Be with and sent out

Well we are now in Mark 3. This week we looked at where Jesus chooses the 12 of his followers to be his apostles. We does this for 2 reasons: that they would (1) be with him and that he might (2) send them out.

The challenge is to really see if we are only doing the first...just being with Jesus. Jesus calls us to him so that we might in turn go out and bring others to him. Often we tend to only do the first without the second; just spend time with Jesus and his people and never get into the world to bring others to him.

There is an easy question to ask to see how this plays out in our lives: How many non-Christian friends do I have?...really? Does my life make complete sense to everyone that I am around? Or does my life constantly puzzle those around me? If my life makes complete sense all the time then either I am a Christian that just looks exactly like the world (“luke warm”) or I am only around people who are exactly like me and have never been “sent out”. It is very comfortable for me to just live inside my Christian bubble and just “be with” Jesus and his people and to never be “sent out” into the world; to spend my life ‘preparing’ for something that never happens because I never take the step of faith to be “sent out” into the world; to get to know the other people that I see at the gym all the time, to get to know the guy who serves me my bagel at Enstein Brothers, to know my neighbors names that live next door to me and invite them into my life, to really be “sent out” so that others can see the reality of Jesus as my life.

This next sentence changed my theology on the Christian life: The only way someone can see the reality of Jesus as your life, is if they actually see your life...really.

Let others in. I’ve got to stop holding others at arms length.

If someone is honestly impressed with Russell, then all that means is that I am being fake.

Go team!

...Waiting for the meal

In Mark 2, Jesus talks about fasting for a brief moment. I think fasting is usually misunderstood so I was excited to get to talk about it with the students. We have so many idols that we do not even know that we worship; or really we have alot of things that we own that really end up owning us in the end. Some popular examples: entertainment, iPhone, Facebook, TV, video games, money, sports, sex, relationships, and of course food. Idolatry is a toughy because we often cast idols not out of evil things, but out of things that are morally neutral (such as the entire list just mentioned). Fasting deals directly with helping us identify the idols in our lives so that we may forego them for awhile in order for our hunger for God to be awakened.

Read this part: Here is the clearest picture of fasting that I have ever seen...

Imagine I call you up at noon and say that I want to take you to Outback for dinner tonight at 7, and I’ll pay for anything you want. Now imagine, 4pm roles around and you are starting to get hungry. You walk into the kitchen knowing that this incredible meal will be waiting for you at around 7ish; but then you stumble across the Twinkees and Doritos...You decide to nibble on some just to “hold you over” for awhile. But what typically happens is we end up filling up on Twinkees and Doritos and then heading to Outback a couple hours later. So we both get to Outback and eat some salad and bread and by the time our main course arrives we find that we are already pretty full...full on Twinkees, Doritos, salad and bread. And suddenly what should be an incredible meal of steak and shrimp, now becomes just an average meal because our appetite is gone...we are just a little hungry for it. All that is left is the leftovers of ourself.

Yeah, dinner still tastes good but that steak and shrimp isn’t nearly what it could have been if we had waited all day to eat. If we had forgone the Twinkees and Doritos, that meal would have been that much better...it would have been incredible.

So, we do the same thing in our lives. We nibble on the things of this world, and leave no room (appetite) for God, who is the incredible meal. Then by the time we get to Him, we are mostly full and He gets the leftovers of ourselves.

That is why we sometimes struggle with having a passionate desire for the Lord, and maybe why some of us aren’t growing spiritually...all we are eating are Twinkees and Doritos and ignoring the source of it all. In Psalm 63, David says, “my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you...Your love is better than life.” I don’t think David nibbled on Twinkees and Doritos during those days, I think he waited for the Lord.

I’ll put it this way:

-Stop watching 4 football games every weekend (turn off ESPN, they will be ok without you...)

-Get off the computer/video game.

-Stop idolizing sports and food.

Don’t ever confuse the created and the creator.

The end. Go team!

Why Mystery Mission???

Human nature is to be safe and to comfortable. That’s ok. It is a universal need in everyone to feel safe and secure. That’s why we lock our doors, password protect our things, and set our house temperature to exactly 73 degrees. There is nothing wrong with any of these things...

However, we tend to try and do the same thing with God. We want to make God safe and predictable and get him to fit into a box so that we can completely understand everything about him. We try to domesticate God and make him ‘user friendly’. This is why some people will spend their entire lives trying to answer some of the unanswerable questions about God. Personally I think it’s slightly arrogant for us to say or think, “if there is a God, I’d better be able to understand everything about Him; he’d better be able to fit completely into my 8 pound head.” The reality is that maybe we won’t completely understand everything about Him. And that’s ok too. I think that’s why we have to completely trust Him...not me.

There are 2 things I know for sure

1. We have become too predictable. We love what is safe because it makes us feel, well...safe. We fear and do not like the unknown. Sometimes it looks like our faith is starting to be the routine; starting to be the norm; that it is normal and cool to follow Jesus. I think you can start to see it in the American church as well. Church has become just another weekly activity that you do, and then unplug when you leave, like a recreational softball league or a class on crocheting. Where is the passion? adventure and challenge? Was it ever there to being with or was it always just another task to perform?...

1. Jesus was very mysterious and unpredictable. He would do things that would leave people completely baffled. He didn’t have a set schedule, and wasn’t really expected to be anywhere at any certain time. At times He was surrounded by people and couldn’t get away, and then at others He would completely disappear and no one could find Him (Mark 1:35, Matthew 14:13). Sometimes He would answer questions that people were just thinking, other times He would refuse to answer their questions altogether (Mark 7:5-6, 11:33). Sometimes He would heal everyone, and then at times He would leave people physically unhealed and go somewhere else (Mark 1:38). Sometimes He would spend a day with people and they would call Him the Christ (John 1), and sometimes He would spend months with people and they would desert Him (John 6). Sometimes He would say something that would change someones life in an instant (Luke 23:40-43), and sometimes people would have absolutely no idea what He was talking about (Mark 9:32, Luke 9:44-45, Luke 18:31-34, John 4:33). People would go from everyone praising Him to everyone being furious at Him and trying to kill Him 13 verses later (Luke 4:15-28), or go from being amazed at Him to being offended by Him 3 verses later (Matthew 13:54-57). No one really knew who He was except the demons. (Mark 3:11, 3:20-22, 6:14-15).

Lets get back to the mystery of God. Lets walk in faith of not knowing every single step we will ever take in our lives. Lets just trust that God is God and I am not...