ministry where you just leaned into the moment that was coming and had kind of trained himself. You think of Paul talking about training your body as an athlete. And I thought in the game of life, Jesus was a high performance athlete. And we sort of think of him as a sort of flowing robe, sort of guy, but he was, he trained himself to be able to live up to his calling. So that's just a little challenge. And then the other kind of contextual thing that gives this passage a bit of an earthy, kind of relatable texture is that this is Jesus right at the start of his ministry. You know, we've known about Jesus for 2000 years, it's old hat, but no one knew about Jesus at this point. Even Jesus didn't know about Jesus. Jesus didn't know what it was gonna feel like to be a minister with a reputation, to be going to towns all over the show and people know who he is at this point. People didn't really know him. He didn't have a big reputation. His disciples didn't really know him. He's up there talking, doing things that attracted to this guy they're in, but they're kind of experiencing who he really is for the first time. And I thought that, just hold that in your mind as we go through the passage. This is Jesus right out of the starting blocks of his ministry kind of getting into his groove. Is that okay? Let's read the passage. It's from Mark Sott's in verse 21, just after Jesus called his first disciples, they went to Capernaum and when the Sabbath came, oh sorry, before I go into the passage, I actually did wanna just signal as we're gonna read, look out for the three kind of main sections I'm gonna touch on. I'm gonna talk about what Jesus was on about, which his passage gives us some clues to. I'm gonna talk about how he straddled heaven and earth and then what that means for us and then his secret to success. Okay, so they went to Capernaum and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. Just then a man in the synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out, what do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? I don't do a very good demon voice. What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? That's more like it, eh? I know who you are, the holy one of God. I don't know, maybe someone who's had more experience with that can do a bit of demon impersonation. Be quiet, said Jesus, sternly, come out of him. The impure spirit shook the man violently. Come out of him! The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. Not doing the shriek. The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, what is this? A new teaching and with authority. He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him and news about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee. As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever and they immediately told Jesus about her. So he went to her, took her hand, helped her up, the fevers left her and she began to wait on them. Easy peasy. Remember it's a Sabbath, they get home, she would have done some prep the day before, she would have presumed known that she was gonna be hosting some people, but she's the host. Very inconvenient to have a fever. And Jesus resolves that obstacle. The evening after sunset, the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon possessed. They had to wait till the evening because it was the Sabbath, but as soon as it's over, they realized something new is happening. The whole town gathered at the door and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak, he'd learnt. Quite interesting, eh? The beginning of the passage, he was like, oof, that was a bit too much, eh? At this point, he doesn't let the demons speak, but he would, because they knew who he was. And then very early in the morning, while it was still dark, who knows how long Jesus went on that night? The whole town was at the door. But very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, went off to a solitary place where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him. When they found him, they exclaimed, "Everyone is looking for you!" Jesus replied, "Let us go somewhere else "to the nearby villages so I can preach there also. "This is why I came." So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons. Doing more of the same. Okay, so, I'm sort of feeling the pressure to move a little bit quickly, but what was Jesus on about? The book ends of this passage, both kind of at the beginning and then at the end, speak about Jesus' teaching. And as I was reflecting and spending time in this passage in preparation for this, it sort of struck me that in Mark, and maybe this kind of flow of Christianity, there's a bit of a knee-jerk away from Jesus as just a teacher, and the knee-jerk pushes us to diminishing the role of Jesus as the teacher. And we sort of feel fine to emphasize learning about Jesus, but less learning from Jesus. Seeing the role of Jesus as someone who has something to teach us, not like some of us who've been to school or university learning things, learning things to know, but to train us how to think and live differently to how we think and live now. And I found that very challenging. I sat with that for a bit because I couldn't think of the last time I'd changed my mind really about something. Actually, at the age of 40 something, have quite a rigid framework through which I interpret everything that comes in. And in a context like church, it's actually very easy to apply my framework without being aware of it because I'm presented with knowledge. Here's something to believe, filter, filter, the stuff that fits comes in, the stuff that doesn't get stopped. Actually, out there, out there, the things that are influencing us are less direct, media and whatever, things on your phone, the programs you watch, the conversations I have, the people who have found influential in my life, they are less obvious and actually more adept at getting through the filter and influencing the filter. And so in some ways are more truly a disciple of the world than I am of Jesus. Which wasn't my intention, actually. And I wanted to just encourage us again that Jesus says the purpose of him coming was to teach us. Because the way that we have learned, and it was the truth for the people who's speaking to them, it's true for us today, the way we've learned to be human doesn't work, it isn't right, it's wrong. We've got wrong ideas, wrong behaviors, wrong instincts. And I hopefully don't have to go through a whole big song and dance to convince you that that's true. The world isn't working very well. We're trying our best, we get cleverer and cleverer every generation, those of you with teenagers will know, the next generation is a much smarter than we were. And make more and more of a mess of things. And it's because the way to live, the way really to live, is not what's gonna come from even your parents doing their best, or certainly not, from just sort of imbibing the culture that you happen to have been born into. And Jesus actually knows how we were designed to be human. And he wants to teach and train us to think and act differently to how we are doing so at the moment. Did that okay? The next one, Jesus straddling heaven and earth. This is the exciting part of the message. You know, I'm just so struck at how fully integrated Jesus' message and his actions were. At the end of their passage, the last little bit says, you know, and he went around Galilee, preaching, driving out demons. He's talking about the fact that there's a kingdom that's now at hand, that's breaking in. He's talking about what it looks like to live and behave and think and love in that kingdom. He looked at the kind of Matthew, chapter five to seven, for an example of kind of what Jesus might have taught when he had a nice chunk of time to do that. And he's doing it. It's not theory for Jesus, it's real. And so his teaching came with authority. The way he spoke was, whoa, this guy really knows what he's talking about. But he went further, he demonstrated the authority that he had in his power over evil spirits and sickness. And I want to spend a little bit of time just dwelling on that, dwelling on how he did, what was Jesus doing? How is it that he was able to do that, actually? It didn't seem very hard for him. What was the mechanism that we can learn from there? So to do that, let me take you back up for a quick history lesson. We're going to start at the beginning of all things. Genesis, God creates everything. It's beautiful, but it's wild. And then he installs a garden temple. There's this sort of beautiful ordered place that he plants, he plants the garden. He makes this beautiful place. The imagery is loaded with temple imagery. It's supposed to conjure up this idea that this is in some ways like the temple of God on earth. And then he installs his images, his idols, his representatives in that temple and gives in this mission. Take this kind of the order and beauty of the garden and extend that out. The idea is that they will rule for him. Not rule in some kind of sort of material, humanistic sort of a way, but extend the order and goodness of the garden. Extend the realm of peace and prosperity in ever-widening circles. That's the plan. Then how does he sort of go about doing it? Well, it's extremely relational and relaxed. How does it is he just spends time with him every day, gets into a rhythm of spending time with them. They don't know a lot yet at all. I didn't even have parents to teach them. And his method seems to be to spend time. He comes and spends time with him every day. His presence is available to them, not just in some sort of esoteric way, but genuinely he comes and walks and talks with him. They must have had lots of questions. Imagine what they spoke about on their walks every day. We're in the habit of walking in the kind of wind of the day and imagine what they would have discussed. Wow, God, I've been thinking about how you planted that. How do you do that? Well, whatever, I don't know, who knows? But the point is God's way of equipping mankind to rule, to do good in the world, was relational. He wanted to train directly, build up the wisdom of people by spending time with them and allowing them to represent him through direct relationship. And that didn't work very well because before it could really get off the ground, mankind made choices that excluded them from that. And they were kind of deposed, I suppose, from the temple and put out. So firstly, there's this idea that Eden was not just the place where heaven had touched earth. It wasn't the place where God had deposited some things. It was the place where heaven and earth were joined. Continuously joined. Does that feel different? That there's an access point between heaven and earth. And so finally, when Jesus comes as the new Adam, as the one who's actually going to put into place and to practice the plan that God had, he rightly bears the image. He rightly walks in continuous relationship with the father. And here's the kicker. Because he's doing that, he is Eden. He has a continuous connection between heaven and earth in and around him. And so the way that he is demonstrating the rule of the kingdom in the story is it seems easy 'cause it is. Because he is not asserting a human authority over against what he's encountering. He's walking into the room and heaven invades. The rule and presence of God is there in a way that it isn't elsewhere. And so I'm gonna just do a little bit of helping us to picture maybe heaven differently. Sort of the word that people use for heaven in the Bible is usually kind of quite a normal word for the sky or the air. And I think what the ancients were kind of reaching for in trying to find a word to describe where God was is they were looking for something that was close enough 'cause God seems to be involved a bit. It's close enough, but invisible, inaccessible. The sky was totally inaccessible to the ancient section until a few hundred years ago. And in some way superior, above is usually superior to below. And they sort of think just what they're trying to reach for, it's a tribal place where God is really king and is unchallenged. And you sort of, you think of a place, it can't be here, I can't see it, it's invisible. It's not a place I can choose to go to anytime frustratingly. But it is somehow above us and it is a place that is better than here. It is superior, it has superior kind of way of being. It's a place where God rules perfectly and his will is perfectly done. And what Jesus blew the lid on is the big secret that heaven, not up, the place that is God's dimension is all around us. It is closer actually than they thought. They sort of thought maybe close just the heavens, just above the earth, but God can come down. It's closer than you think actually. It's a dimension away. And so, I'm gonna ask you to close your eyes for a second. We're gonna go there. Close your eyes. I want you to picture the earth in mostly darkness. There's some kind of a gray haze that allows you to basically see some things, but earth is dark. You look up and you can see far off there, stars in the sky, it's very far off. And the earth is quiet and dark and you see other people as shapes. And then, as you're imagining yourself standing there, feel suddenly in your hand, you've got a key. Not you where it came from, but you've got a key in your hand. And then you feel this urge to stretch up your hand to the sky as you stretch it up, as it gets to full stretch, you touch something. And you feel around, you realize that the sky is a ceiling that's been painted to look like there's stars there. You're feeling the ceiling as you feel around, you feel something that feels like a little keyhole. So you take the key, you put it into the keyhole and you feel around next to it, there's a little kind of sliding door handle and you slide. And as you slide, light bursts into your space and completely floods the area around you with light. You can open your eyes. The image I was hoping to land with us this morning is that the realm where God rules perfectly, where there is light in the sort of metaphorical sense of the thing that at ease drives back darkness, is completely accessible closer than it looks or feels and that our job and joy as Christians is to learn how to open the door to it. And that the door is right there. It doesn't look like it, I can't see a door, I can't see a door, but there's a way in the spirit to open a door that lets heaven in to wherever I am. And that's what Jesus did, so beautifully, just wherever he went, he just opened the door to heaven and beautiful things happened. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. It was Jesus' message and he rarely meant it. Guys, you can't see it, it's right here at my hand. Watch here, watch what I do, yup, healing, demons pushed out, wisdom and insight into how to truly live life. It comes in. And this passage reminds us though that earth is not benign, there are things to push back, there are spiritual forces of evil, there is sickness, there are real enemies. As we go around trying to be and to access portals to heaven, we have a job to do. We have an enemy to push back. The good news is Jesus had no problem whatsoever in doing it. It wasn't difficult in the least, not in the least. The stamina required was to just be on your feet, giving emotion to people for a long period of time, that's difficult to do, not to conjure. You never see Jesus. Release. Demon come out, and by the way, don't speak this time of where you guys are, troublemakers. Jesus' secret to success. So after this big nut, he wakes up really early in the morning. He must have been exhausted. But he has a spec not as an idea. He doesn't think, gosh, I really need to recharge. I don't think it's so much a thought as an instinct of his body, that he had learned through practice that he needed time with the father. It's kind of the thing that I'm leaning into at the moment for myself, is wanting to have that urge that comes from building a habit that pulls me to the father. And actually, I wanted to share it now. We had some prayer before our service. And firstly, I experienced what I was going to preach, that as we were praying, someone opened the trap door above my head and heaven fell onto me. It was such a lovely feeling, like a blanket falling onto me. And then I just had the urge to be alone with God. And straight after we prayed, I ran to the back and sat in the stairs and just sat with God for ten minutes before we started. And I felt like I'm just such a beginner in this. But it really is good. I really wanted to just go and sit with God for a bit. And my encouragement to us like Jesus is that he knew through practice what where his source was and that his source was good, and refreshing, and who he really wanted to be with. As kind of exhilarating as the crowds and the ministry must have been, what he longed for was something deeper, which was that walk in the cool of the day with his father. I want to share one more kind of thought direction. Just as we think about the centrality of being with God in our Christian life, for those of you who are Christian or for those of you who are wondering what is Christian Christianity about. I wanted to make a point that God's project of kingdom renewal, the thing that we see Jesus kind of inaugurating and doing so attractively, is not a cause to be taken and run with. He has not revealed things to be believed and devolved power for us to carry out a revealed mission. I may sound a little bit edgy because you might have agreed with that if I'd said it with some confidence in the positive. You can't study his philosophy and then go out and represent it. We are not his recruits in a socio-political movement holding passionately to the teachings of the founder and representing that worldview into the world. None of those things, those who treat the good news as a manifesto to be lived by and many do make a complete mess of things. Because when you do that, you're an est, a socialist, a capitalist, an environmentalist. I'm not a Christianist, I'm a Christian. There's a way to take on the things one can believe about God from the Bible and run with him that is you with a cause just like everybody else in the world with a cause. And there's a way to be a little Christ. There's a way to be connected to the Father as a new way of being human and of relying on the breaking in of heaven over wherever I am as the means that God will advance his kingdom. I hope that's not too subtle. God's project of kingdom renewal is to bring his kingdom, his will into situations to open up more and more portals between heaven and earth. That's why Jesus taught us to pray that. Our Father who is in the dimension we cannot see where your will is perfectly done. Let your kingdom come. Let your will be done in the perfect way it is done there, here. Wherever I go today, let that be my experience, that your kingdom comes, your will is done. Our role is to be portals, to connect to the source and remain connected while he works in us to will and to act according to his good pleasure. And so I need to believe Jesus when he says that the kingdom of heaven is right at hand. I don't need any of the power or persuasiveness that a situation demands. Situation is difficult. It looks like it calls for power. I don't need any power of my own. In submission to Jesus, all authority is brought to bear, and I need to open the door for heaven to come in. My job is to cultivate my awareness of God, of the Spirit, and my flowing with independence on him. So Jesus doesn't run ahead with a ministry mission. You really could see him wanting to do that, and he doesn't. He spends time with God, he stays connected to God. His mission is to do the will of the Father. Each obedience is a success. My last point is that one can have quite a good idea of what the mission God has called you on, and then to be able to make kind of human judgments about what would be success in this situation, Jesus doesn't seem to do that, and obedience is a success. And then we see that God, who is the one who knows what he's doing, stitching it all together, makes his mission work. All right, so in summary, Jesus was teaching because we have much to learn, and the challenge there is am I positioned really in humility before the Master? Am I taking his yoke upon me? Am I learning from him? Am I deconstructing my frameworks that are causing me to keep believing the same things I've always believed? The second one is that we are portals between heaven and earth, and the third is that we'll be to be Christians, not Christianists, prioritizing the source over the mission. God bless you. [applause]