Austin Stone Morning Service (Part 2)

Sermon: What Kind of Jesus Do You Want? (Part 2)- Mark 6:45-52

Guest Speaker- Paul Tripp

Paul Tripp delivered a fairly tough word this morning, but he doesn’t seem so much like a difficult individual-- just happened to be that kind of message.  His sermon had a definite prophetic edge to it (even more so the second time I heard it in the evening service at the other campus), but it seemed to come from a very loving and pastoral disposition.  Paul was a dynamic speaker, and his wisdom had a certain folksy charm to it perhaps enhanced by his slightly older age (which was evidenced by his thick gray mustache).  Of course, with the lighting the way it was in that service, Paul’s eyes were very much obscured by his glasses, so his entire appearance almost seemed like someone had strapped a pair of Groucho Marx novelty glasses onto a bullhorn.  The projection on the screen was rigged up so that Paul was life-size in front of us and appeared to be walking around right there on the St. John campus’s stage.  This wasn’t one of those scenarios where Mark Driscoll’s head hovered over the crowd like the great and powerful Oz; the camera angle was specifically selected so that a slightly nearsighted person could easily think that Paul was right there in the room with us.  I’m still not sure how I feel about this illusion of projection, but I was grateful for the effort (especially since I’ve grown pretty weary of the larger-than-life faces on screens at this point).  For the sake of not having to write up the same sermon twice, I’ll combine the slightly-tweaked evening and morning sermons into one.  Also, thankfully, the Apostle Paul was never cited in the sermon, so whenever I say “Paul,” you’ll know that I mean Paul Tripp, not the author of much of the New Testament.

Paul began with a prayer lamenting the fickle and cold condition of the human heart and asking that God would come into that space and give us willing and excited hearts instead.  “Remind us that the greatest joy is to be loved by You.”  After saying amen, he talked for a bit about the pitfalls of consumer Christianity and how we should all be active participants in ministry.  We should all seek to be active disciples of Christ, not merely shoppers at some sort of religious Macy’s.  God wants us active and involved in the church, but how does God prepare us for that?  Paul then talked about how the original twelve disciples, without their knowledge, had been enrolled in a 24-7 school of ministry; Jesus was working with this group of guys every minute of every day not just to inform them, but to transform them.  He sought to make them into true disciples, and for an example of such transformation, we can look to the Bible to the time that Jesus spent with these twelve unwitting students.  From here, Paul moved on into the Scripture reading . . .

Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd.  After saying farewell to them, he went up on the mountain to pray.  When evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land.  When he saw that they were straining at the oars against an adverse wind, he came towards them early in the morning, walking on the sea. He intended to pass them by.  But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out; for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid."  Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened. (Mark 6:45-52)

I’m using a slightly different translation, but Paul’s version actually used the line “They were utterly amazed,” and he highlighted that there’s a big difference between amazement and faith, and he gave an example.  Like many families where Paul lives in Pennsylvania, the summer means a family vacation to the Jersey Shore.  “Yep, we collect medical waste, and my kids think it’s seashells.”  Paul explained that they always visit the Wildwood amusement park, and there’s one ride on the boardwalk that always fascinates him.  Suspended from two metal poles is a giant human-sized pouch, forming what is essentially a slingshot used to launch human projectiles out over the Atlantic Ocean.  Paul explained that, every time he sees this contraption and witnesses perfectly intelligent people paying $8 to be launched out over the ocean, he is amazed.  He stands there stunned and watches the machine for hours in shocked catatonia as his family go off to enjoy the amusement park.  Paul is amazed, but that doesn’t mean he would ever have faith to strap himself in and be shot out over the ocean.  Paul would come back to this topic, but he first needed to take a detour to address another issue and set the stage for a conversation about grace.

Grace sometimes comes to us in uncomfortable and unexpected forms, and there is often redemptive love and transformation in those uncomfortable moments.  Christ could’ve easily removed the difficulties for the disciples as they rowed across the stormy sea (a process which had taken them about eight hours if you do a little number-crunching with the passage).  Jesus could’ve quieted the waves and brought peace to the sea.  Instead, he walked out next to the disciples in their moment of crisis.  Often, in our own lives, we encounter a difficult circumstance and just want it to end, but this story teaches that those moments of turmoil can teach us how to walk more closely with Jesus.  The disciples, on the other hand, don’t even recognize that Jesus is walking with them.  They think he is a ghost.  We do this in our own lives as well sometimes when we blame God for a difficult circumstance, tell ourselves that we are miserable, and drag God before the court in our minds to judge the Creator’s actions.

Just like with us, Jesus doesn’t yell at the disciples for doing this, for mistaking God for an apparition.  He simply tells them one of the most comforting sets of words in the Bible: “Take heart.  It is I.  Don’t be afraid.”  While the Bible translation says, “It is I,” Paul told us that a more accurate translation might be, “It is I Am.”  Jesus is invoking the traditional name of God in this incident, and he is telling the disciples that I Am is with them.  Paul looked out at us from over his Bible.  “People always laugh at me when I say this in a counseling setting, but it’s absolutely true.  No one is more influential in your life than you are because no one talks to you more than you do.  Sure, we’ve learned not to move our lips so that people don’t think we’re crazy, but it’s true: no one talks to you more than you, so maybe it’s time you reminded yourself that I Am is with you.”  It felt a little self-helpy, but it was still a good point.  Of course, then we got to that fateful section to which Paul had alluded earlier: the disciples were amazed.

Amazement stems from the brain.  To be amazed is to encounter information that forces you to look beyond that which you already know.  Amazement is not a bad thing, but faith requires more of us.  To have faith is to live your life on the basis of something-- a principle, an idea, a religious conviction, etc.  (And FYI, Paul’s totally onto something with this since the Greek word πίστις, which is usually translated as faith, actually has connotations far beyond simple belief.  It’s very much about reliance and a journey together.)  In this particular story, the disciples are amazed because they didn’t learn the lesson they should have from the miracle of the loaves and fishes immediately before.  They were still trying to be self-reliant, trying to weather this difficult storm on their own, and Jesus knew that they would act this way, which is why he had asked them to row over to him.  Jesus was putting them in danger so that he might teach them a lesson, and the disciples were simply obeying by rowing out through that storm and trying to make it across the sea to him.  As Paul put it, “God will take you where you hadn’t intended to go to produce in you what you cannot make for yourself. . . . God will take you beyond yourself because that is where you need to be.  True righteousness begins where you end.”  Of course, the disciples were fearful when they should have been at peace, and Jesus uses it as an amazing teaching moment.  Rather than quieting the storm, he walks out to them across the raging waves (which are, of course, his waves to command).  Jesus shows that he is in control and that he is present with them.  Jesus shows that he is the source of grace, producing in the disciples what they cannot produce in themselves, and this is a lesson that, by now, these men should have learned.  Jesus does bring us relief from our turmoil, but first, He brings us grace, and with it comes transformation.

At this point, Paul turned the story on us: “Have you learned your lessons?”

Paul also noted how the disciples are described as having hard hearts in this passage, and in his hands, he picked up an imaginary rock and asked the church what would happen if he pressed on it.  When no one replied, Paul said, “It’s okay, I promise that’s not a trick question, but it is a rhetorical question, so it’s fine if you don’t answer.  The rock doesn’t move or break.  It’s resistant to any change I might try to force on it.”  At this point, Paul seemed to be venting a bit, and I have to admit that I was right there with him.  He talked about how one of the biggest problems in the church now (if not the biggest) is that we’re too easily satisfied, so in those blessed moments of grace, we’re unprepared and unready to do the work of the Kingdom.  To use Paul’s words, we have made for ourselves claustrophobic kingdoms of one rather than allowing God to speak to us and work through us.  Our hearts have become hard in our contentedness.  We forget that God teaches us faith through difficulty.  We forget that, with God, it’s okay if we’re needy, if we’re hungry, and if we’re expectant.  After all, every human heart is secretly and anxiously waiting for the gift of grace that was given so freely.

Paul had been preaching a pretty intense sermon up to this point, so I think the congregation was relieved when he brought up a cute story from his own family.  Paul explained that his son Justin has a habit not that unusual for a little kid.  On Christmas and his birthday, when Justin opens his presents, he always abandons whatever toy he has been given and goes straight for his new favorite plaything: the box in which it came.  Well, one Christmas, Paul and his wife went on a quest to find the perfect toy for Justin.  Feeling slighted that his son chose the box over his gift year after year, Paul was determined to find something that would excite Justin more than the box, so he dragged his wife from store to store until finding what they finally agreed was the perfect Justin toy.  They wrapped the toy and stuck it under the Christmas tree, and when Justin unwrapped it, he indeed played with the toy!  Paul went into the kitchen to toast his parental victory with his relatives, and when he returned to the living room, he found Justin sitting there playing . . . inside of the box.

How often do we do this in our own lives?  We have been given the most gorgeous undeserved gift of all time, God’s grace, but we still find ourselves content to play with the box in which it came to us.  Maybe that box is biblical literacy or theological knowledge or a little bit of self-help wisdom.  Maybe that box is the church in which we find ourselves right now.  (Whoa, wait, calling the church a big box?  Dude, stop stealing my term.  I also think my “big box” is a lot happier than Paul’s.)  Rather than hanging onto the box our grace came in, we should be clinging to grace itself with both hands and letting it lead us and change us.  This is the most important thing, not the box.  We shouldn’t be content with the little bit about grace we do understand; we should let Jesus lead us beyond that.  We should let Christ transform us, not just sit back and play with the box.  Don’t be content with an idle Christian life.  You don’t need to live with any shred of guilt or shame, because Christ has taken these on Himself.  It’s okay to admit that we want comfort, but we must always be aware that we first need grace.

Paul offered a prayer in which he explained that we are like the disciples sometimes in our misunderstanding and our faulty self-reliance.  Really, we need to be finding our security in God alone.  We’re unprepared, and we’re too easily satisfied, so we need to ask Jesus to transform us and make us the disciples that he wants us to be.

Worship Concludes

During that final prayer, the screen had been receding into the ceiling, and the dramatic tension was cut ever so slightly by one of the guitarists tuning his instrument.  Jimmy and the band led the congregation in a reprise of “Day After Day.”

The fear of man and what they plan will fade

But we know You alone are God of every day

Like the flowers, man will rise and fall

But you are everlasting, never ending, God eternal

Let the songs of adoration rise

Our God is reigning up on high

He’s worthy to receive the praise and the glory

Day after day our God is reigning . . .

The bridge (“let the songs of adoration . . .”) had an impressive drum build behind it, and after the band wrapped up this song, they transitioned into the next with a guitar and drum instrumental.  This song was actually written by Aaron Ivey, who leads worship at the church’s other campus (and who I would be hearing later that night . . . well, you don’t so much hear Aaron Ivey as experience Aaron Ivey, but more on that later).

Behold the King who conquered

And overcame our sin

Behold our Glorious Victor

Whose mercy knows no end

He is true, He is right

Death is broken, He is alive

God undefeatable, Kingdom unshakeable

In majesty and power You reign

Love undeniable, matchless and bountiful

To waken us to life You came

And now our way is certain

Our souls in You secure

Through every pain and struggle

Your victory endures

You are true, You are right

Death is broken, He is alive

The love of God is greater than we dare to hope or dream

The love of God is greater than we dare to hope or dream

The hold of God is stronger than we dare to hope or dream

The hold of God is stronger than we dare to hope or dream

I noticed that the band members were really having fun on this song.  Jimmy was singing at the top of his lungs for an appropriate conclusion to worship, and one of the guitarists was adding in “whoa-ah-oh-ah-ooooh”s during lyrical breaks.  It was a fun celebratory note on which to end.

Jon Dansby returned to the stage and delivered a prayer.  He asked us to think back to Paul’s message and say to ourselves, “This message was important for me and for my heart.”  He then prayed to God, telling the Lord that we were frustrated, defeated, and annoyed, that we can’t see God and are angry.  He thanked God for leading us to feel this way because God loves us and wants us to seek the joy that only Christ can provide.  He wrapped up the prayer with the concluding line, “For His glory and our joy.”

As the offering baskets traveled around the room, Jon delivered the announcements.  He mentioned that Paul would be returning to Austin Stone the first weekend in August to lead a parenting seminar, something that Jon admitted that he could use (a comment which got knowledgeable laughter from some of the young parents in the congregation).  Jon also mentioned that the movie night would focus on finding God in “Captain America.”  This made me smile just because finding theological overtones in Captain America really sounds like the sort of stunt I’d pull.  I’m glad to see a larger and more established church resorting to my style of tomfoolery-- kind of a relief to know I’m not the only one.  Jon also mentioned that there would be a partner meeting --partners being sort of like church members-- on July 31st.  With the opening of a new third campus and a budget to review, the partners would have quite a bit to discuss.  With this last announcement, we were dismissed.  I looked down at my watch and saw that I had plenty of time, so I stuck around and snapped a few pictures of the campus.  I wanted to track down Joey again and continue our conversation from before the service, but I was unable to bump into him again.  Not a big deal.  After all, I did have another church to visit, and finding it was going to be a challenge.