"Focused on the Mission"

Sermon Transcript for July 23, 2000

By Rev. Mike Beck

Scripture Reading: Mark 8:31-33

 

We’ve come together today in worship and celebration because of the fact that 2000 years ago on a hill outside Jerusalem’s walls; a man named Jesus graciously completed His mission. Paul defines His mission with these beautiful words in Philippians, Chapter 2: "Jesus being the very nature of God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but then He sought nothing. Taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness. And being found in the appearance of a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death upon a cross."

In our 50-day spiritual adventure, we’ve been looking at qualities within the life of Christ that we ought to try to model in our lives. The quality we want to look at today is this--that Jesus was focused on His mission. He knew what His mission in life was; and then with courage, He set about to accomplish that mission. There is a definite relationship between today’s message and the first message in this 50-day adventure series. For at week #1, we looked at the fact that Jesus spent significant time alone with God in prayer. Friends, you’re never going to discover your mission in life, you’re never going to discover the power and strength to carry out that mission unless you do the same thing. To spend time in the word; time with God in prayer.

When we talk about our mission in life, we’re talking about two other related words, both that begin with the letter "P". We’re talking about our "priorities"; we’re talking about our "passion". We have four ladies concluding their Emmaus weekend today. The first of the talks they listened to had to deal with our priorities in life. But we as human beings are the only ones in God’s creation able to establish priorities. And our priorities, then, determine how we live out our lives. Jesus’ ministry contained many dimensions. We talked about His personal prayer life. He spent enormous amounts of time teaching, healing, disciplining the twelve, modeling for us how life was to be lived. But within God’s plan of salvation, Jesus’ primary task was ultimately to give His life on the cross to pay the price for the sins of the whole world. And near the end of His three-year ministry, He begins to share with His disciples that primary mission.

Turn again to Mark, Chapter 8, because it’s very interesting to see what comes immediately before the versus we read. If you’ll look there in versus 27-29, you’ll see that Jesus and His disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi and on the way He asked them, "Who do people say that I am? And they replied, Some say you’re John, the Baptist; some say you’re Elijah; still others one of the prophets. But what about you, Jesus asked? Who do you say that I am? Bold Peter speaks up, You’re the Christ." He gets it right. Christ acknowledges Peter’s extreme faith there. But isn’t it interesting how quickly things change. Immediately following that we have the versus we read today. Where Jesus begins to teach them that He must suffer and die. And then here comes old Peter calling Jesus aside. Now put that in your mind. The boldness of Peter to say, "Lord, come over here. I want to talk to you. That’s a bad idea. You need to be staying up here in Galilee. We’ve got a lot of people following us. We could set up a big kingdom up here." And Jesus, who just previously had commended Peter for his great faith, now turns to Peter--and isn’t it interesting, He does it in the presence of the rest of the disciples--and he says, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are thinking in the ways of the world, not the ways of God!"

Friends, one of the reasons I believe in the authority of this book is its candor and honesty. If you’re just trying to put your best foot forward you don’t include passages like Mark 8: 31-33! You leave those out. Peter comes across looking really bad in that passage; but it’s contained there in the scripture. We see it all, both good and bad, which to me lends its credence to the authority of Scripture. And if you’ll allow me, let me make just one sidelight here. Looks to me like in looking at Mark, Chapter 8, Versus 31-33, we’ve got a little difference of opinion among the church. And if you read the Bible, especially the New Testament, you will find numerous times where followers of Jesus Christ have very different ideas about the way that they ought to move forward. Where in the world did we ever get this idea that in the church of Jesus Christ everybody always thought alike? And there were never any disagreements? Friends, that’s not scriptural. Within the church of Jesus Christ until Christ comes again, there will always be differences of opinion. There will be times in which we will argue with one another. Christians, though, ought to know how to argue fair. But do you know what we often do in the church of Jesus Christ? Oh, we don’t want any controversy so we go to the Administrative Council meeting and we sit there and we nod and we smile and then we offer benediction and then we go out into the parking lot and have the real meeting. And we cut the preacher and other leaders within the church to shreds because we think there’s not a place for honest differences of opinion. Friends, in Mark 8:31-33, there’s a very honest difference of opinion here between Peter and Jesus.

Well, let me ask you today, "Can you identify your primary mission in life?" And another way to respond to that question is to ask you to identify the things that are so important to you that you would sacrifice almost anything to achieve them. As your pastor one of the things I want to help you to try to do is to align your priorities with the eternal true Scripture. Last week when we talked about the "Kingdom of God", we closed with the chorus, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and then all of these other things will be added to you." If you look just past the versus we read this morning, starting in verse 34, we see some of those kingdom ways. Jesus said, "Any one who comes after me, he must die himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel, will save it. For what good is it for a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what would a man give in exchange for his soul?"

There are many things in life that have significant meaning to me--my job, my friends, my home, many of the possessions that we have. I like to travel. I like to play golf. But none of those things are my priorities. I wouldn’t die for any of those, even my golf clubs. But if you ask, "What is my priority? What is my passion? What is my ultimate mission in life?" I would answer this way. "First of all, I want to be faithful to God. I want to help others come to know Him. Secondly, I want to be a faithful husband to my wife. And then, thirdly, I want to be a faithful father to my boys." Those things I would die for. They are my ultimate purpose and my passion in living. Have you identified your passion? And if so, are there some lessons here in the story today that in closing we can briefly look at as we try to live out that passion, that purpose. Let me suggest three, very briefly.

1. Good intentions and words alone are not enough. Some of you know persons who have marvelously good intentions; they just never carry any of them out. Many of you know folks who can talk the wonderful game, but their walk doesn’t match their talk. It takes more than intentions and words. Carrying out our mission in life is going to be accomplished in the day-to-day decisions and actions that we take.

Let me illustrate that in the life of Christ. There are two significant decision points for Jesus. One of them occurred at the very beginning of His ministry. He was out there in the wilderness during that 40 days of fasting and temptation and at a point of weakness Satan comes along and shows Him a shortcut to accomplishing His mission. Jesus rejects it and says, "Satan, that’s not God’s way." At the end of His ministry, we find Him there in the Garden of Gethsemane. He prays, "Lord, if there’s any way, let this cup pass from me, but not my way but thine be done." And we see in action, He was willing to go to the cross. Good intentions and words alone are not enough.

2. And this may be a new insight to some of you. We need to realize that if we hold things passionately, that there will be numerous times that others will not understand our priorities. And when that happens, we have to have the courage of our convictions. Peter here in the story we read today did not understand Jesus’ primary mission. And he tries to deter Jesus from it. But Jesus, because He was focused on His mission, He knew what was important, he turns courageously to Peter, whom he loved so much, and said, "Peter (he refers to Him as Satan) get behind me because you’re thinking like the world, not the thoughts of God."

There are so many illustrations I could use here that I don’t almost know which ones to pick. Let me use a personal illustration. I remember as a senior in high school, Mom and Dad didn’t have a whole lot of money. There was a wonderful college that gave me a full ride scholarship for four years--tuition, room and board. Boy, it looked like God had answered our prayers. But I wanted to check out another university and so I, before accepting that scholarship, made a trip to Taylor; and the Lord impressed upon me very clearly that was where I was suppose to go back to school. And I came back home and said to the other college, "Thanks, but no thanks." And at that point, Taylor hadn’t promised me a dime of money. And there were some people around me that thought that was incredibly foolish. "How in the world could you turn that down?" After ten years in the education business on my road to a good career, I had some cousins within my family that are quite in to the things of the world, that when they found out I was leaving my career and going back to seminary to become a pastor, knowing what beginning pastors make, they just outright said, "You’re foolish". But see, they didn’t understand my passion. They didn’t understand my purpose in living.

When I began my ministry I thought that if you just worked hard enough you could keep everybody in the church happy. I’ve since learned that no matter how hard you work you can’t do that. What I’ve got to do is ask, "God, what do you want me to do?" And once I’ve clearly understood that, I need to realize that decisions I make related to that many people in the church aren’t going to understand where my priorities are in relation to God. I will often get calls to come to some community meeting and give the invocation. I almost always say "No". And a lot of times when I say "No", people don’t understand. But I say "No", because my family and my kids are priority. And if I go to this two-hour meeting to give a two-minute prayer, there are two hours I could have spent with my boys and my wife that are lost. When you establish your priorities you always need to realize some people won’t understand. But if you clearly know what your priorities and your mission is in life, then sometimes you say "No" to good things so that you have time to say "Yes" to the most important things. I said to you a moment ago my wife and kids were what I consider my mission in life. But friends, early in my ministry I didn’t give them much time. If they are a priority, they need to be in my date book to. But when we have a passion, when we establish our priorities, take it to the bank, that some people around you won’t always understand. Just as Peter didn’t.

3. And then in closing, maintaining our focus in life requires constant reevaluation and adjustment. Jesus Christ was the only one who ever did it perfectly. And even Christ had to spend significant time in prayer. I’m want to promise you, friends, as you establish your purpose and priorities in life, you’re going to get off course. You’re going to get off course often. And when you get off course, Satan wants to come to you and say, "You can’t do this. Look you messed it up again. Just quit trying. God doesn’t believe in you anymore. Just give up that mission that you have in life to try to follow God." Don’t listen to him when he tells you that! Because the good news of Scripture is that God never gives up on us when we get off course. But God wants us to stay tuned to His Heavenly Father’s frequency through prayer and times of retreat so that when we get off course we get back on.

As we were talking about today’s message last week at the Worship Planning Team, Sarai made a good point. She said, "A plane when it’s on auto pilot, even when it’s on auto pilot never stays directly on course. It’s always detouring one side to the other; but the autopilot pulls it back on to the course. You’re going to get off course; but when you get off course allow God to pull you back to your mission in life. And God will do that for us.

Friends, good intentions and words are not enough. Others sometimes won’t understand. We will get off course. When we do, allow God to bring us back. Let’s pray, "Oh God, help us to discover that our ultimate mission in life needs to be to know you. Give us a passion for the things of God. Let that passion not be found just in good intentions and words, but let it finds its fruit in action. Give us courage during those times in which others will not understand our priorities and convictions. Help us to be people of the Word and prayer to keep us on course. So at the end of life we may hear you say these words, ‘Well-done good and faithful servant, your priorities were in the right place. You stayed on course. You finished the race. Enter in to the joys that I have for you.’ Hear our prayer, Oh Lord. Amen."