Pastor Tab Cosgrove July 8, 2018

Text: Mark 6:1-13+2Cor 12:1-10 Title: Why Do We Need Jesus—He Equips Our Journey

  1. As we celebrated our country’s freedom this past Wednesday I couldn’t help but be reminded of the blessing we have of living in a countrywhere freedom can reign. To live in a place where democracy, no matter which side of the political coin you plant yourself on, has a voice and ultimately works. A place where capitalism provides the opportunities for hard work to be rewarded and dreams, big or small,to be realized. We have so much to be thankful for living in a country such as this. We have remarkable freedoms in all areas of life and comparatively to most of the countries in the world, unprecedented affluence. And in this affluence, we have become accustom to the concept of being the best, having the biggest and achieving the most. And so at this time of year we are grateful and thankful that we really do live, in general, blessed lives in a blessed and free land.
  1. But because, for the most part, we, as a culture, have been so blessed, we, as Christians, are experiencing a rather complex challenge. It’s becoming increasingly more complicated for our culture to comprehend this idea being presented to us today,of strengthbeing connected to and reliant on weakness. Our culture can’t absorb this spiritual truth because weakness is not strength.It is just the opposite. Coming to grips with our inadequacies is not cool. We are to overcome by being self-confident and self-assuredgoing to great lengths to find the answers we needwithin ourselves because that is how greatness emerges. That is how strength is achieved and the American dream realized—from a self-made ideology. And as this ideology engrains itself into the day to day areas of our lives where does that leave us? How are we, who are trying to understand faith as best as we can so that we can live it as best as we can,how are we to merge these two ever widening theologies into an everyday life? Because scripture is clear, God’s strength, shown in mercy, is made more evident, more perfect, in one’s weakness, not in one’s own strength. And in a world where strength is self-made and comes from within it is hard to intersect those two concepts without tension or without a snubbing of some sort from those around us. It is hard to walk out those doors and live this concept of weakness actually being strength.
  1. As I explored our Gospel lesson for today I realized that Mark actually recorded Jesus failing and not being able to do some of the things He was able to do in other areas and towns He visited. Read vs 5-6. Why was this so? Because Jesus failed? No,it was because the people of Nazareth didn’t recognize Him as Savior, as the Messiah as Scripture and others claimed Him to be. But again, why was that?I believe they didn’t see Jesus for who He really was because they were looking at Him from the wrong position. They were standing! They were looking down at Him from a place of presumed familiarity and thought they knew what was best for themselves therefore not acknowledging Jesus was someone special and someone they needed. Think about it, when do we miss seeing Jesus working in our lives the most? When we are self-absorbed! When we are trying to figure out life on our own. When we think and convince ourselves that if we just try harder and plunge our resources into our problem or situation that we will get through it! We got this is our refrain!! And I can tell you from first hand experience,that doesn’t work!! It may for a time suffice but in the long run it’s like putting a Band-Aid on a deep wound. The spiritual truth behind the economy of the Kingdom is that managing on our own leaves room for human error and because we are inherently sinful human error will abound.
  1. The people of Nazareth did not see who Jesus really was because they were standing in their pride and presumption of knowledge and insight. This has been an age-old flaw of human kind ever since that fretful day Adam and Eve believed the lie that they could become like God. There is an old saying that states,The road to spiritual wholeness is found by acknowledging our human weakness and our desperate need for something beyond ourselves.How we recognize Jesus working in our lives is by putting ourselves physically and metaphorically in the proper position—on our knees—confessing our sinfulness and prevalent weaknesses; humbled and desperate for Him to be God in our moments of need. Because from that position we are the strongest that we are ever going to be according to Paul. For when I am weak then and only then am I strong! It has also been said, When nothing is left but God, that’s when you find out that God is all you need.You see, the way that Paul got the most out of this thorn in the flesh, that he spoke of, was to humble himself. To not let the pride of his accomplishments make him stand tall as if he had something to do with it. When he heard Jesus’ message to him, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness, Paul knew what his proper position was to be.A position of submission and inward acknowledgement that he was not God.Wholeness, security and peace in the Kingdom of God is always a byproduct of acknowledging our brokenness before a Holy and righteous Lord. How we make it in this life is by placing our hearts and minds in a position which acknowledges “we don’t got this,” and that we need Jesus no matter how life plays out.
  1. If we are going to properly live within this paradox of two diametrically opposed schools of thought, we have to put ourselves in a proper position. I love the fact that Jesus sent out His twelve disciples on a mission and told them to basically take nothing. Trust me, was their message. Their vulnerability and weakness would be their power and strength. Without taking anything on this trial missionary run they had to be dependent on His provision and care. If they would have taken things and been secure in their travels they would have been less reliant and less available for the wonder of what He would do through them. And the results of their reliance and trust was phenomenal. They saw God working in all sorts of ways! Jesus wanted to put them into a position of weakness to let them see how strong their Lord could be and it was a lesson that would pay dividends for the future of the church later on. Perhaps the Lord included this missional section next to the Nazarene blunder so that we could connect the dots that position matters. If we are so focused on ourselves and insist on living by the mantra We Got This or we know what’s best, we could miss what God is really capable of doing in and through our lives.
  1. When I was serving in NC we took some of our youth on a servant event to the same mountains we will be going to on our NC mission trip in the fall. We split into different teams and some of us worked on houses, some did site preparation and others worked at the Habitat Resell store, organizing and cleaning. While at that store a male youth, not part of our group, was there fulfilling community service hours and was introduced to our kids. He told the camp youth that he was a Spiritual Satanist didn’t believe. Our youth, early in the week got together and made it their mission to talk to this young man about their faith so that he would be converted. A well-planned task indeed, but as the week went on this young man was not only uninterested but had some not so nice things to say about their faith and this discouraged our youth greatly. So about mid-week we sat them down and discussed with them a different approach. We told them to stop trying but to simply live their faith—that it wasn’t up to them whether or not this young man would be converted—that was God’s job. So that’s what they did. They stopped talking about faith with him and just tried to have fun with him, including him when they could. At the end of the week the Executive Director of Habitat for that county told us leaders that this young man who had had a horrible upbringing had come to him and said he was thinking more about this whole Christianity thing. He said that our camp youth had made such a tremendous impression on this young man by the way they included him in their fun and conversations about life in general, that he wanted to have what they had. When our youth heard this, they were shocked because all of their efforts failed, which led them to believe he was never going to understand. Jesus came in the midst of this young man’s broken life through simple lives lived and the power of God showed up when they got themselves out of the way and took the correct position.
  1. Why we need Jesus is because we are weak. Sometimes our best laid plans fall short, but He doesn’t. And the more that sinks in and becomes a way of life in the worlds we frequent the more we will see His power working through our weakness. Paul knew it, the disciples knew it and the message is given for us to know it as well. We humble ourselves and place ourselves in His hands to equip our journey and know that when we are weak that is when we are strong. Because that is God’s platform in which He can do wonderful things. Because He says to us, My power is made perfect in weakness. In Jesus Name. Amen.