Two Journeys

 Pastor Andy Davis preaches on Mark 6:14-29 unfolding the account of the martyrdom of John Baptist by Herod the Tetrarch.

Turn in your Bibles to Mark 6, verses 14-29. As we come to this passage, as we do, I think every week, I ask this question, why did the Holy Spirit want this section of scripture in the Gospel of Mark? Why is it in the Bible? It's a good question to ask. "King Herod heard of it." Heard of what? We're right in the middle of a thought. What he heard of was the miracles of Jesus and now they're spreading as the apostles have been given miraculous power. They've come back now, and it's starting to spread and that's what King Herod had heard of, so he is responding to that. Then the dialogue is recorded right away in which Herod says, "I think John the Baptist has been raised from the dead.”  Then Mark breaks off and gives us the story. It's unique because this is, by one scholar's accounting, and I've not line by line tested out, but I think it's true. This is the only section of Mark's Gospel that doesn't directly have to do with Jesus. The only one. Every other passage in these 16 chapters is either directly about Jesus or spoken by Jesus. It's directly connected to him except this one. So it is good for us to try to understand why is it here. Why is it here? I wrote down three words in the outline. 

These are the three words that I wrote: realism, warning, and worship. That's why it's here.  First realism. We are called on to be ambassadors and emissaries of the kingdom of God. We are called on in the pattern of the apostles to go out and share the gospel. What kind of response can we expect? This is part of the answer. We need to be ready to lay down our lives. Christians over twenty centuries have been willing to lay down their lives, even to the point of martyrdom. We have to be realistic. So there's a realism here. If we are going to be fishers of men, there's going to be a cost to us, and that cost might be very high. God wants us to know ahead of time.

Secondly, a warning. It's a warning to all the world concerning what some would call lifestyles of the rich and famous. Those who desire to get rich pierce themselves with many a pain. We have here an exposure of a rich man, a powerful man, and how corrupt he is in that wealth and that power. How evil. It's a warning to rich, powerful rulers, rich, powerful people about the dangers of that lifestyle. We're going to get a closer look at how trapped and fearful and wicked this man really was. So a warning, and it's a warning to all of us to not desire that. The number one idol in the world is money. It's what people go after, they want it. Don't yearn for it, don't desire. It's corrosive, it’s destructive.

Thirdly, worship. We get a direct contrast between two kings here. Though it's not talking about Jesus, Jesus should be on our minds. What kind of king is Herod and what kind of king is Jesus, and what a beautiful contrast we get here. There is opportunity for us to praise and worship. We are going to an eternal kingdom with a perfect king who's nothing like this wicked man, Herod. So those are my reasons, that's why it's here.

Let's walk through it and we're going to begin with the aspect of realism; God’s painful use of martyrs to advance Christ's kingdom. For twenty centuries, the gospel is advanced through a trail of blood, through a trail of blood. Early history of the church was filled with martyrs whose blood was shed to spread the gospel. In our time, statistics show that over 100,000 Christians are killed every year for their faith. It’s hard to get an accurate number because people die and they don't always know the circumstances. But 100,000, probably even more.  It is especially stunning. How frivolous are the ways and the means by which some rulers take out godly people, how frivolous the reasons, how corrupt they are to please the whims of tyrants. There's a story from the early days of the Roman persecution. The emperor, Nero, smeared combustible oils on the skins of Christians and ignited them for a dinner party he was having, to light a dinner party. What a corrupt and wicked man Nero was. We know the story of martyrs whose lifeblood wet the sands of the coliseum. The Romans would come and find entertainment in it until they realized there really wasn't much entertainment in a godly family, godly father and mother and godly children kneeling in prayer while lions mauled them.

The lingering question for us is how can a loving father allow his children to die like that? This becomes even more acute when there are passages of scripture that talk clearly about God's power to save, to intervene and to save his servants. David wrote about it in Psalm 18 and he talks about God coming down from heaven to earth to rescue him in very powerful language.  In Psalm 18:6-9 David says, "In my distress, I called to the Lord, I cried to my God for help. From His temple He heard my voice, my cry came before Him into His ears. The earth trembled and quaked and the foundations of the mountain shook. They trembled because he was angry. Smoke rose from his nostrils. Consuming fire came from his mouth. Burning coals blazed out of it. He parted the heavens and came down.”

Yet throughout history, redemptive history, God generally doesn't part the heavens and come down, it’s not that way. Rather time and time again, his servants, their blood has been poured out like a drink offering to serve his purposes. This is extremely perplexing, especially when you consider various doctrines and teachings like Luke 18. Remember the parable of the persistent widow? Jesus is saying we should always pray and never give up. She's before an unjust judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And Jesus closed with these words. Luke 18:7-8, "And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice and quickly." Wow. And yet Jesus himself cried out from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" His enemies stood around the cross and said, “He's calling on God. Let's see if God comes down and rescues him.” And he didn’t.  To put two verses from Romans 8 together, "He who did not spare his own son, would he not also consider us sheep to be slaughtered?" The answer is yes, yes. But we know that Christ has risen. Martyrs are in glory for all eternity. There's nothing ultimately to fear, to live is Christ and to die his gain. We know that Christ has removed the sting forever from death and see it that way.

So we come to Mark 6 and we come to the martyrdom of John the Baptist with trembling hearts, struggling to understand how such a holy man, an otherworldly figure could die like an animal, really, slaughtered like an animal. In such sorted circumstances, this was a man of whom Jesus said, "Among those born of women, there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist." We're going to circle back to that statement. It's very important. That's who John was. How could such a faithful and pure servant of the living God be executed because of a lust filled promise made by a corrupt, probably drunken king at a birthday party to a seductive dancing girl in front of all of his dinner guests? How could someone so high and holy be brought down in such a low and sorted way? 

In our present day, how can God allow Sudanese Christians to be murdered systematically by the Islamic government for 50 years? Year after year after year? How can God allow Chinese house church pastors to be arrested and harassed by the government, incarcerated, harshly treated? How can God allow a Muslim family to murder their own son because he has professed faith in Christ? Where is God in all of that? That's a question we ask. That's what we need to understand. These are questions that come in connection with the text we're looking at today.

In the account today, we're going to see very clearly depicted the life of fear versus a life of faith. We put it this way, if you fear God, you don't need to fear anything else, but if you don't fear God, you have reason to fear everything else. We see a pure holy fear of God in John the Baptist, maybe the purest there had been up to that point versus a man who didn't fear God by the way he lived, he's just enslaved to fear. He's a man of fear in every respect. So two different ways to live, fearing God, fear nothing else. Refuse to fear God, you need to fear everything else.

We come to John the Baptist, a lamp burning and shining for a while. Who was this man, John the Baptist? That statement Jesus made about him and John 5:35, "John was a burning and shining lamp and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light." He's one of the few people in the pages of scripture whose life was predicted before he was born. Most of those predictions are about Jesus. But John was predicted, and there's two different passages that predicted his coming and his ministry, Isaiah 40 and Malachi 4. Isaiah 40:3, "He is the voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straighten the wilderness a highway for our God.'" That passage again and again is ascribed to John the Baptist. But then Malachi 4, the very last chapter of the Old Testament in our English Bibles, I think the last statement in the Old Testament. Malachi 4:5, "Behold I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes." So Elijah is coming. We're not going to go into that, later in Mark we can walk into that more carefully.  Now, Jesus, as I said, made this amazing assessment, "Among those born of women, there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist." That's 39 books of the Old Testament, the entire Old Testament era, no one, none of those people was greater than John the Baptist. It’s an incredible statement. 

Now, what was the nature of his ministry? In Mark 1:4-6, we already saw this a number of months ago as we walked through Mark 1, "John came baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, the whole Judean countryside and all the people that Jerusalem went out to him, confessing their sins. They were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothing made of camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist and he ate locust and wild honey." So that was his ministry, practically.

A number of years ago I heard John MacArthur give a three part summary of John the Baptist's ministry. I never forgot it. I think it's very helpful. I'll commend it to you again, John the Baptist came, number one to prepare the way, number two, to proclaim the way, and number three, get out of the way. I think that's helpful. First, prepare the way. John prepared the way by heightening expectation. He was clearly a prophet of God. He did no miracles, but by his bold preaching, by the water baptism he was doing, by the amazing popularity that he had, tons of people were coming and so hearts were heightened and expectations raised by John's ministry. He got the hearts of the Jewish nation ready for the coming king. He called on people to repent of their sins and he was water baptizing them for that repentance. There was expectation, a lot of that to prepare the way. 

Now with that, he was very clear, he was not the Messiah, but he got everyone ready for the Messiah. He made amazing, amazing statements about Jesus to heighten expectation. Mark 1: 7-8, "After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandal I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." Boy, that heightens expectation. “Who's coming? Someone greater than you?” “Yes, I don't deserve to touch his shoes. That's how great he is. Prepare the way.”

Secondly, to proclaim the way. John did this on one fateful day when Jesus came to be water baptized. There with the rest of the crowd, there is Jesus. John said, "I wouldn't have recognized him except the Spirit came down and remained on him like a dove, and I realized who he was." He began that day when he pointed at Jesus and said, "Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." That's proclaiming the way. “Look at him, behold him. The Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world. And I have seen, and I testify, that he is the son of God." It's incredible statements. “The Lamb of God, the Son of God” pointing at a specific man and saying, "There he is.” 

But then thirdly, his job was to get out of the way. That was necessary because of how popular he was. He was incredibly popular. Masses of people went out to John. He's so well known that for a time, people in the Jewish diaspora around the Mediterranean Sea knew John and they didn't know Jesus. You meet up with some of those people in the Book of Acts as Paul is spreading the gospel. We've heard of John, who's Jesus? “Let me tell you. John would want me to tell you.” And John himself said of Jesus, "He must increase and I must decrease." So who do you think is more famous today on planet earth? Jesus or John? It's easy, and wouldn't John want it that way? The Holy Spirit's not going around in every tribe, language, people and nation sending out messages in the name of John the Baptist. He's along for the ride. When you learn about Jesus, here we are learning about John and that's fine. But Jesus must infinitely increase and John is who he was.

That's what John the Baptist came to do. He was truth on fire. He was a lamp burning and shining for a while. What was his preaching like? Wow. What would it be like to hear this man preach? We have a sample of his preaching in Matthew 3: 7-12. This is what it sounds like. "When many of the Pharisees and Sadducees came to where he was baptizing, he said to them, 'You brood of vipers. Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? And do not think you can say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. I tell you out of these stones, God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the tree and every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water. But after me will come one greater than I, the thongs of who sandals I am not worthy to stoop down on untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering up the wheat into his barn, but burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’"

Wow. Imagine hearing preaching like that. Part of that bold preaching was something he said to King Herod about his marriage,  and it got him into trouble. Look at verse 17 and 18, "For Herod himself had given orders to have John arrested and had him bound and put in prison. He did this because of Herodias, his brother, Phillip's wife, whom he had married. For John, had been saying to Herod, 'It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.'" So the Greek verb tense there implies he'd said this multiple times, this was a daily feature. Let me tell you something. Most kings don't like to be told they need to repent. Most people don't like it. But God has consistently raised men who will tell mighty potentates the truth, fearlessly tell them the truth. Moses before Pharaoh, "This is what the Lord the God of Israel says, 'Let my people go.'" Pharaoh's not used to being talked to that way.  Samuel said to King Saul, "To obey is better than sacrifice. To harken is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination. And arrogance is like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king." The prophet Nathan said to David after telling him a story that brought him to the brink of conviction, pointed his finger at him and said, "You are the man. You have sinned." Elijah said to wicked King Ahab, "This is what the Lord says, 'Have you not murdered a man and seized his property?' Oh, this is what the Lord says, 'In the place where dogs licked up Naboth's blood, dogs will lick up your blood. Yes, yours.'" Christ said to Pontius Pilate, "You would have no power over me if it were not given you from above.” Peter and John said to the Sanhedrin, "The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree." It's a kind of boldness. Paul spoke boldly to Felix, who is governor of Judea and in charge of his fate. Paul spoke boldly to him about righteousness, self control and the judgment to come, and when Felix heard it, he was afraid and said, “Let's talk later.”  So courage and boldness on the part of a prophetic voice to government leaders is part of our heritage. And John the Baptist did that, it got him into trouble. John was no reed swayed by the wind back and forth with public opinion. Not at all. He was an oak of righteousness. Fearing God, John feared nothing else and he paid for it with his life. 

By stark contrast, secondly, we see King Herod who is a black hole of sin.  Jesus said John was a lamp burning and shining for a while and you rejoiced in his light. Well, if John was that, then Herod was a black hole of sin. It’s a star collapsed in on itself, with such a powerful gravitational pull that light can't escape it. Herod is like that,  he just sucks in the light of God's goodness to him, the light of the truth of the word and darkness resulted. He was a dark person. Herod was prideful in his power. 

Who is this man? Herod the Tetrarch, usually called Herod Antipas. He was the son of Herod the Great. His father ordered the execution of all the boy babies in Bethlehem and its vicinity who are two years old and under to protect his own insecure reign. That was Herod the Great, his father. The apple doesn't fall very far from the tree. This is a corrupt man from a corrupt family, very wicked.  After the death of Herod the Great, the Romans divided his kingdom among his three sons. “Tetrarch” means a ruler of the fourth part. I don't know why four not three, except that maybe Rome is the fourth and it's watching over the whole thing. The idea was to keep any of these Herods from being too powerful. Herod was thus a ruler, but not really. He's a petty mid-level manager basically. He wasn't that powerful, and he just lived a life of luxury and self indulgence. That's who he was.  He also is characterized by lust. He set his eyes on his brother Philip's wife, Herodias, and he wanted her. She, for her part, is a thoroughly evil woman’s Jezebel again. We're going to circle back on her later, God willing, in Mark's Gospel. There's a strong connection between Herodias and Jezebel, just as there's a strong connection between John the Baptist and Elijah. And that's what she's like. The story of Mark 6 is typical of the way such evil, conniving women manipulate their powerful husbands to get them to do what they want. This is a regular story in the history of the world. Herodias left her husband, Philip, her uncle, to be married to another of her uncles. That's what he was to her, her Uncle Antipas. It's incestuous.  But why did she do it? Her motivation must have been power. That seemed to be what she was about. His motivation I think was lust. And lust is a character flaw not satisfied at all by getting what it seeks. It's like giving a thirsty man salt water, the more you drink, the thirstier you get. We see Herod's lust again, I believe in this story, if you know what to look for. It's not hard to find. 

Herod is also complex in his relationship with John. What did Herod think about John? Matthew 14:5 says Herod wanted to kill John. Herod's conscience did not stop him from stealing his brother's wife. He had no fear of God in that direction. When John tried to convict him of sin, Herod's prideful anger stirred and he arrested John. But his view of John is complicated, more complicated in Mark than it is in Matthew. So the text we're looking at here shows some of the inner workings of what's going on in this man's twisted brain.  Look at verse 19 and 20, "Herodias, his wife, nursed a grudge against John and want to kill him." She's not complicated in her view toward John. There's no, “I don't know what to do about John.” She just wanted him dead. Very straightforward with Herodias. But she's not able to because she's not in charge, Herod is. 

Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled, but he liked to listen to him. He was a weird man with a weird relationship. John would tell him truths of the kingdom and truths of the Messiah and all that. He listened and he wouldn't get it. Oh, it doesn't make sense. Puzzled. It's puzzling. It's confusing. But he like listening to him. There was something in John's message that was appealing to him, but most of it he didn't understand. Herod's the ruler, so he could kill John.  He could set them free, he's in charge. Theoretically, but he's got dueling fears. Lots of them. He's boxed in by his fears. He was definitely afraid of John. He's a holy man. So he's afraid of what would happen to him. But because he's afraid his behavior is one of anger motivated by fear, he's afraid of him so he wants to kill him. 

But he has other fears besides. Matthew 14:5 says he feared the people. Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people because they considered him a prophet. So violent and cruel tyrants are usually that way because of fear and insecurity. “Uneasy lies a head that wears the crown.” He feared an uprising of the people if he killed John. Then he's got Herodias who wants him dead. No doubt about it, and I'm sure she communicated that to her wicked husband. So he's trapped. He's trapped like an animal by his corrupt character, trapped by pride, trapped by his power, trapped by his lust, trapped by his anger, trapped by his fear. He's trapped by all of those things, even before his birthday party. Little did he know that he would be trapped openly before his dinner guest by his cold-hearted, clever and conniving wife.

So the trap springs, look at verse 21 and following, "Finally the opportune time came." Now that's an interesting statement, isn't it? Opportune time. Opportune for what? Opportune to kill John. Opportune for who? Not for Herod, he wasn't thinking that's what's going to happen on my birthday. It was Herodias's moment. This is Herodias's time. "Finally, the opportune time came. On his birthday, Herod gave a banquet for his high officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. When the daughter of Herodias came and danced, she pleased him and his dinner guests. The king said to the girl, 'Ask me for anything you want and I'll give it to you.' And he promised her with an oath, 'Whatever you ask, I will give you even up to half my kingdom.' She went out and said to her mother, 'What should I ask for?' 'The head of John the Baptist,' she answered. At once, the girl hurried into the king with the request, 'I want you to give me right now, the head of John the Baptist on a platter.' The king was distressed, greatly distressed. But because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her. So he immediately sent an execution with orders to bring John's head. The man went, beheaded John in the prison, brought back his head on a platter, presented it to the girl and she gave it to her mother.”

It was a birthday party to remember, wasn't it? I mean, birthdays can be a time of encouragement, given to a loved one, or they can be lavish, selfish, materialistic, gluttonous, lascivious, orgies of self-indulgence in the pleasures of the flesh. They could be that. That's what this one was. Herodias baits and springs the trap, like that old poem, "'Will you walk into my parlor?' said the spider to the fly, and in he goes." Knowing Herod's lust, Herodias arranged to have her young daughter, maybe teenage daughter, dance for Herod at the party. She is the bait to trap Herod into the execution he didn't want to give. It seems obvious to me that the girls' dance was lascivious. Friends, this is not a ballet recital. I don't sense that at all. It's an alluring, enticing dance meant to appeal to Herod's lust filled eyes. Think of the corruption of Herodias doing this. Verse 22-23, "When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guest. The king said to the girl, 'Ask me for anything you want and I'll give it to you.' And he promised her with an oath. 'I swear, whatever you ask, I'll give you, up to half my kingdom.'" That was such a good dance. That's weird. This kind of lavish oath probably meant to impress his dinner guests. “See how generous I am, how powerful I am.” But out of his own mouth, he's trapping himself. Little did he realize it would cost him his soul, stained by the blood of God's choice servant. 

 So the girl went out and said to her mother, "What should I ask for?" "The head of John the Baptist," she answered. "At once the girl hurried into the king with her request, 'I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter.'" This is sick. It's twisted. The details are particularly gruesome. Herodias is undoubtedly motivated by a deep seated hatred of this man who has called her an adulterer. She wants him to suffer and die. She's woven this whole trap like a spider, and he just walks into it, and Herod then just cowardly surrenders. Herod honored and respected John, as we said. He feared him, but he honored and respected himself more. He honored and inspected his dinner guests more. He's trapped. Verse 20 says, "He's greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests…” He's an animal in his snare so he agrees to the dastardly request, and John's head is severed from his body. Verses 27 and 28, "He did not want to refuse her so he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John's head. The man went, beheaded John in the prison, brought back his head on a platter. He presented it to the girl and she gave it to her mother." Did you ever stop to think what did this do to her? The girl, I mean? Imagine having this on your conscience the rest of your life. She was a pawn in her wicked mother's game. I can hardly imagine how she must have been in anguish over her role in John's death. The blood of an innocent man staining her soul.

So we go back to the original, the beginning of the account. Herod has a guilty conscience. Look at the beginning of the account, verse 14-16, "King Herod heard about this," namely the miracles, Jesus' miracles. And now the apostles are doing the miracles for Jesus name had become well known.  Some were saying John the Baptist has been raised from the dead. That's why miraculous powers are at work in him. Others said he's Elijah, he’s a prophet like one of the prophets of long ago." Verse 16, "But when Herod heard this, he said, 'John, the man I beheaded, has been raised from the dead.'" Now I hope you realize how impossible that is. They met each other, they talked together. Herod's just not thinking and he's just guilty. He's got a guilty conscience. He's haunted about what he had done and that's what he thinks is happening.

What are the lessons that we take from this? Three lessons that I gave at the beginning and maybe some others beside realism, warning and worship. First of all, realism. God has called us to be fishers of men. Mark 1:17, this gospel and all the gospels, indeed the entire New Testament, get us ready to do our job, get us ready to share the gospel with lost people. Get us ready to go on mission trips, to stand before unbelievers and testify about Christ, His death, His bloody death on the cross, His bodily resurrection. And that repentance and faith in Christ will forgive you of all your sins. We are to tell it to anybody, including rulers, potentates, kings, emperors, and the lowly. People who are not powerful, people who are not wealthy, to anybody.  That telling may well get some of us into deep trouble. We should not imagine that that wasn't expected. We should not think something like that could never happen. Realism, like Jesus says the night before he was crucified, "People are going to arrest you. They're going to haul you before the authorities. You're going to have to stand before governors and kings. And when they arrest you, don't worry about it. I'm going to give you what to say. Don't be afraid. But I'm telling you ahead of time so that when it happens, you will keep believing in me and not lose your faith." So realism, we're going to have a hard time sharing our faith.  So this week, God may well lead you to share the gospel with your boss. I don't think your boss, he or she, will respond as badly as Herod here or Herodias, sure hope not. But they may give you some a hard time. You may get passed over in your company. You may not get promotions. You may have a hard time at work. Don't think something strange is happening to me, and don't be afraid to share your faith because of the impact it might have on your career. Be bold, be courageous. Realism. Realize you stand in a line of brothers and sisters in Christ, courageous men and women of God who are willing to die for the gospel. Let's step up into that. I think it's going to get harder and harder for us to witness in our culture to the government, to rulers in our world, to bosses. It's going to get harder and harder. To professors, we're going to have a harder and harder time. Let's be courageous. Realism. Realism.

Secondly, warning. Do not desire the lifestyle of the rich and famous. Do you see this twisted corruption here? Power corrupts, money tends to corrupt. Power doesn't have to corrupt. It didn't corrupt Jesus. Money doesn't have to corrupt. Godly people can use money well, but it has that tendency. Don't set your heart on it and be ambitious after it and go after it like it's going to solve all your problems. It didn't solve Herod's problems, so be warned.

Thirdly, worship. See the greatness, the infinite greatness of Jesus. He is not a king like this. He's a glorious king. We're going to spend forever studying how beautiful and radiant he is in his person, in his works. He is a perfect king. And I just urge you, in the spirit of John the Baptist, if you're not yet a believer, flee the wrath to come. There's a storm coming greater than any hurricane that's ever been on earth. And that storm is judgment day and it's going to test everything you've ever built in your life. Your house is built on a rock or it's built on sand. And if it's built on Jesus, it will stand. But if it's not, it's going to come crashing down and great will be that crash. I'm asking you flee to Christ.

If you are a sinner, all you need to do for full forgiveness of sins is repent of your sins, look to Christ, crucified and resurrected, and trust in him and you'll be part of his kingdom. And when you do, you'll find that his yoke is easy in his burden is light. He's a beautiful king, delightful to serve. Nothing like this corrupt man that we've studied today.

Close with me in prayer.  Lord, thank you for the time we've had today to walk through this twisted and sorted tale. And we have an instinct of why you told it to us. Through the powerful work of Mark, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit help us to embrace these themes, the realism of knowing that in this world we will have trouble. The exposure and warning about the dangers of wealth and power, the corrupting dangers that we see, that we'd not lust after that kind of life thinking it's going to be a wonderful life with no problems. But instead, help us to seek first your kingdom and your righteousness. Thirdly, just the beauty of Christ the king. Nothing like these wicked kings, but pure and perfect in all respects. Help us to love you and serve you with all of our hearts. In Jesus name, Amen.

Paul preaches the gospel in an amazing way to Athenian philosophers, describing a sovereign creator God who calls on idolaters to repent.

The post Acts Podcast 35: Paul In Athens: Passion and Persuasion appeared first on Two Journeys.

Sermon on Mark 6:7-13, where Jesus called, trained, and sent out the twelve apostles to win the world with the good news of the gospel.

Turn in your Bibles to Mark 6. We are looking this morning at verses 7-13. Clay is one of the most common substances on the surface of the Earth. In its natural form, it is close to worthless. But in the hands of a skillful potter or master artisan, it can take shape and grow and develop into a masterpiece worth thousands of dollars.

One of the greatest potters in the last 100 years was a Japanese craftsman named Shōji Hamada. He specialized in ceramics, used in the traditional Japanese tea ceremony. A simple but elegant teapot crafted by his skillful hands has sold as high as $5,000. Imagine, taking clay from the Earth, putting your skillful hands on it and shaping it to something of that level of value.  Perhaps you've seen a master potter at work at his wheel maybe, spinning the wheel with his feet, throwing the wet clay in the center and applying his skillful hands to the wet lump. It rises up off the wheel as if it were being raised from the dead, from an amorphous lump to a certain specified height that he has in mind. As the craftsman continues to apply moisture and skillful pressure, a delicate vessel appears before your eyes.

This process has been used for millennia of human history, and the analogy between God's skillful work on his people and the potter's craftsmanship with clay is ancient as well. That analogy has been around a long time. Through Jeremiah, the prophet, God taught this kind of living parable as in Jeremiah 18, “This is the word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah, ‘Go down to the potter's house, and there, I will give you my message.’ So, I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel, but the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands. So, the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then, the word of the Lord came to me, ‘Oh, house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does declares the Lord? Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you and my hand, oh, house of Israel.’”  It's a beautiful picture, isn't it? Of God at work in his people, shaping them for his purposes. So it was with the twelve apostles in the hands of the master, Jesus Christ. They were just wet clay until He shaped them to be leaders of the church whose lives and doctrines would change the history of the world.

Today, we're going to see another major step in the training of the twelve, as Jesus sends them out on their own for the first time to do ministry. It's their first solo flight, a major part of their apprenticeship. It offers for us timeless lessons to all who carry on in their evangelistic work in our own generation. We may well ask, not only why did Jesus train the twelve like this, but why did the Holy Spirit want us to know about it by putting it in Mark's Gospel? Those are both very important questions.  For we are all called to this work. We are called on to make disciples of all nations. The church is called to the Great Commission- baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything Christ has commanded. We're called to the Great Commission, and like the twelve, we need to be shaped and molded for this work.

Do you feel it? “Oh, God, work on me. Make me an evangelist. Make me effective in sharing my faith. I want to be shaped. Would you please train me?” Like all of them, we can at some point, feel overwhelmed by this work and feel as the apostle Paul said concerning the ministry of the gospel, "Who is equal to such a task?" You need to feel that. You should not feel, "Hey, I can do this. I got this, this whole evangelism thing." No. Who is equal to such a task?  But in the hands of the master potter, we can be shaped and prepared and be used to be instruments for the salvation of people in our generation. This is Christ's strategy to reach the world. 

Jesus, in his brief time on Earth, had a very limited scope to his evangelistic ministry.  He said very plainly in Matthew 15:24, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." That was just while he was on Earth, that's what He was sent to do, but he knew very well that had been planned before the foundation of the world, that he would be the savior of the world.  In Isaiah 49:6, God the Father is speaking within the Trinity, to God, the Son, before Jesus was ever incarnate.  In Isaiah 49:6, 600 years before the birth of Jesus, God said, "It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth." Jesus, the light for the Gentiles.

To that end, Jesus had always intended to call and train and send out followers into the world as his messengers; it’s part of the plan. This passage represents, as I've said, a major moment in the training of the twelve, the shaping, the preparing of the twelve, and a major turning point in the ministry of Jesus. Up to this point, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus has been doing everything himself.  He's done all the healing. He's done all the driving out of the demons. He's done all the teaching. He has stood in the gap alone with no one joining in because they were not ready. But now, the time has come to prepare the twelve for the role that they're going to play for the rest of their lives.  Now this was always his intention, As you remember in Mark 1:16-17, “As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and his brother, Andrew, casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. ‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘And I'll make you fishers of men.’” We can come back to that verse, but I'm just saying from the very beginning, this was Jesus' intention.

As he continued to go, as we've been working our way through the Gospel of Mark, in Mark 4, a critical chapter, Jesus is getting them ready for this work. The cycle of parables that he teaches there,  the parable  of the seed and the different kinds of soils. That was fundamentally about evangelism. Also, the statement about no one lighting a lamp and putting under a bowl instead it's to give light to everyone in the house.  In Mark's Gospel, the context of that statement is, “I don't intend for my parables to stay secret. I want everyone in the world to understand them. I want my teachings to shine throughout the world.” Then, the statement about the farmer, planting a seed in the ground and night or day, whether he sleeps or works, the seed sprouts and grows. He does not know how all by itself, the soil produces grain versus stock and the head and the full kernel in the head.  As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts a sickle to it, and harvest has come. That's evangelism. But it's putting us in our place saying, "We can't do any of the growth, only God can." We have a role to play. We can plant the seed, we can harvest by bringing people to faith in Christ. It's evangelism.

Also there’s the parable of the mustard seed. He’s setting expectations, things are going to start small, and then, they're going to get bigger and bigger, and bigger and bigger, and more and more glorious. So, it is again and again, it's not just one time, over and over in different cities and different tribes and languages and cultures. It's the work of the gospel, it starts small, it's unimpressive. Then, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. It's a lasting principle. All of this was getting them ready for evangelism and formations.  His handling of the twelve is a timeless paradigm for every generation that followed, getting them ready to do evangelism too. That's the answer. 

The second question, why does the Holy Spirit have this in the Gospel of Mark, and also, in Matthew and Luke? Why does he have it in here? Get us ready. But there are some key exceptions. We are not apostles.  I'm not an apostle, you're not apostle, so there's going to be some significant differences. We need to understand the difference, but also sit under the lessons as well. Every one of Jesus's true disciples has a role to play in the spread of the gospel to the ends of the Earth. We all have a role to play. Jesus made this very plain. Matthew 12:30, "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters.” What is gathering with Jesus, if not evangelism in missions?

If we're not active in evangelism missions, we are scattering. It's one or the other. There's no third option, we’re either gathering with Jesus or we're scattering, one or the other. So, we have role to play. Now, Jesus is doing this gathering through evangelism, through missions, and we need to be active in this.  His pattern of training in the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is timeless.The Bible provides the sufficient answer.  We want to know, how do I get ready? What do I need to understand? What's my technique, my approach? All of it, it's in the Bible,  but there are some key exceptions. The apostles were unique. 

We need to understand the uniqueness of the apostles. They're unique compared to the centuries of followers who would take up the mantle of world evangelization.  First of all, they were eyewitnesses of Jesus, eyewitnesses of his life, his death, his resurrection, and we aren't. We've never seen Jesus. Their eyewitness testimony is the foundation of the entire New Testament. All of the 27 books in the New Testament come ultimately from apostolic teaching, and all of the succeeding generations of Christians have based their theology on the teaching ministry of the apostles. But that's not our role. We don't have that role.  Their authoritative teaching would therefore, shape the doctrine of the church for all succeeding generations. They were given the power to bind that which was loose. They were given authority that we don't have, doctrinal statements that everyone who followed had to obey. We don't have that role.

Furthermore, in this text, they were given supernatural power to drive out demons and heal every disease and sickness among the people. These were signs that the apostle Paul said mark out an apostle. That clearly implies most disciples didn't have them. If everybody had them, then it wouldn't mark out an apostle as unique. They're unique. None of these things are true of us. We are not the twelve. We are not relevant to the foundation of the church as they were. But having said all that, there are some common aspects of the lives and ministries of the twelve apostles to us, and on these, we're going to focus for this sermon.

There is in general a calling to preach the gospel and win lost people to faith in Christ, and also to warn those who reject the gospel of the grave danger of that rejection. There is a calling to show compassion to the hurting and the suffering of the world. There is a calling to live holy lives above reproach, to be willing to suffer for the gospel and many other details beside. In this way, they are patterns and there are examples for all of us.  We're going to walk through that now. For the rest of the sermon, what I'm going to do is, drive from the text the timeless ten lessons lessons that were zeroed in on the apostles.  Then, at the end, very briefly, I'm going to run through them again and translate them over to us, so that we can put them into practice.

Number one, prepared by Jesus, verse 7, the calling of the twelve to him. Before Jesus could send them out, He had to call them to him, and this is bigger than just one day. He didn’t said, "Hey, everybody, come and listen to me." It was bigger than that. He's calling them to follow him through repentance and faith. They had to be disciples of Christ. All of their mission for Christ flows out of their relationship with Christ.In Mark 3:14 says, "He appointed twelve, designating them apostles that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach." Do you see the two step? Be with him, go out and preach. Jesus is going to state it even more emphatically in John’s Gospel the night before he was crucified, with this beautiful image in John 15:5, "I am the vine, you are the branches, whoever abides in me and I in him, he, it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing." You want to be fruitful evangelistically? You have to abide in Jesus by faith in Jesus.  Everything they will do in their mission, they will do because they first saw him do it. Everything they will teach in their mission, they will teach because they first heard him say it. We see in the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the stages of their preparation. It didn't happen all at once. Jesus is getting them ready.

First, their initial faith in Christ, "I had to follow Jesus.” I think perhaps the best account of that is in John's Gospel.  In John 1:35-37, John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, himself had disciples. He had people who followed him, who were learning from him. Two of those disciples heard John say, when they saw Jesus passing by, "Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." They heard him say that, the second time they'd heard it.  When the two disciples heard John say this, they follow Jesus. There's clear indication that these are two of the twelve. We don't know who they are, but probably John was one of them. First they were following John the Baptist, now, they're following Jesus. Jesus saw them following. This is the beginning of the whole conversation. Jesus turned around,  and Jesus' first words in John's gospel, "What do you want?" It's anti-climactic. John's Gospel, "What do you want?" It's just these two disciples following Jesus. They said, "Rabbi, where are you staying?" He said, "Come and see,” and they spent time with him. It was just simply, time. Stunning to think such a filtered, edited, carefully chosen gospel this fourth gospel is, but that account made it in there because I think that was John's first time with Jesus, and there's no way he's cutting that out. “You asked me what was my first time listening to Jesus' talk, sitting with him spending time? It was just a simple time. We had a meal together. We just had some time together.” Then, as we've already noted, He called them to make a significant sacrifice to leave their jobs.

In Mark 1:16-20, as Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and his brother, Andrew, casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “'Come follow me,’" Jesus said, “'And I will make you to become fishers of men.’" At once, they left their nets and followed him. When he had gone a little farther, he saw James's son of Zebedee and his brother, John, in a boat preparing their nets without delay. He called them and he left their father Zebedee in the boat with a hired men and followed him.”They had to leave their family. They had to leave their jobs and do something different. I would say parenthetic, the number one reason we don't evangelize is, we don't make time for it. We don't make sacrifices for it. We're busy with our lives. We're busy with our jobs. We're busy with what we're doing.  I’m just asking you to think about what that's going to look like when Jesus asked you about it on judgment day. Do you think that's going to wash on Judgment Day? “Hey, we were too busy to share our faith. We're too busy to make the changes that the sacrifice needed.” They followed him.

Then, they are all the time with him, and they're listening to the general training that He gives to all the crowds. They're listening, they hear Jesus' words day-after-day. They hear what he says. They observe his miracles. They see all the way that He interacted with people. They saw the glory of Christ in everyday life situations. They saw his demeanors, characters, love, and just the way he dealt with people. They're learning.

Then came that time when the twelve themselves were identified out of the larger mass of disciples. Disciples are just followers, there was a big group of them. But then, one night Jesus goes off on a mountain. He spends all night praying, comes back down and calls all of the disciples that were there to him and chose out of them twelve.  In Mark 3 He called them apostles, which means “sent ones,” like ambassadors. They haven't been sent anywhere yet. That's in our text today and then beyond. But that's what they're going to be. They're going to be the “sent ones.” Then He gives them more and more specialized training. He focuses on them. He's got his inner circle, the twelve are the inner circle.  Then, there's the inner, inner circle, which is Peter, James, and John. He gave even more time to them, He's focusing on them. They got all of these special instructions. Mark 4:34, "He did not say anything to them, the crowd without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything." It was insider information. He's giving them specialized training. 

And now, practical apprenticeship, this trial mission. I can just say to you directly, you can't learn evangelism in a classroom alone, studying techniques. You can't do it here. You can do some things, you can learn some things that you can say, questions to ask, memorize the gospel outline. You can do all that, but you got to go out. You got to go out and try it. You got to learn by doing. That's what's happening here, He's sending them out. Then, the final commissioning after his death, after his resurrection, 40 days of training, and then He ascends to heaven. His final words, the Great Commission, and all four gospels have a different version of the great commission. Mark's version is Mark 16:15-16, “He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel, the good news to all creation. Whoever believes in his baptized will be saved. But whoever does not believe will be condemned.’" That's the Great Commission, “sent out,” and they would be empowered by the Holy Spirit [ Acts]. Acts 1:8, "You'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the Earth." Without the Spirit's power, we cannot be witnesses. The spirit is given to do this work in us and through us.

So, step-by-step like a master craft, Jesus is shaping and training and preparing them for this work, then He sends them out. Verse 7, "Calling the twelve to him, He sent them out.”  He sent them out physically. This is essentially Jesus' plan, as I just said. The world will not come to the gospel. The gospel has to go to the world. We have to bring it out.  We will not reach Durham by hoping Durham comes here. Some will. I assume, every week, including today that God has brought some people here that are as yet unconverted. I assume that, and I preach the gospel. But the overwhelming majority of people that we're going to reach with the gospel, we will have to go out to where they are. We'll have to go out and find them, talk to them. So, he sent out. He sends them for this apprenticeship. 

Thirdly, preach the gospel.  You may be saying,”Pastor, that's not in the text." It's not. It's not in Mark, but it's in Matthew and Luke. I believe there's a division of labor with the Gospels. Mark had his job to do, Matthew had his, Luke had his. I'm good with using them all.  Now, I don't have time to preach four Gospels week after week after week. Some of you wondering, when are we ever going to start picking up the pace? And Mark, we're only in chapter 6. We're going to go however much pace we go, but I'm going to occasionally reach out to Matthew and Luke, and I'm going to tell you, these guys were sent out to preach the gospel. They were sent out to preach the gospel. It's pretty clear from Mark 16:15-16, which we already quoted. Jesus makes it very plain there. "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. “Preach the gospel, preach the message of salvation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. Whoever does not believe will be condemned." This was preaching a message for the purpose of saving lost people from their sins and from judgment from God. That's what they're being sent out to preach.This is the good news of the gospel. Sinners can be forgiven. They can be reconciled to God by simple faith in Jesus. Repenting of their sins, turning away from their corruptions and their wickedness, turning to God, receiving from him, forgiveness all of all their sins past, present and future by faith in Christ. 

That's the same message Jesus was preaching day-after-day. Mark 1:15, "The time has come. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel." He did that every day. He's sending them out to do the same thing. Now, essential to that is the good news He said to the paralytic. You remember the guy that was carried by his four friends, lowered down through the roof, lowered down right in front of Jesus? "When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralyzed man, "Take heart, son, your sins are forgiven.  Then He did the miracle to prove that He had the authority, the right to forgive sins. We're going out to proclaim that Jesus has the right to forgive people's sins. That was it. 

Now, of course, it goes without saying, this message wouldn't be complete until Jesus actually, died on the cross, shed his blood on the cross, and then rose again in space and time, in history.  I don't know that they preached the same message at this point that they would later preach after Jesus had ascended. They could from the prophetic scripture, but it could be, they were just doing some of what John the Baptist was doing, calling people to repent and trust in the one who is coming. But the final message would be written in the blood of Jesus.  1 Corinthians 2:2, Paul said, “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you, except Jesus Christ and him crucified." So, that message would be consummated and completed once Jesus had actually, died and risen again. Again, 1 Corinthians 15, "For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures that He was buried, and the third day, raised from the dead." And according to scriptures, that's the gospel message. 

At this point, the twelve are not prepared to preach that in the same way they would later. But they were sent out to preach good news, and we should do it joyfully, shouldn't we? Isaiah 52:7, "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring glad tidings, who proclaim salvation." What a wonderful work we have to do.  However, nervous you feel when you're doing evangelism, don't let us show in your face. You've got good news to tell. So, be happy. Be evidently filled with hope. Give people a sense you're excited about your future. You should be. Your future, if you're a Christian, your future is bright. Now, you're going to heaven. You're going to a glorious place. You should be filled with hope. You should be filled with so much hope, people ask you to give a reason for the hope that you have. So, just be happy. It's good news. 

But they went out and they called for repentance. Look at verse 12, "They went out and preached that people should repent."  Essential to the good news is the bad news. The bad news is, we have sinned against the king of the universe. We are law breakers. We have broken God's laws, the 10 Commandments, we’ve broken all of them.  If you know what to look for, we've broken them all multiple times. We have broken the two great commandments. We have not loved God. We have not loved others. We are law breakers, and the wages of sin is death, and we deserve to die. Not just physically, but eternally. We are under great danger because of this. People must turn from sin. John the Baptist preached repentance. Jesus Christ preached repentance.  The twelve apostles preached that people should repent. This is the very thing that enraged a lot of people. People don't want to hear that bad news. They don't want to hear that they're going to be condemned to hell if they don't repent. But these twelve did not go out and tickle people's ears with a fluffy message. They told them to flee the wrath to come and that the king of the ages, the king of the universe, the holy God that gave us these laws is willing to forgive through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. But they have to repent. 

Fifth, they were paired up.  Verse 7, "Calling the twelve to him, He sent them out two by two." There is such wisdom to this, isn't there? I mean, evangelism is hard. Isn't it nice to have the fellowship of a partner who, after someone trashes you and treats you badly, you can walk off together and talk to each other and say, "That was rough. You good brother? I'm good. How about you? I'm good. Let's pray for him.”  When you're alone, it's easier to get picked off by Satan, who will get you discouraged, will get you down. So He sends them off two-by-two. Also, there's a legal aspect to this. Every matter is established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. So, we're going out as witnesses together to say, "Hey, this is true. These things that we're saying is true."

Next, we see the power to heal, verse 7. He sent them out two-by-two and gave them authority over evil spirits. Again, Matthew gives us the fuller account. Matthew 10:1, "He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.”  Mark doesn't tell us that, but it is true. It wasn't just exorcisms they were sent out to do. They went out and did this comprehensive healing ministry like Jesus had been doing. It's corroborated by verse 13 in our account,"They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them." So, there it is. They were doing this healing ministry.  Jesus is conferring on the apostles, supernatural power, similar to his own. These miraculous powers, as I said, establish the unique authority, of the apostles to preach the word. It established their authority to drive out demons who are gripping people, holding people in their dark grip. They had the power to break that grip. Evangelism is fundamentally a rescue effort from Satan's dark kingdom into the kingdom of light, and they had the power to do that, to break Satan's power, demon's power, the authority of Jesus Christ.

These healings also give a picture of Jesus's compassion. Jesus cared about people who are hurting. When we go out and evangelized, we need to find out what sin is doing in people's lives. How is sin breaking your world apart? What is sin doing in your marriage? What is sin doing in your family? What is sin doing to you? What patterns of addiction?  I'm not saying we're going to necessarily ask, "Come on out with it, what are your addictions?" Maybe you can have that conversation, but just knowing that they're getting crushed and trampled by Satan and by sin, just know that sin is hurting them. Jesus had compassion for people. You have compassion for people that are harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.  The present-day church is not called to do this apostolic healing. I'm not getting into all that today, friends. You want to hear my sermons in 1 Corinthians on sign gifts, go over there. What I'm saying is, pretty clearly, we're not called on to do apostolic healings like they did. It's a unique moment in time.  But these apostolic healings in every case anyway, pointed to the real healing, which  is referred to in  Luke 5, “It's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Every sinner that repents has been spiritually healed. Do you see that? It's a healing work Jesus has done in their souls. So, this is a picture of that healing.

Next. We see purity from possessions, verses 8-10. These were his instructions, "Take nothing for the journey except to staff. No bread, no bag, no money for your belts. Wear sandals, but not an extra tunic. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town." Jesus is calling them to a radical trust, relying on God to meet their needs. We tend to be anxious about our lives, what we'll eat or drink and about our bodies, what we'll wear. We are so worried about us. The apostles were sent out in a radical display of God to meet their needs. No extra equipment, no bread, no bag, no money, no extra tunic. It was a life of simplicity. Freedom from materialism.  They're not bringing any money, and they're not going to charge any money for the healings. Do you know how much money they could have made? When you think about it, think about that woman with the bleeding problem and she'd spent everything she had and she didn't get better. Imagine having the power of God to heal every disease and sickness and say, "That'll be a denarius." Do you think people would've paid? Oh, you better believe they would've paid.  But Jesus said in Matthew 10:8, "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give." You're not to charge anything for your healings. They're modeling Christian contentment. They're modeling a lifestyle of simplicity. They're not at in for the money, they’re not charlatans, they’re not frauds.  2 Corinthians 2:17, Paul said, "Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit." We're not in it for the money. "But we speak in Christ with sincerity as men sent from God. We don't want your money. We want you to be saved and go to heaven. We want your fellowship for all eternity. That's what we want. We don't want your money.”

What is this one house rule? If you go in a village or a town and somebody takes you in, stay there until you leave that town. What's this one house rule? How would it feel for your host family? If you once said, "By the way, there's a nice villa right on the sea. And they've invited us. We're going to be there the rest of the time." It's like, look, that's not why you're there.  When you find a place, that'll put you up, stay there. At the end of the day, eat a meal with them and go to bed. The next day, do it again. And guess what? In Matthew 10:42, he says, "That the people that do that for you, that put you up and feed you and do all that support ministry stuff, will get the same reward you get." How about that? That's a good deal.  The support enabling ministries are equally rewardable as the upfront preaching ministries. That's an incredibly important principle, it’s very important. Is Jesus permanently calling his messengers to a lifestyle of poverty, as in the style of medieval monastic orders that took vows of poverty? No, He is not. He's not calling them to that aestheticism.  Later in Luke 22:35-36, Jesus asked them, "When I sent you without a purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything? Nothing, they answered." But He said, "But now, if you have a purse, take it. If you have a purse this time, take it." Interesting. “If you have a bag, take it”,  so different orders next time.  This was just for the first time. 

Now, the international mission board of the Southern Baptist Convention sends out teams to cities to make commitments. They make commitments then IMB makes commitments to care for their needs, materially, financially. The average cost to send a unit, an individual missionary with the IMB is $60,000 a year. For a couple $120,000 a year, and beyond that it's health insurance, travel, medical emergencies, different things like that. That's the money.  So, no, we do not believe that we're called to a lifetime of begging literally on the streets. You find a way to get on a transatlantic ship somewhere down in the cargo hold, you end up somewhere in Singapore. And then, you sleep on a park bench and start begging while you preach the gospel. No, that's not the pattern. I think those medieval monks that took those vows of poverty were misreading scripture.But I think the idea of a simple lifestyle and not in it for the money that is a timeless principle.

Then He gives power to warn. Look at verse 11, "If any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave is a testimony against them." The Jews would do this. They'd go over into pagan lands. When they came back from Samaria, they came back from Moab or whatever, they'd do the “shaking the dust” stuff.  In effect, saying, “May the dust of paganism be cleansed from my body.   I'm not in any way linked with all their wickedness.”  But here's the thing, these apostles are being sent to whom? To Jews. And if they will not welcome you, and if they will not listen to your words, treat them like pagans. Say, "You're outsiders. If you will not listen to the message of the Messiah, I'm going to shake the dust off of me.”

It's also a warning of coming judgment of the wrath of God, because it says in Matthew 10:15," I tell you the truth. It will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town." It is true that I believe judgment on Judgment Day is proportional to the amount of biblical knowledge that people had and rejected it. The more biblical knowledge they have and reject it, the worse it will be for them on Judgment Day.  Therefore, be warned those of you that are growing up in Christian families and have Christian parents, but are as yet unconverted. The worst place to go to hell is from a good Christian family, because you have had the gospel lived out in front of you.  Again, Mark 16:15-16, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned." Condemned means sent to eternal conscious, torment and hell. That's what we're saved from. That's the gospel. We have a responsibility to tell people the truth. We have to let them know it's not okay to reject this message. May God give us grace to do that.

So, what happened? Their obedience led to fruitfulness. The disciples obeyed and God blessed with amazing results. Verse 13, “They drove up many demons, anointed many sick people with oil and healed them." We don't have the full records of their works here, but later, we have the Acts of the Apostles, and we have a fuller record of some of their stories, and we have people being won. We have churches being planted. We're getting the whole story. I want to know what all eleven of the good apostles did, and all the ways God used them, not just from tradition or from even church history. I want the whole thing. I want all the details. These guys were getting groomed and prepared and trained and sent out. 

Finally, accountability. Jesus is the one who sends us. They go back to Jesus. Look at verse 30 of Mark 6, "The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught.”  Here's the thing, Judgment Day is coming. 2 Corinthians 5, probably the most intensive chapter on evangelism in the New Testament, different details. But one of the things Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive what is due him for the things done in the body, whether good or bad.”  We're going to give Jesus an account. Does that include all of the evangelistic encounters He set up for us ahead of time? God gives us things ready for us to share the gospel, will He ask us about that? Will He talk to us about opportunities we had in Durham to win the loss? Yes, He will, accountability.

Those are the ten lessons. Let's finish by applying them quickly to ourselves. First of all, prepared by Jesus. First of all, recognize that if you are a disciple of Jesus Christ,He is calling you first to himself, not to evangelism. You're not saved by your evangelism. You're saved by faith in Christ. So, come to Christ, repent of your sins, trust in him for the forgiveness of your sins. And then, feel that love relationship, have that testimony of the spirit inside your heart, that you are a child of God, regardless of how well you do in evangelism. Come to Christ, draw near to Christ, and then let your evangelism flow out of abiding in him. It's the best way. The only way really, to do evangelism. 

Secondly, sent out by Jesus. Ask Christ to send you out in his name, to win lost people, understand that you must be active in gathering scattered centers. Say to him, "Here am I, send me somewhere today.” You know what you're going to find? You're going to find that you are going there, anyway. Tomorrow morning, you're going to get in your car and go somewhere probably.  Jesus is a sending you somewhere. You likely to interact with some people when you get there. So, wait a minute, pastor, are you talking everywhere? Yeah. Gas station. Sure. Supermarket? Yeah, why not. Taking your garbage out to the street and you see your neighbor taking his garbage out to the street? Sure. God send me, send me.

Thirdly, preach the gospel.  When you go to lost people, preach the timeless unchanging gospel. The good news of forgiveness of sins through faith in Jesus Christ. We have the completed message now. We're not wondering, we know Christ has actually died. He shed his blood in the cross, so that guilt, our guilt would be a tone for. Preach that gospel, preach Christ resurrected. Fourthly, call people to repent. Be bold to do this. Use the law, use the 10 Commandments and the two great commandments. Everything you need to bring people to repentance is in there. Study the law and apply it. Call them to repent.

Fifthly, paired up. Don't be a lone ranger, evangelists. I mean, some of the stuff we're going to do alone. But find somebody that can hold you accountable and say, "Hey, let's go out. Let's go do some things. Let's take some face steps. Let's find some opportunities to share the gospel." Hey, church, let's do this together. What do you say? Let's reach Durham together. Let's find ways for us to share the gospel together.”

Six, power to heal. What am I going to say about this one? Come to the healing class, Tuesday evening and I'll give you apostolic healing powers. That is not happening. No, but remember what I said, two things, first of all, a display of Christ's compassion to the way that sin has crushed people. Can we do that? Yes, we can do that.  We can find ways that sin is hurting people's bodies and their lives, and let's step in and find ways to minister. Secondly, the real healing is still spiritual. It's not the healthy who need a doctor, it's the sick. “I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Seventh, purity from possessions. Ask the Lord to show you the way your materialistic lifestyle or materialistic ambitions and desires are hindering your evangelistic life. Say, "Lord, show it to me." How am I orchestrating my life primarily for money and not for winning lost people? Show it to me. I think it probably is the single greatest practical difficulty our church has when it comes to evangelism. Number eight, power to warn. Tell people the truth about hell. Tell people the truth about eternal conscious torment and the penalty of damnation. Don't be afraid to do it. Tell the truth to them. Number nine, obedience, leading to fruitfulness. Move out, do something that God calls you to do, act. Be bold and see what God will do, how He can use you. 

Then, finally, meditate on your accountability to Jesus. Picture yourself, giving Jesus an account for everything that you've done in the body, whether good or bad. First, Baptist church, let's be faithful to this call. Close with me in prayer. Lord, we thank you for the time we've had to walk through this text and learn its principles. Pray that you would take our hearts now and mold and shape them like a potter. Lord shape us as seems best to you, shape us as you will, so that we can be maximally fruitful for your gospel. Pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Jesus called, trained, and sent out the twelve apostles to win the world with the good news of the gospel.

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This sermon was preached on September 18, 2022 at Brainard Avenue Baptist Church in Countryside, IL.

Good morning. It's a joy to be with all of you. Such a delight to be part of the Universal church, the Body of Christ with brothers and sisters from around the world, and for us to share that fellowship in the spirit. So sweet and been welcomed so richly already by members of the church and enjoying fellowship with you.

I'd like to ask that you turn in your Bibles at 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13. We're going to have a marvelous time today as we consider the topic of heaven. We're going to think about heaven and try to meditate on what our heavenly life is going to be like. And as I was thinking about this, I was remembering a time I had with my son, my oldest son, Nathaniel, and we were hiking in a mountain in New Hampshire, Mount Washington. We were hiking up a trail called Tuckerman's Ravine. As we were going up that I had been telling him for weeks of the spectacular view that there is from Mount Washington over the entire Mount Washington Valley, especially from this perspective on Tuckerman's Ravine.  The problem was that the weather was very poor that day, and as we were going up this very steep incline, we were laboring and laboring, but getting no reward for it because we were surrounded by fog. He wasn't complaining but with all of this labor, we hoped to get the payoff of this spectacular view that I had been boasting about for weeks, and it just wasn't happening. 

As we kept moving higher and higher and laboring and going up this mountain, I was praying that the Lord would reward the effort at some point. We got to a certain place, maybe 80% up the hike or 90%, we were up quite high, and suddenly there came a break in the fog and we could see for miles, just for a short time.  Looking down over that spectacular view, it was fall, the foliage was beautiful, it for just a moment rewarded all of the effort that we had had in getting up there. Then the fog closed back in again and that was it. As a matter of fact, that was the only view we ever had from off the mountain, except the immediate boulders right in front of us.

I think sometimes life can be like that. We can be in the midst of our circumstances and it's like a fog surrounds us, surrounds our minds and our hearts, and we can't see much more than the boulders right in front of us as we make an arduous climb, and it's difficult. But the Lord means for us to be constantly renewed in hope by meditation on our future heavenly life. Now when I mean hope, hope is one of the most important features of the Christian life. What is it? What is hope? Hope is a feeling, a sense in the heart that the future's bright. That's the way I define it. Non-Christians can have hope and people can say, I hope it'll be good weather for the weekend, or I hope the Cubs win the World Series.  People use that word “hope.” But for non-Christians, it's a vague and flimsy thing. It's like generally contrary to what you think will happen. I hope, but I don't think it's going to happen.

Christian hope is different though. Christian hope is a sense, a feeling in the heart that the future's bright based on the promises of God and that makes it a sure and certain thing for God cannot lie. He has promised us much about our future world, and we are commanded actually to meditate on heaven to think much about it.  Colossians 3, 1-4 says, "Since then you have been raised with Christ. Set your heart on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things for you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, you also will appear with him in glory."

So if I could just take Colossians 3, 1-4, it's a command to set your mind on things above and things to come. The things to come are glorious and you should think about them, not on earthly things. You should think about heaven more than you do.

Now, a number of years ago I got hold of Randy Alcorn's book called Heaven and read it. I thought it was great. There's a lot of aspects to it, a lot of things we could talk about, but the thing that he gave me in that book is a view of a dynamic heaven, not a static or I hate to say it, but boring heaven. In some of the research he did, he found that some Christians were actually somewhat dreading heaven. They pictured sitting on a cloud with a harp singing Amazing Grace forever. “When we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun. We've got no fewer times to sing Amazing Grace than when we first begun.” And that just seemed a little flat, a little boring.

He was sad by this and he thought, this is so wrong. How could it be that the creator of the ends of the earth, the creator of the cosmos, could ever create a boring heaven? It's a satanic lie. So therefore we should go beyond the boundaries of that narrow confines of a boring static heaven where we're sitting on a cloud and you've got that harp... I think there was a “Far Side” cartoon years ago, some of you will remember that, Gary Larson. There was an angelic saint person sitting on a cloud with a harp and a tear coming down and said, "Is this all there is?" I think no, heaven is a dynamic place. But what's it dynamic with? Now we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about that today and we're going to use 1 Corinthians 13 as a kind of meditation focus for our conception of heaven.

When I preach on 1 Corinthians in my church, I preach many, many sermons. I did nine sermons on this one chapter, 1 Corinthians: 13 and I culminated my preaching in 1 Corinthians: 13 with two sermons focused on heaven and leaning on my 18th century mentor, New England Pastor Jonathan Edwards who had a whole book of sermons on 1 Corinthians: 13: Charity and its Fruits culminating in a sermon entitled “Heaven is a World of Love.” I would commend this book to you. You can get it on online free, it's public domain, or you can buy the book.

But the problem for me coming here today is how do I take my two sermons that I preached at my church and consolidate them down to one sermon? And how do I take Edward's like 46-page essay and boil that down? So I've decided to preach today for two hours, I thought that's the only way that I can do that. No, I got my stopwatch up here. I'm very conscious of time.

Let's give some context. Paul is writing 1 Corinthians to a highly dysfunctional church. It is a church that he planted by the preaching of the Gospel, but it was a church that was rent with factions, it was struggling with sin. It did not have a right conception of itself in the world age that they were living in. There were disciplinary issues they should have attended to and hadn't.

They had defective views of sex and marriage that he had to deal with very directly. Some of their members were still visiting temple prostitutes and they needed to be taught about sexual purity. They had a faulty conception of divorce and marriage and he had to address that. They were rent by problems with meat sacrifice to idols and religious sensibilities, and they weren't getting along in that regard.

One of the problems that he addressed is the problem of spiritual gifts, and spiritual gifts are special abilities given to us by the Holy Spirit that enable us to serve the Lord and build the church. There are different kinds of gifts, and he addresses that in 1 Corinthians 12 with the body having different members and each member has different function and so it is with the body of Christ.

The problem is that some of these Corinthians were boasting over their gifts, especially the showy gifts, the upfront gifts, and that would be speaking in tongues and prophecy. They were very boastful about these gifts, and others not having those gifts felt denigrated and worthless as though their gifts didn't matter much and there was the problem.

Paul has to address the issues and he does so in three chapters, 1 Corinthians 12-14. In 1 Corinthians 12, he gives that body image with one body, many members and then he goes into details and specifics in Chapter 14 on speaking in tongues and prophecy. But in between we have this chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, and it's in the sub context of addressing spiritual gifts. He wants to focus their mind on what the purpose of the gifts are, and what's the reason that God even gave them to us. He zeros in on love.

He begins here in verse 1-3. Look at it if you would, "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I'm only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains but have not love, I am nothing. And if I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames but have not love, I gain nothing."

So you can have these gifts and you can use them, but if you do it in an unloving manner, you're actually doing damage. If you don't have love in your heart, you're not storing up treasure in heaven, you're not going to get rewarded, nothing. The purpose of the gifts is to build a world of love in which we're going to spend eternity. That's the reason for the spiritual gifts.

Then he describes love's enduring qualities in verse 4-8, Look at it. "Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast. It is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight an evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trust, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."

That's the demeanor, the way you should carry yourself when you do everything for Christ. If you're speaking in tongues, do it kindly. Be patient with other people. Be gentle with other people. It's the demeanor. I you're not, it doesn't matter if you give all this amazing money to the poor, but if you're doing it in an irritated, angry manner, you've gained nothing. Nothing good has come from that.

Now having done that, he shows the superiority of love and actually the purpose, the focus of love for all the spiritual gifts. All of the gifts are designed to build an eternity of love, and those gifts are temporary. They're like scaffolding on a building that's being constructed , but the love that it builds is eternal. The gifts are temporary, but love is eternal. All spiritual gifts will cease, but love will endure into eternity. That is into our heavenly life itself. Look at verse 8, "But where there are prophecies, they will cease. Where there are tongues, they will be stilled. Where there is knowledge, it will pass away."

He also says, "The knowledge we have of God here on earth is like so much baby talk, like so much baby talk compared to the knowledge we will have in heaven." Now that's staggering. What spiritual gifts produce is like baby talk compared to the level of knowledge we'll have in heaven. That includes the Bible. The Bible's written in a language, it's got grammar and vocabulary. People like me get up week after week and explain it. We do exegesis, we do theology, we do words. Will it not be better to see Christ in all his glory with your own eyes and hear him with your own ears and be immersed in him for all eternity? It will be better. So I'm not denigrating the Word, it is everything we need now, but it's like so much baby talk. Prophecy was included in the baby talk and this is a work of prophecy, all of this.

So what does he say? We look at 9-12, "We know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child. I thought like a child, I reason like a child. When I became a man I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face-to-face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully even as I am fully known.”

 From that text comes our meditation on heaven, now versus then. What is the then? It's heaven. That's what we're talking about when we at last see face-to-face. What is that dynamic by which we know more about God and Christ in heaven than we do now? One simple word we use for it here in this world is education. We are going to get educated in the greatness of God. What percentage of the glory of God and of Christ do you think you know right now? Anyone want to say 10%? I got 10%. I know 1/10th of everything there is to know about God and of Christ. You are deceiving yourself, my dear friend. It's an infinite subject. Really, only an infinite subject can take up an infinite amount of time. What do you think is going to be taking up our time for all eternity? Learning God, learning the glory of God. That's exciting, isn't it? We're never, never going to be omniscient. We'll be glorious, we'll be free from sin. We'll be redeemed and glorified in an awesome way, but we'll always have more to learn or else we'd be God, omniscient. So forever we're going to be learning God.

Now that's what we're going to talk about with the rest of the time we have. Heaven is a world of love. We know in part then we shall know fully even as we have been fully known. He concludes in verse 13 with this statement: "And now these three remain faith, hope, and love but the greatest of these is love."

Now what does he mean by “these remain”? These are focal points of our present Christian life. They're vital in our present Christian life, but two of them are temporary and one of them is eternal. Our faith is temporary because faith has to do with things not seen. As Hebrews 11:1 tells us, someday our faith will be sight., and we won't need it anymore. And what about our hope? Is that temporary? Yes, Romans 8 tells us: "Who hopes for what he already has?” We won't be hoping when we're in heaven, we'll be there.

Faith and hope are vital, but they're temporary. But love, now that's eternal because in heaven you'll be perfectly fulfilling every moment of your existence. The two great commandments, "You will at last, love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength,” every moment of your heavenly life. And you will finally “love your neighbor as yourself” for all eternity. Therefore, heaven is a world of love. That's where we're heading.

Now let's lean on our brother Jonathan Edwards, who's already in heaven so he doesn't have to do preaching and theology and exegesis, but he left behind a legacy of words so that people like me can read them and we can study them.  Let me say something about reading Jonathan Edwards, he's one of the hardest authors I've ever read in my life. I had to read his treatise on “The Freedom of the Will “out loud and translate it into English from English, so I could understand some of it. He is a deep thinker and he's a dense writer.  The way his mind works, he works and works and works and works the details in ways that sometimes seem repetitive. He starts out with things that just seem kind of obvious and works them. But as he works and works the obvious, he starts adding more and more things together and then suddenly your eyes start to widen, you’re seeing things you hadn't seen before.

It's little bit like CS Lewis' Narnia Chronicles with the lion, the witch and the wardrobe. Some of you know what that wardrobe was. It was a standalone closet that this little girl goes into and she's playing a game of hide-and-seek. She goes into the closet and it's a bunch of clothes. She feels the sleeves of the coats and all that. She purses further and further back in the game of hide-and-seek but then suddenly she's not feeling clothes anymore, she's feeling branches and she feels snow and she's moved through the wardrobe into another world, Narnia. I'm not up here preaching Narnia, that's a made-up fictitious world. I'm talking about a real world we're going to and in meditation, in theology and exegesis, that's how we can learn. That's the meditation we should do.

I'm not big on books based on near death experiences, I’m not a fan because they contradict each other, and it's like dreams. It's like people telling you their dreams.  I want to base my understanding of heaven on Scripture and go as far as Scripture goes, and I'm telling you it goes farther than you think it does. Edwards does a great job with this “Heaven is a World of Love." He divides his essay into six headings. We're not going to get to all of them, but I'll tell you the headings and then we'll work with it with the time we have left.  First, The Cause and Fountain of Love that is in Heaven; and then, The Objects of the Love that is in Heaven; The Subjects of that Love that is in Heaven; The Principle or Nature of that Love that is in Heaven; The Circumstances in which Heavenly Love is Exercised, Expressed and Enjoyed; and finally, The Blessed Effects or Fruits of that Love that is in Heaven. That's his essay, and you can read it. I'm just cherry picking some of it to give you a sense of the teaching.

The God of love himself dwells personally in heaven. The new heavens and the new earth and the new Jerusalem will glow and shine and radiate completely with the light that comes from the glory of God. Heaven's all about the glory of God and what is the glory of God, but the radiant display of the perfections or attributes of God. His mercy, his power, his love, his compassion, his justice, his wrath, his patience, those are the attributes of God. Heaven radiates with the glory of God.  Heaven is a world of love because God is love and God dwells there personally. Of course you'll say, “What do you mean God dwells there?” Isn't God omnipresent, isn't God everywhere? Psalm 1:39, "If I rise on the wings of the dawn, go to the far side... Even there, you're there, you're everywhere." God is indeed everywhere, but God chooses to locate himself for us.

For example, the burning bush. Remember what God said to Moses as he approached the burning bush, intrigued by what he saw" "Do not come any closer.” Then he said, "Take off your sandals for the ground on what you're standing is holy ground." What does that mean? What it means doesn't mean God's any more there than He is a hundred yards over or down the mountain. It's that He's going to reveal himself there more than in those other places. There's a sense that He is more there than He is the other places.

In the Old Testament, God was in that sense more in the nation of Israel than He was in other nations. And God was more in Jerusalem than in any other city in Israel and God was more in the temple than in any other building in Jerusalem. And God was more in the Holy of Holies than any other part of the temple. And God was more located in that manner of speaking in the mercy seat above the arc than any other part of the Holy of Holies.  I'm saying to you, God will be more in heaven than any experience we've ever had before. He will dwell with us in our midst with his open glory and we will see him as it says in this text, face-to-face, the very thing Moses could never experience. "No one can see me and live," God said to Moses, but this text says we will see God face-to-face and live.

God will in some sense descend from his heavenly home down, and heaven and earth will become one in some sense and we will dwell together around the throne of God, heaven and earth having been made perfectly one. In answer to the Lord's Prayer, "May you will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” 

Now this triune God is a God of love within the Godhead, within the Godhead, from eternity past to eternity future. The three persons of the Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Spirit have loved one another. It was not out of emptiness or neediness that God created the universe, or loneliness. There was a perfect warm fellowship and relationship within the Trinity before God ever said, "Let there be light.” The persons of the Trinity are infinitely dear and precious to one another. There is an incomprehensible, flowing and re-flowing of love between the Father and the Son and the Son and the Father, between the Son and the Spirit and the Spirit and the Son, and between the Father and the Spirit and the Spirit and the Father.  So the Father loves the Son with a perfect love. Twice in the Gospel of Matthew expressed this: "This is my son whom I love, with him I am well pleased." One of the great understatements in human language, “ I love my son, I am pleased with him.” You can't measure. It's like the brightness and the heat of the son and the solar system, that's how passionate the Father is for his Son.

But He also loved the world and gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. So God loves the world too, but He loves his son with a perfect love. And the son, Jesus Christ perfectly loves his father, deeply loves his father, and He loved him so much as to obey him in everything the father told him to do. Jesus said, "I always do what pleases him." Why do you do that? "Because I love him.”  He loved him so perfectly as to die in our place on the cross bearing our wrath and our judgment, drinking the cup of our wrath to the bitter dregs because He loved his father and wanted to obey his father's command and also because He loves his people, He loves his bride, the church, and wanted to cleanse her from her stains and from her corruptions and get her ready for her wedding day. So He drank the cup of God's wrath in our place.

Jesus is perfect in love and the Holy Spirit is the one who personally has delivered the love of Christ to your soul if you're a Christian. The Holy Spirit,  the third person of the Trinity is the delivery system of the love of Jesus to you. You wouldn't be a Christian if it weren't for the work of the Spirit. It is by the Spirit that God's love is poured out into our hearts. Romans 5:5, "He is the spirit of love."

This triune God is the center of heaven, therefore, heaven must be a world of love because God is a God of love, and we will have perfect fellowship with this God of love. In heaven our fellowship with God will be perfect, face-to-face without any blockage or hindrance or distance. We will drink in God's love and swim in it for all eternity.  You can think of it as a limitless river and as an infinite ocean. It just flows and flows and flows and it's deep and you can swim in it, in that sense. Revelation 21:1&2, "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life flowing clear as crystal from the throne of God and of the lamb down the middle of the great street of the city." Heaven will be a world of love, an infinite expression and experience of love because God is there.

There will be nothing but lovely objects in heaven. Everything that you will experience in the new heaven, new earth and new Jerusalem will be lovely and will draw from you love. What does that mean? What is love? What is it? It's like the heart's ability to be magnetically attracted to something, to be drawn to something.  We use the word love for trivial things like, "I love ice cream," or significant things like, "I love my wife," or the most significant thing, "I love God." What is united to all us? The heart is drawn to something as liking or magnetically attracted and so we will be attracted to everything there will be in that new world because there'll be nothing but lovely objects there.  There'll be nothing odious or ugly or blemished or disgusting or malformed or corrupt or diseased or repulsive or broken or dark or evil in heaven. But all things as the result of the fall will have been completely redeemed and transformed and made like they were originally intended and made perfect by God.  Revelation 21:27, "Nothing impure will ever enter the new Jerusalem, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those names who are written in the lambs book of life.”

All the angels in heaven will be the holy, good, loving, pure angels, not the dark, wicked, fallen angels that we know as demons. They will all be in the lake of fire eternally as will their king,  Satan. Only holy angels would be there. The only people permitted in that world as Revelation 21:27 says, will be those redeemed from every tribe and language and people in nation from earth. They'll be therefore no hypocrites there, no false professors of Christianity, no nominal Christians, Christians in name only. None of that and certainly no open rebels or followers of other gods and goddesses, but only those who love God and love Christ and have been redeemed through the blood of Christ.

All of the redeemed themselves will be finally perfectly lovely, radiant. Jesus himself said in Matthew 13:43, "Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father." Aren't you looking forward to that? To shine like the sun in the kingdom of your father.  Matthew 13:43, "You'll be radiantly beautiful.” 

In this world even the most eminent of saints have significant flaws. David said, "My sins are more numerous than the hairs of my head." The Bible's very honest about the flaws and the faults of even its greatest heroes. But in heaven, all of the saints will have been glorified, perfectly formed to Christ in every respect. We will be like Jesus. We will think like him. We will love like him. We will be like him in conformity to his resurrection bod, and love will be fulfilled in all of the redeemed.  They will be perfectly kind. They'll be nice people. Love is patient, love is kind. All of that. But then so will you finally. We'll all be nice to each other in fulfillment of 1 Corinthians 13:4 and following. You won't need patience anymore because no one will tax your patience, but you will be kind, love will be fulfilled.

And the place itself, I don't have time to even talk about it, but Revelation 21:22, "The place itself will be perfectly beautiful." The new heavens, new earth, briefly described in Revelation 21:22, "It will be ravishing to the eyes." Think about the new world, like the world we live in now, only not corrupted and not twisted by sin, a beautiful world. 

What will heavenly love be like? It will be an altogether holy and divine love, totally conformed to God's love. We will love like God does. Our love for God will be perfected. Our love for God will be based on a perfect knowledge of God. We will know him fully and understand him fully even as He has known us fully. Now again, that doesn't mean... I used to think this. When you were glorified, you would know God as He has known you. That means you'll know as much about God as He knows about us and as much about God as He knows about himself. That cannot be. Don't you understand that cannot be, for then we would be omniscient.

But what I do think it means is we will begin the process of more and more perfectly knowing God. Think about that multitude from every tribe, language, people and nation that were saved by the Gospel of Christ. Think about that. Will you be interested in their testimonies? Will you be interested in how God saved them? What missionaries He sent to their people, or what evangelist to that person? Will you be interested in that?  Please not say, "Yes, I will. Pastor, I will be very interested in how God saved all those people." Do you know how many of them there will be? I have no idea. A multitude greater than anyone could count. A billion? How long will it take to really get to know a billion people? A long time. Will you want to know them? You will. Will you have time to know them? You will. Will you have the desire to know them? You will. Will God be glorified by you learning how God saved them? He will. Well, you got a lot of work to do in heaven, friends. there's a lot to learn.

So our horizontal love will be perfected. Our love for others will be perfectly free from all evil motives, carnal lusts or selfish principles. There'll be no pride, no envy, no greed, no boasting, and our love will be perfect in degree. We will love God vastly more in heaven than we do now. And our love for God will be intense and strong.

Now, one key concept here, which is mind blowing, is that not all of us will have the same heavenly experience or have the same level of glory. Some will be more glorious than others, honestly. "Star differs from star in glory," that's in 1 Corinthians 15, "So will it be with the resurrection of the body."

So we're not all going to be equally glorious. Why not? Because we didn't all live an equal life. I mean, you are aware that some of your brothers and sisters paid more in their sacrificial service to Christ than you did. I mean you must be aware of that, and they'll be rewarded in heaven for it. But you know what? You won't be jealous about that at all. You'll see the rightness of it and you'll delight in it and you'll be glad they got it. As a matter of fact, part of my life now as a pastor is to help all of you who hear me be as rich as you possibly can in glory on Judgment Day. I want you to be rich in rewards, so I get to feed you the Word of God. You get out there and get busy and do good works and store up treasure in heaven. 

What is the treasure you're storing up in heaven? It is glory to God and an honor to yourself because Jesus said in John 12, "My father will honor the one who serves me." And if the Father honors that person who serves Jesus, we'll honor them too. We'll not worship them, but we'll honor them and we'll not be jealous of those who have greater glory than us.

We'll be at the banquet table and we'll be feasting on the glory of God, metaphorically, maybe even physically a banquet. And Edwards wrote this, "All shall have as much love as they desire and as great manifestations as they can bear and so all shall be fully satisfied. And where there is perfect satisfaction, there can be no envy.” Imagine a big Thanksgiving feast with limitless different dishes and a limitless supply of each dish, and you can eat what you want and there's no end to the supply. Like Elijah's widow her container never ran out of flour and oil. That whole thing, it never runs out. But you will reach a limit, you’ll come to a point where you've had enough, you're satisfied.

How could anyone be jealous of what you ate or you be jealous of what someone else ate? You'll eat as much as you want. How much will that be? Well, here's the thing, concerning our service to God, the measure that we use here on earth will be the measure we receive in heaven. The more generous you are in serving God and others now, the greater appetite for God's glory you'll have in heaven.  How much of heaven do you want? How much of God do you want? Put sin to death. Put lust to death now. Rip your mind and your heart away from worldly things, focus on God and expand your heavenly appetite.

It’s the same thing with evangelism. Service, winning others to Christ, have an appetite for that so that they can be in heaven with you and also you can have a greater appetite of God's glory in that eternal world. "The measure you use now..." Jesus said, "... is the measure you'll receive then." So be generous now so you get a big measure then.

In any case though, you will be perfectly satisfied. Imagine the Pacific Ocean and different vessels completely submerged, all of them submerged. A thimble, a cup, a bucket, a water tower, a super tanker, all of them submerged in the Pacific Ocean. They're all full, but they're not equally full, are they? They're all 100% full, but they don't have the same volume. Is the Pacific Ocean drained by the super tanker or any of these? No, there's more beyond what that super tanker can end, and so it is with us.  You can expand your diameter, your heavenly diameter by how you serve now, by putting sin to death, by holiness, by service, by sacrificial giving. You expand your heavenly appetite for the glory of God.

In any case, however you end up, you'll be perfectly satisfied. And you say, “Well then, why expand? I'm going to be happy no matter what I do.” It's like, can I just say don't think that? Think bigger than that. Think, “ I want to find out more about God, I really do. I want to go after God.” It's God-centered and God-honoring.

I am so far behind in my timing on this sermon. I don't think I've ever been this far behind. I timed it yesterday, I should be at 22 minutes now. I'm at 37 minutes, so there's no way we're going to get through all this. Let me go to applications and then if you want to know more about what I might have said, read Edwards.

One of the beauties though of all of this is you start saying, you asked me yesterday, "What about your heaven book?" I said, “It just doesn't ever end.”  I feel like I'm in this vast Smithsonian museum and there's these whole wings that there's no lights on, and I just flick on the light and it goes on to the horizon. This whole museum of things I could investigate. That's what heaven's going to be like. It's going to be dynamic.  All the things that could ever be known in every subject, physics, chemistry, history, linguistics, poetry, in Christ are hidden ,all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. You tell me, Christ doesn't know much about physics. Oh, Christ knows about physics. He knows about everything and you will learn Christ in heaven. 

These are all good things here, but I'm just going to move on. What application can we take from all of this? Well, first of all, let me just say this. I don't know any of you. Well, some of you I just met, but I trust that there might be at least one person here who is as yet unregenerate up to this point, who walked in here, not yet a believer in Christ.  I don't know, but I don't want you to miss that world. I don't want you to miss the beauty of it. I don't want you to miss seeing God face-to-face because of your wickedness and your sin and your defiled conscience .   Jesus is enough for sinners like you and me. All you have to do is confess that you're a sinner, you’ve violated God's laws. You've not loved him with all your heart, soul, mind, strength. You have not loved your neighbor as yourself. You've not, and you've done that for years.

But Jesus' blood is sufficient. He shed his blood on the cross for sinners like you and me. All you need to do is repent and believe in him and you will be forgiven. You will be forgiven and you will be adopted into the family of God and he will not lose you, but he will, as he said in John 6, "Raise you up on the last day," for that world that we've been talking about. So repent and trust in him.

Now, if you're already a Christian, been in Christian for many years, I would say number one, spend more time than you've ever spent before meditating on heaven. Go and read Revelation 21:22. Say,” Lord, show me something new here.” I'm not talking about speculation. I'm talking about good theology.   Read it and meditate and say, What does this mean? Think of yourself, secondly, more and more as an alien and stranger here, don't get used to this life or the blessings of this life. They don't matter really. I mean, there are matrices by which we serve God and there are good blessings God gives us and enjoy them. He means for us to enjoy them. But don't get addicted to them and don't focus on them. We are aliens and strangers just passing through. No, you're on your way to heaven, that is your home. 

Thirdly, let's let the study of heaven as a world of love move you to love God and love others more than you ever have before. Say,” Lord, I want to have as much heavenly love for you now as I can. Work that in me. Make me love you. Make me love you and make me love my neighbor as myself. I don't Lord, but I want to, transform my love life.” Then pray Ephesians 3:17-19 over yourself and others. That's just a great passage. Ephesians 3:17-19, Paul there prays for the Ephesian Christians, "That they would have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. And that they would know that love that surpasses knowledge, that you might be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”  I don't think there's a more expansive prayer in all the Bible than that one. I pray that you would know the infinite dimensions of Christ's love for you, that you would be overflowed with the fullness of God. Pray that for yourself and for others based on these kinds of meditations.

Let thoughts of heaven's holiness and purity drive out corrupting dark lusts.  You'll have no part with them in heaven, so have no part with them now. Kill them. They are not heavenly, they're dark and corrupted and the Holy Spirit is in you to give you the power to put them to death. Do that, and then let the zeal for the glory of God in the salvation of others drive you to make sacrifices in witnessing.  Take some chances this week. Talk to somebody at the workplace or somebody in the neighborhood about Jesus. Tell them, “Say on Sunday, I heard this sermon about heaven, what do you think about heaven? Do you think about death? “Something like that. Get in a conversation and let that lead you to talk to them about Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Close with me now in prayer. Father, thank you for the time that we've had briefly to walk through this today. I thank you for the truths of God's Word. And I pray that you would take all of the things that we've meditated on and even those things we haven't that have been suggested to people's minds, just drive them into our hearts. Thank you Lord Jesus, for paying the bill for all of us that we would be able to dwell in such a beautiful world. We pray that in Jesus name. Amen.

What does the Bible teach about what Heaven will be like? This sermon was preached on 2022 at Brainard Avenue Baptist Church in Countryside, IL.

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