Nothing Less Than Everything (Mark 12.28-44)

When I was about seventeen years old, my friend Emily told me she had a friend named Paige, and she wanted to introduce me to her. Paige lived in a nearby town, so I’d never met her, but Emily thought Paige and I would get along really well, and that we’d be a good match for one another. She showed me a picture of Paige that she had brought just for the occasion, to give to me.

I took the picture home, and I can still see it in my mind. It was a simple photo—she was just sitting on a hill in jeans and a t-shirt, smiling at the camera—but I thought she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.

So I called Paige, and we decided to meet up for an actual date. We planned it for the Friday of the following week, so I had about ten days to wait. For those ten days, I carried that picture with me everywhere, and I looked at it often, because I was totally convinced that when I looked at that picture, I was looking at the face of my future wife.

Ten days later, we finally met for the first time in person for our date. I remember that date far less vividly than I remember the photograph; the one thing I do remember clearly is that after the first five minutes of figuring out what we wanted to do, we realized we had nothing to say to each other. We didn’t have anything in common, it was really awkward, and the entire evening was one attempt after another to fill the silence so we didn’t have to sit in how weird it felt.

For over a week, I had walked around convinced I was in love with this girl. But of course I wasn’t, because I didn’t actually know her.

That is the dynamic at work in this text. The first part speaks of the love God deserves from us; the second part speaks of the impossibility of loving a God we don’t know.

The text we just read—Mark 12.28-44—comes as a bit of a relief—to me, at least—because Jesus has just spent basically a chapter and a half getting pushback from the religious leaders, responding to multiple attempts to trap him. 

But at the beginning of this text, we see something different. We see one of the religious leaders, a scribe, come to Jesus and ask him an honest question—not a trap, not an attack, but a real, genuine question. 

This question opens the door for Jesus to give one of my favorite of his teachings recorded in the gospel of Mark, because it’s so simple, and yet if we take it seriously, it changes everything. 

The Greatest Commandment (v. 28-34)

When we pick up the text in v. 28, we’re still in the middle of this day Jesus has spent in the temple. He has just spent a lot of time—all of chapter 12 so far—facing challenge after challenge from the religious leaders. They keep trying to ask him questions that will trip him up, that he won’t have answers to, or that will expose him as a fraud in front of the people. And every time, Jesus brilliantly evades their attacks and points out the flaws in the religious leaders’ thinking.

So the atmosphere in this place was tense, to say the least. The religious leaders are angry, Jesus is calmly defending himself, and the people are on the edge of their seats, listening to everything he says.

Which makes the next exchange we see all the more surprising.

V. 28: 

28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”

This question, from this scribe who remains unnamed, could have been a trick question. Every question directed toward Jesus so far has either focused on his identity, his theology in general, or his interpretation of the law of Moses. This question could fall into either of the latter categories. It could have been a trap.

But as we saw last week, in v. 15, Jesus knows what’s going on in the hearts and minds of the people asking him these questions. So instead of answering the question with another question, or with a parable, Jesus gives a straight answer. V. 29: 

29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Jesus isn’t extrapolating here; he’s quoting from the beginning of Deuteronomy 6 and from Leviticus 19. Even so, his answer sounds a bit simplistic—there are so many commandments in the Old Testament that were really important, to the point where there were very serious consequences if people didn’t follow them. All the commandments about sacrifices and purity and worship were what you might think of first, because they’re things you do—they’re easy things to wrap your mind around.

But to his credit, the scribe talking to Jesus sees what he’s saying, and he agrees. V. 32: 

32 And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. 33 And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions.

It’s not hard to see the meaning behind this exchange. There is only one God—so he should be our primary focus. And this commandment to love God and to love others is the most important commandment because it summarizes the goal of all the others. God gives his law to display his character to his people, and that character will manifest itself in love.

But it’s really important to see that Jesus isn’t just saying, “Love God.” It’s easy for us, as modern readers, to conflate this command to love God with the emotion of love. When we love someone, there is emotion that comes with it, of course, but Deuteronomy 6 goes further than that: it describes the love that God demands. 

He says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” To put it simply, we are commanded to love God with everything we are. There should be emotions involved, yes—we love him with all our heart and with all our soul.

But there is also calculation: we love God with all our mind. We spend time thinking about God, considering who he is, and recognizing why he is worthy of our love. 

And there is also strenuous effort: we love God with all our strength. We’ll work hard at loving God. We’ll make choices that are thoughtful, choices that are coherent with our understanding of who God is and who we are, even if those choices are difficult.

How many of us have had the experience of going away for the weekend, going on vacation, and not opening our Bibles the entire time? How many of us have had the experience of feeling like we need a “break” from God?

This temptation comes to all of us at some point or another, and we give in to that temptation when our love for God, and our understanding of God, are unbalanced.

The person who loves God the way Jesus describes here does not partition off his life into categories, some of which include God and some of which exclude him. There is no “time off” from this. We don’t take vacations from God, and we don’t want to, because God is good.

God doesn’t deserve a part of me; he deserves all of me. 

And Jesus adds that the second most important commandment is this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” When God gets everything—when we love him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength—that love will overflow into love for those around us. When we understand who God is for us, the love and grace he has shown us, it becomes unnatural and unthinkable to not extend that love to others. We don’t deserve God’s perfect and unlimited love, but we have it—and the person who withholds their love from others shows that they don’t understand what they’ve received.

When the scribe responds to Jesus, he repeats what Jesus has said, but he adds one little thing that shows he really does understand what Jesus is saying. He says in v. 33 that loving God with everything we are, and loving our neighbor as ourselves, “is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” This was a daring thing to say, because much of the life of the religious leaders was centered around correctly performing these rituals. These things were really important to them, because they were really important in the law of Moses.

But without this all-consuming love for God that overflows into love for one’s neighbor, all these sacrifices and burnt offerings mean nothing.

And Jesus answers him by saying, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

The Poor Widow (vv. 41–44)

Let’s go down a little to v. 41—we’ll come back to the in-between part in a little while. Jesus describes what true love for God is in v. 28-34. But naturally we may have a hard time seeing what loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength looks like in practical terms.

We don’t need to figure it out for ourselves. We already saw one example of what that looks like in v. 31: love your neighbor as yourself. In v. 41-44, we see another, even clearer picture. 

V. 41:

41 And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. 43 And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. 44 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Jesus never tells us what this widow’s motivations for giving were, and he doesn’t comment directly on her faith. She serves a similar purpose as the fig tree back in chapter 11: Jesus is using her as a living parable, a picture, of what he said earlier—what it looks like to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

Several rich people come and put large sums of money into the offering box. Jesus doesn’t condemn them for doing this—he doesn’t say anything about their motivations. He only mentions them to highlight the contrast between them and the poor widow. The rich people gave out of their abundance, he says, while this poor widow gave everything she had. And, Jesus said, she gave more—not because of the actual amount she gave was bigger, but because of what the gift cost her.

Of course this passage isn’t really about money at all—Jesus isn’t saying you have to empty your bank accounts every time you go to church. 

He’s saying that our love for God cannot be measured by how we feel. True love for God can only be measured by how we live. True love for God will necessarily drive us to action—we love him with all our heart and soul, yes, but also with all our mind, and with all our strength. To put it another way, there is an inevitable link between “inside love” and “outside love”—between orthodoxy (knowing the right things about God) and orthopraxy (doing the right things for God). 

In the context of what we saw before, and in what Jesus says about the widow, he makes this point abundantly, uncomfortably clear, because he puts us before a very simple question: What is the cost of our obedience?

There are some commandments that are relatively easy for me to obey, because of my personality. I’m naturally a pretty understanding person, so I can be fairly patient when people don’t do what they ought to do. When I obey in that way, it’s a good thing, sure—but it doesn’t cost me much, because it comes naturally to me.

However, other commandments are a lot more difficult—for example, the commandment to call a brother to repentance if I notice sin in his life. That’s hard for me, because I hate conflict. I have no problem doing it from up here, because I’m speaking to all of you. But when I’m face-to-face with one person… Every bone in my body fights against that, because I hate conflict, and I hate uncomfortable situations.

Do you see what Jesus is getting at? You say you love the Lord—and that’s wonderful. But the question is worth asking: What does your love cost?

That’s how Jesus measures the widow’s love. “This poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box,” he says, “for they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had.”

The Son of David (vv. 35–40)

So we have what true love for God is, and what true love for God looks like in practice. If that is all we had, this would be a pretty straightforward passage.

However, in between these two sections comes a moment of teaching that, at first glance, seems unrelated to the other two.

But if you’ve been with us in this series since the beginning, you know how Mark loves to structure passages like a sandwich—he’ll talk about one subject, then move on to something that seems different, then come back to the initial subject to show that the middle part actually is related.

So let’s look at this middle part, starting in v. 35.

Remember the context: after his exchange with the sincere scribe, Jesus is still in the temple, still teaching, and he brings up the question of the identity of the Messiah. The Messiah—also called “the Christ”; both titles mean the same thing—was the Savior whom God had promised to send to save his people. 

The religious leaders at the time had various views about what the details, but what everyone agreed on was this: the Messiah—the promised Savior—would be a human deliverer from the line of the great King David. They expected the Messiah to be a man, empowered by God, a warrior-king belonging to the family of David. So a great man, absolutely, a man sent by God—but still, just a man.

The problem Jesus highlights here is that these religious leaders have their hopes set on only part of what is actually promised. 

V. 35: 

35 And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, “How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?”

Let’s stop there for a second, because that’s a weird question. “How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David (that is, a descendant of King David)?” Well…because the prophecies said he would be! The scribes are right when they say that, and Jesus knows it.

So why ask the question? It’s not to say the scribes are wrong about the Christ being the son of David, but rather to show that their beliefs around the Messiah are only half-complete; they’re leaving out one really glaring fact about the Messiah—a fact that comes from David himself.

V. 36:

36 David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared,
                  “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord,
                  “Sit at my right hand,
      until I put your enemies under your feet.” ’
37 David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?” And the great throng heard him gladly.

This can be a little confusing at first, because you have one Lord talking to another Lord, and without context you don’t know who is who. In v. 36, Jesus is quoting Psalm 110, which nearly all Jews at the time accepted as a prophecy about the Messiah. And in the context of the psalm, it’s clear that the first “Lord” is God himself, and the second “Lord” is the promised Messiah. (We know because the words in the original language are different.) We could reword this verse by saying, “The Lord God said to Christ, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.”

David gave this prophecy, in which God himself gives the Messiah a place at his right hand: the place of highest honor and power—a place normally reserved for someone of equal nature and authority.

Jesus quotes this psalm to point out the glaring omission in the religious leaders’ thinking, despite the fact that they knew this psalm really well. In this psalm, David puts himself in a place of submission: he places himself under God, obviously—but also under the Messiah; he calls him “my Lord”. This was a very odd thing for David to do, because the Messiah was going to be one of David’s own descendants—one of his great-great-great (and so on) grandchildren.

And at this time, in this culture, the patriarchs of a family were the ones who received the honor. If anyone in a family line was to be called “my Lord,” it would be the father, not the son. That’s how it worked in ordinary human families. 

But David treats the Messiah, the Christ, who would be his own descendant, with even more honor and more reverence than he reserved for himself. In no conceivable human family would the son be called “lord” instead of the father.

The point is, this Messiah is a human being, yes—but he is much more than that. The Messiah is of the line of David, yes—but he is much more than that. According to family lines, he’s the son of David; but really, miraculously, he is the son of God—sitting at God’s right hand, equal in nature.

You see, Jesus is showing that for everything the scribes know about Scriptures, their conclusions about God’s plan are wrong. No one at the time believed the Messiah would be anything more than a human being. A great man, a great warrior, a man sent by God—but still, just a man. The idea that the human Messiah would claim to also be divine was blasphemy; it was unthinkable.

But it shouldn’t have been, because it was right there, in Psalm 110. “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand…’” A human being, given divine authority. It was there in Psalm 110, and it was there in Daniel 7, and elsewhere. They should have known better, but they didn’t—either because they didn’t understand about the promises they say they believe, or because they just couldn’t bring themselves to accept what Scripture says.

Now, in itself, what Jesus says here is interesting, but it might seem as if it has little to do with us, or what we saw earlier. Not many people in our churches today will think about the Messiah the same way the religious leaders did; not many of us would deny the idea that Jesus is both the “son of David” and the son of God.

In reality, though, what he says absolutely applies to us. Look at what Jesus says next, in v. 38: 

38 And in his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces 39 and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, 40 who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

It’s strange, isn’t it? He’s talking about the Messiah’s identity—David’s descendant, yes, but also David’s Lord, the Son of God—and in the same teaching, he speaks of the scribes and their hypocrisy and pride: how they do a lot of the right things on the outside, and they love the recognition it gives them, but in reality, behind closed doors where the crowds can’t see, they’re hurting the people they’re meant to serve. 

Why does Jesus put those two things together? 

In the two bookends of this text, we saw Jesus expose what true love for God is, and then show what it looks like in practice. And in this center section, he does the same thing. He exposes the fact that the scribes refuse to accept what Scripture actually said about the Messiah, and now he shows what their deficient theology of Christ looks like when it’s lived out. It’s not just a question of intellectual understanding—it’s a question of pride, keeping them from accepting what’s right in front of their eyes.

And although it may look different today, this problem is still very present.

It’s pretty frightening to see how many Christians today say that Jesus is Lord, without actually giving him what he deserves as Lord. They say he’s the Son of God, but they accept him mainly as their ticket to heaven, or the person they can turn to when they’re feeling lonely, or the one they pray to when they need to get out of a painful situation.

Most of us wouldn’t say that Jesus, the Messiah, was just a human being descended from David. But we might well be living as if it were true. We might well be living in a way that says, “Jesus is my Savior…but he’s not my Lord. Jesus is my helper…but I decide what I do with my life. Jesus is my friend…but I’ll decide whether or not to do what he says.” 

Our theology of the Messiah may not be the same as the religious leaders’, but all too often, it’s just as shallow, just as deficient.

And what happens when we live according to such a view? 

We keep Jesus safely in the category that’s most convenient to us—he is always our helper, but rarely our Lord. If Jesus is just David’s son—just a human deliverer—or if he is just a helper, just a friend, then we can go to Jesus for help, but we don’t have to submit to him. We can admire Jesus, but we don’t have to bow to him. 

We keep Christ small, so we can stay big. We can keep Christ on the sidelines, so that we can stay central.

And when we stay big, when we stay central, pride is inevitable. When Christ is not seen and acknowledged as supreme in our lives, the vacuum of glory has to be filled. And every time, there we are, ready to fill it.

We keep Christ small, so we can stay big.

A small Messiah doesn’t demand much of us. A small Messiah doesn’t take up much room. He can be conveniently slotted into the few empty spots we have left in our calendar; he doesn’t have to define our lives. 

Our pride loves a small Messiah, because a small Messiah lets us “manage” our faith instead of being mastered by Christ. A small Messiah submits to us, instead of demanding we submit to him.

Loving a God Worthy of Love

Do you see where Mark is going with this—where Jesus is going?

When we allow ourselves to settle for a small vision of who Christ is, our lives might become easier, sure—but they’ll also be emptied of the one thing that actually makes life worth living: access to the one true God, who alone is worthy of the love he commands.

Think about that for a moment. The command Jesus repeats in verse 30 is astonishingly bold:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

You shall love him with everything you are, everything you have, everything you desire.

A commandment that all-encompassing can only mean one of three things.

Either it means God doesn’t exist and humans made him up to gain power—in which case, we should run for our lives.

Or it means the God who gave it is a tyrant—an egomaniac who needs our total approval to prop up his own fragile sense of self. If God isn’t actually worthy of the love he demands, then he’s completely unhinged—and again, we should run for our lives.

But of course, we don’t believe either of those things, because we’ve come to know God. Which leaves only one possibility: that our God really is worthy of that kind of all-consuming love—that he truly is worthy of our whole lives.

And if he really is worthy of every aspect of every life of every person who belongs to his people… then how good must our God be? This commandment should set our imaginations on fire—because how good, how glorious, how powerful, how breathtaking must he be to deserve that kind of love?

The command to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength is, in reality, an invitation to spend our lives contemplating the one being who is so good and so glorious that such love will never be wasted on him. He deserves it—because he really is that good.

Of course, loving God as he deserves isn’t easy. There’s nothing wrong with finding it hard to give God all that we are. No one does it perfectly, because we’re still imperfect human beings.

What scares me, though, is how many Christians don’t even think to ask the question.

Why do we live the way we live? Why do we make the choices we make?

Maybe we live the way we do out of pride. We know what people will think of us if we don’t act a certain way—and we know what they’ll think if we do. We know which mask to wear, and we know how to make sure no one sees us take it off.

Maybe we live the way we do simply because we want to chase our dreams. When we were younger, we had a picture of what we wanted our life to look like—and now, as adults, we’re just making decisions that help us get there. A lot of what we do as adults is really just us keeping promises we made to ourselves when we were kids.

Or maybe we don’t even know why we do what we do. We just act on instinct, on desire, on impulse.

All those motivations for living the way we live are perfectly normal—and utterly deadly.

The only truly good motivation for everything we do is a genuine love for God, expressed in action.

And so he calls us—to come to Christ as he truly is (not the little “Messiah” so many people try to make him into), and through him to know God as *he* truly is.

He calls us to grow in our love for him.

And he calls us to work hard to cultivate that love—in every decision we make, in every opportunity to obey, no matter how costly that obedience may be.

He calls us to know and love Christ—because he loved God with all his heart, all his soul, all his mind, and all his strength… and he lived it out so perfectly that he gave himself for us.

So then—what are we going to do?

How will we live?

How will we love our God?

That’s the question he puts before us today. So let’s take a few moments to stand before him—and ask him to help us answer it.

Jesus’s Authority to Judge (Mark 11.27-12.27)

I would like to tell you about a conversation I had with a colleague at my job before I became a minister.

She had just learned that an acquaintance of hers had gone on a missionary trip abroad.

"I thought it was so arrogant," she said.

"What right do you have to go to another country and tell them to change their religion and believe in Jesus?"

"How arrogant and intolerant!"

Being a bit slow on the uptake, I didn't really know how to respond at the time.

At Connexion Church, we are preparing for a missionary trip.

To those of you who are going, may I ask you a question? What gives you the right to do that? What gives you the authority to go to a country that is not your own, call on people to change what they believe, perhaps for centuries, their religion, perhaps certain aspects of their way of life, and to accept the Christian faith?

By what authority are you going to do this?

This afternoon, some of you will go out into this neighbourhood to try to share the good news of Jesus with passers-by who may have very different beliefs from your own.

By what right?

What gives you the right to say that people must believe in Jesus?

Perhaps you are here this morning because you have questions about the Christian faith.

Perhaps you are interested in the person of Jesus Christ. What you don't want is to become arrogant and intolerant.

Is that what happens when you embrace the Christian faith?

Hence our question this morning: what right do we have to insist on the need to believe in Jesus... alone?

By what right does Jesus demand that we believe in him... even if it means rejecting other belief systems?

This is the question posed to Jesus in verse 28 of Mark chapter 11, which we have just read.

Jesus is walking in the temple in Jerusalem. The leaders of the people challenge him:

"By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you the authority to do them?"

The context behind the question is what we saw Jesus do last Sunday, if you were there.

He arrived in Jerusalem, and the crowds hailed him as king and saviour. Then the first thing he did was to go to the temple, the historic house of God and the centre of Israel's religion, to announce... that it was over for the temple.

Finished.

It's as if he went to Notre Dame Cathedral, not just to chase away the tourists and close the souvenir shop so that people could concentrate better during services. No, it's as if he entered the cathedral to chase away the clergy, lock the doors and throw the key into the Seine.

He compares the temple to a fig tree that had not borne the expected fruit, and he curses it.

He says that what matters now is no longer the religion of the temple, but faith in him.

No wonder the leaders ask him: by what authority are you doing these things? What gives you the right to take our religion, our temple - which God himself established - and say, "It's over; believe in me now"?

By what authority do you judge us in this way?

This is what we see in this morning's passage.

Jesus' authority to judge

The reasons that attract his judgement...

And the need to believe in him to escape judgement.

Three points:

1. The judge's accusation presented

2. The judge's accusation confirmed

3. The judge's victory assured

The judge's accusation presented (11:27-12:9)

The title of the first point is deliberately ambiguous.

It could either mean the trial brought against a judge or by a judge.

This is what we see in the exchanges between the Jewish leaders and Jesus.

They attack his authority to judge. But in doing so, they show why Jesus must judge them.

This is the first thing to understand: God is good, God is patient, but at some point, Jesus judges those who rebel against his authority.

Mark 11:27:

"They went back to Jerusalem, and as Jesus was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes and the elders came to him and said, 'By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you the authority to do them?

At first glance, the question seems perfectly legitimate.

If I went to Notre Dame Cathedral to chase away the clergy and lock the doors, those in charge would be entitled to ask me who I think I am.

But I am not Jesus!

And in the mouths of the leaders of Israel, this question is anything but sincere, for several reasons.

First, they saw with their own eyes what Jesus' authority was. They saw his miracles. They heard his teaching. They contemplated his character.

They know his authority.

Second, in their mouths, it is a trick question.

Last week we saw that when they saw Jesus judging the temple and how the crowds were nevertheless glued to his words, they were looking for a way to kill him.

So they tried to trap him. If he answered that his authority came from God, they could accuse him of blasphemy.

If he answers that it comes from men, he loses all legitimacy.

Jesus' answer is a stroke of genius.

Verse 29

Jesus replied, "I will ask you a question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was John's baptism from heaven or from men?"

John is John the Baptist, someone who had been immensely popular among the people.

Above all, he had testified about Jesus just before he began his ministry.

Now the leaders were stumped!

"If we say, 'From heaven,' he will say, 'Why then did you not believe him? Why did you not accept his testimony about me?

And if we say, 'From men...'" They feared the people's reaction, for they all truly regarded John as a prophet.

They risked losing popular support.

So, like good politicians, they avoided taking a position.

"We do not know."

Jesus' response: Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.

Jesus exposes their true motives.

Holding on to power.

Popularity is more important to them than the truth.

They fear men more than they fear God.

Isn't that so typically human?

We don't like to relinquish control.

We, too, often care more about what people will say than what God will say.

For us too, the approval of others often matters more than God's approval.

When my colleague told me about her friend's missionary trip, what probably prevented me from responding appropriately was my greater concern for popularity than for truth.

It's so human!

But their question, "By what authority do you judge us?", may be a trick question in the mouths of the leaders, but it remains an important question for us.

We need to know what gives Jesus the authority to take an entire religious system and throw it in the bin!

Because if he can do that to the religion that God himself established, how much more so can he do it to any other belief system?

We need to know why Jesus the judge is conducting his trial.

So Jesus tells a parable to explain.

Chapter 12, verse 1

And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. 2 When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed. 6 He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard.

In this story, the owner of the vineyard is God.

The vineyard represents the privileges granted to the people of Israel.

The tenants are the leaders of Israel.

The servants are the prophets whom God sent to Israel.

The owner's son is Jesus.

Let us remember the purpose of parables.

The purpose of parables is to harden those who have already decided that they do not want Jesus, such as the religious leaders, and to enlighten those who belong to Jesus.

How does this parable enlighten us?

First, it shows us God's immense generosity towards Israel throughout its history.

The vineyard is of the highest quality. It has all the necessary equipment.

It is not a small vineyard that only produces cheap wine at €1 a bottle. It is Château Margaux.

An image of God's overflowing generosity towards Israel. The abundance of their country, protection from enemies, the privilege of being the only people in the world to have God dwelling among them.

God had spared no expense.

The parable also speaks of God's patience with Israel.

The vineyard is leased to the vinedressers so that they may enjoy it and also produce fruit for the owner.

That's normal. It belongs to him.

But when the owner sends a servant to collect his share, they beat him and send him away empty-handed.

If I were the owner, I would have stopped there.

I would have called the police to remove them by force.

Not this owner.

He sends a second servant, a third, a fourth.

Some are beaten, others killed. He continues to give them chances.

Immense patience.

But this immense patience only serves to highlight how immense their sin is.

They did not listen to the servants.

The owner sends his beloved son; surely they will respect him!

But the vinedressers said among themselves, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.'

This answers the question: by what authority does Jesus do these things?

The authority of a son sent to recover what is due to his father.

This is the great shock of this parable.

Why do the vineyard workers kill the son? Is it because they do not know who he is? No.

Is it because he did not prove his identity? No.

Is it because they doubt his authority? No.

On the contrary, it is precisely because they recognise who he is and know his authority that they decide to kill him.

They act deliberately, to take advantage of what has been entrusted to them, without submitting to his authority.

Imagine that you invest money in an apartment, rent it out to tenants, and move to another city.

Then the rent doesn't come in.

You send messages – no reply.

You ask friends to go and talk to them. They slam the door in their faces.

Finally, you send your son to beg them to use common sense.

But when they see that he is the heir to the flat, they kill him, thinking they can keep it for themselves.

It's horrible.

But this is Jesus' indictment of the leaders of Israel.

In fact, it is the indictment he brings against the whole world.

The history of Israel is a microcosm of the history of humanity.

God had given Israel a vineyard full of good fruit.

He had given humanity a garden full of good fruit.

Israel wanted to steal the vineyard from its owner.

Humanity tried to steal the earth from its owner.

Everyone in this room and everyone on this planet has enjoyed the good things given by God without giving back what is due to God.

The gratitude and obedience He deserves.

If He then sends us His Son, but we reject Him... we are guilty.

This is how I should have responded to my colleague.

Is the Christian faith arrogant and intolerant?

The world belongs to God!

It is full of good things – think of the diversity and beauty of his creation! God wants us to enjoy it, but it is his world, not ours.

If we live in it like squatters who refuse to pay rent, it's only natural that he would disagree.

If he calls us to give his son what is due to him, it is not arrogance. It is a sign of his patience.

If we continue to refuse, if we reject this Son, it is only natural that He will not tolerate this rejection forever.

God is good, God is patient, but at some point, those who reject his authority must be judged.

Perhaps we are not convinced by the accusation.

Perhaps we find Jesus too harsh.

But what follows shows that this rejection of God's authority can take very mundane forms.

This is the second point...

The judge's accusation confirmed (12:13-27)

One skill we develop when caring for children is the ability to discern their true motives.

You walk into the kitchen and there's the little one, standing on a stool next to the cupboard where the biscuits are kept.

"What are you doing?"

"Actually" — that's how the answer usually starts — "I wanted to wipe the sponge."

We are perceptive enough to discern the real motive.

The irony in this passage is that when the leaders hear this parable accusing them of wanting to kill Jesus, they want to kill Jesus even more!

But they cannot because of the crowd.

So they send two delegations to trap him.

Each time, Jesus proves that their real motive for attacking him is to live for themselves rather than for God.

Mark 12:13:

13 And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk. 14 And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?”

• Relativised repentance

The Pharisees were a popular movement that sought to encourage the people to adhere more strictly to Jewish law.

The Herodians were supporters of King Herod.

What they had in common was their concern about how to relate to the Romans, who occupied Israel.

Hence their question. Is it permissible or not to pay taxes to the emperor?

This was another trick question.

If Jesus answered that taxes should be paid to Caesar, he risked being seen as a traitor in the eyes of the people. A collaborator.

If he answered that they should not pay, he would be denounced to the Romans as a rebel, and they would come and execute him.

In both cases, the goal is to eliminate Jesus.

Once again, Jesus finds a brilliant answer.

He takes a coin. Whose image is on it?

"The emperor's."

Then, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's."

In other words, if the coin bears the image of the emperor, Caesar, it belongs to him. It is his currency that you are using. So pay your taxes.

But also give to God what belongs to God. And what bears the image of God?

You! You human beings! You bear the image of God!

What God really asks is that you give yourselves to him! Your whole life. Not just part of it.

What you are guilty of is limiting God's authority to only a few narrow areas.

Your tax return, as important as that may be.

We often do the same thing.

Limiting God's authority to a few moments of the week, or certain areas of life.

But God asks us to surrender ourselves to him completely.

Like the Pharisees.

Then come the Sadducees.

Eternity ignored (12:18-27)

The Sadducees recognised only the first five books of the Bible and did not believe in the resurrection from the dead.

Like many of our contemporaries.

Today, many people believe that we only have this life, that by striving for heaven, we miss out on earth. Let's enjoy the present moment without worrying too much about the hereafter.

Jesus, however, taught that he would die and then rise again.

If there is indeed no resurrection, his teaching falls flat.

The Sadducees try to trap him with an imaginary case.

A man dies and leaves behind a wife but no children.

According to Jewish law, the man's brother had to marry the widow to give his first husband descendants.

But let us imagine that this brother also dies without children. Another brother marries her and he too dies without children, and so on until the woman has been married seven times.

In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife.”

And Jesus’s scathing reply in verse 24:

“Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?”

He gives two examples to prove that they are mistaken.

First, the Sadducees did not understand how different life after the resurrection will be from life here and now.

In particular, they did not understand that marriage here and now is only a picture ... of the relationship between the church and Jesus in the new world that God is preparing.

Marriage as we know it now will no longer exist.

Their argument does not hold water.

Secondly, God affirms that there will be a resurrection when he presents himself in the book of Exodus as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob four centuries after their death.

God had made promises to these three men that were not fulfilled during their lifetime.

There must be a day when they will be resurrected to receive what was promised.

We cannot close our eyes to life after death without closing our eyes to what God has revealed in the Bible.

But that is what the Sadducees do, so that they do not have to take Jesus seriously.

If this seems complicated, here is the gist of it.

The leaders confirm that they have a problem with authority—the authority of Jesus.

Far from discrediting Jesus, their questions and arguments just show that they want to live for themselves and for the present.

Once again, this is so human!

I have a brother who is not a Christian.

We have discussed the arguments for and against the Christian faith at length.

But I remember a very telling remark he once made.

Even if the Christian faith were true, I wouldn't believe in it because I don't agree with the Bible on sexuality.

In other words, whether it's true or not doesn't matter. I don't want it to be true!

So... we have the right to ask questions!

If you have questions or even objections, ask them! This is the place for it.

But let's be clear about what Jesus is revealing here.

Our difficulty with Jesus is not fundamentally a question of arguments or facts.

Not fundamentally.

The leaders saw that Jesus had the arguments on his side. That did not mean they believed in him.

Because behind the mind that does not believe, there is a heart that does not want to.

We have a problem with Jesus' authority... as good and benevolent as it may be.

But if we persist in our stubbornness, the stakes are enormous. That is the final point.

The judge's victory assured (12:9-12)

By what right do we insist on the need to believe in Jesus?

It is because, in the end, the judge Jesus will have the final say over everyone.

We may not realise this today. One day it will be obvious.

Let us return to the parable of the vineyard workers. Mark 12:9.

The owner was patient, he sent his servants, he sent his son... whom they killed... just as the leaders are preparing to kill Jesus.

Verse 9:

What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.

The idea of God's judgement is not a very popular one.

Deep down, we all want it.

Does Jesus not convince us in the parable that the punishment of the labourers... is just?

Imagine that it was your son. Wouldn't you want justice to be done?

If, despite God's immense patience and repeated calls to change, we persist in our rejection, what more can he do?

The only option left is judgement.

It is as if God were saying: OK. You don't want my favour? You won't get it.

There comes a time when God must judge, or God is not just.

And if we turn our backs on him despite all his goodness...

Having food to eat every day...

Enjoying His creation...

Having His Son come into our world...

If, despite all this, we reject him, what can we say in our defence when we stand before him?

Not ignorance.

If we reject Jesus, all that remains is the prospect of judgement.

We don't need to have killed Jesus ourselves to be in the same situation as the leaders of Israel.

As long as our attitude is like theirs, we too are exposed to judgement.

God rejects those who reject the authority of his Son.

But there is a more joyful alternative.

Mark 12:10: Jesus said to the leaders,

10 Have you not read this Scripture: “‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’”

Imagine you are walking past a building site.

Workers are mocking the architect's plans, and in contempt for his project, they take a piece of concrete and throw it into a skip. Pffff! Pathetic!

When you walk by the next day, the labourers are gone. They have been replaced, and the piece of concrete has been taken out of the skip and laid as a foundation.

Jesus says he is like that piece of concrete.

Rejected.

But in the end, resurrected, victorious and the foundation of a new temple, not made of stones but of people who believed in him.

When we talk about Jesus as a judge, we might form too negative an image of him

As if what he wanted most of all was to punish.

Jesus is the judge.

But the ultimate goal of his judgement is to build.

To build a house for the glory of God made up of people who have built their lives on him.

It is possible that there are people here who have not yet made that choice.

Building their lives on Jesus.

You have to take a stand.

We can either continue to live as our own masters, with the serious consequences that entails, or we can base our lives on Jesus, who will have the final victory.

We must choose.

Perhaps this is a choice you need to make today.

If we have already made this choice, this text should give us great confidence if, despite the rejection it may provoke, we choose to live for Jesus and bear witness to Jesus.

Being a Christian today sometimes means feeling like you are the laughing stock of the world.

Sometimes it means being labelled intolerant or arrogant.

This week, I watched the Envoyé Spécial report on evangelical Christians in France.

It is a report that highlights real problems in some evangelical churches, it must be acknowledged.

But something that the report seemed to find particularly absurd was the idea that some people might still believe in 2025 that there are eternal stakes involved in believing in Jesus or not.

How can anyone still be so arrogant?

That is the message of this text, that there are eternal stakes involved in believing in Jesus!

Granted, this idea is not popular today. Nor was it popular with Jewish leaders 2,000 years ago.

But that doesn't make it false.

To be on Jesus' side is to be on the side of the one whose authority generates hostility.

'By what right do you say such things?', we will be asked.

But being on Jesus' side also means being on the side of the judge who will have the final say.

If we believe in him and invite others to believe in him, with humility, knowing that we are no better than anyone else... we do so with all the authority of the judge... whose victory... is assured.

Those of you who are leaving for Togo, may I ask you to remember that yes, Jesus is the gracious Saviour, yes, Jesus is the majestic King... but he is also the judge of all people?

Those of you who are going out to evangelise this afternoon, may I ask you to remember the same thing?

Jesus is the gracious Saviour, Jesus is the majestic King... He is also the judge of all?

Whatever we think of him today, he will have the last word.

Fruit or leaves? (Mark 11.1-26)

We are very happy to resume our series on the Gospel of Mark after the summer break. We expect to finish this series before Christmas.

To illustrate the central message of today’s text, I'm going to tell you something that some of you already know. I haven't mentioned it to the whole church so far, because most of the time it's not relevant.

This time, I think it may be useful.

Generally, I like myself. I like how God created me.

But when I was a teenager, I started to develop...the best way to explain it is a feeling of inevitable failure. Not for big things, but in very ordinary situations. I always feel like there's something missing that prevents me from understanding very basic things or social situations. And so, you make a lot of mistakes in very ordinary situations, and you get used to that feeling: you feel like a failure even though you haven't failed.

My whole adult life has been like that.

To be clear: I have prayed a lot about this, and again, I love how God made me. There is no identity crisis in what I am saying. It is simply the feeling that in many situations in life, I am missing something. Like, "You're a really good guy, Jason...it's just that you're very shy, and not very smart. And that's okay: there are things you do very well. But in most ordinary areas of life, you're a little dumb, that's all."

That's what I thought.

But in February, I was diagnosed with ASD (autism spectrum disorder) and a fairly aggressive form of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder—not physical hyperactivity, of course, but mental). I don't like those terms (I prefer to call them "challenges" rather than "disorders"), but more importantly, they are not illnesses that can be cured; they are simply part of the way God formed my brain.

This diagnosis explains so much, both to the people who know me and to myself. But the biggest thing it explains is that the things I used to think about myself are not true. I am not "a little stupid": I simply lack the tools I need to process certain information. I am not "socially awkward": I simply lack the tools I need to decode certain elements and know how to respond to them. What I used to think about myself was not true. I was wrong in my assessment of myself.

And knowing what is true about myself—that this difficulty stems from the way God created my brain—is a huge gift, because it gives me the opportunity to understand these things and learn how to manage them.

I have said all this to illustrate a very simple but very big problem that goes to the heart of this passage in Mark 11. And the problem is the same one I just mentioned: what we think about ourselves is not always true. We are sometimes wrong in our assessment of ourselves, and especially of our faith.

Many Christians think about their faith in a way that does not correspond to reality.

So in today's text, Jesus helps us to "diagnose" our faith. He helps us to see the truth about the state of our faith...which allows us to finally begin to live out what we say we believe.

But before we go any further, let's quickly review what we've seen in the first ten chapters of Mark's Gospel.

Mark encountered Christ through the apostle Peter; in his Gospel, he recounts what Peter saw during his time with Jesus. Mark's main purpose in this book is to show us who Jesus is, what he did, and how he calls us to live as disciples. A disciple is someone who follows and learns from a teacher; and the Teacher we follow and learn from is Jesus Christ himself.

Mark presents Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah whom God promised to send to the people of Israel to save them. At that time, Israel was living under Roman occupation, the people were oppressed, and naturally thought that this promised Messiah, when he came, would free them from this oppression.

And Mark immediately begins to show us that Jesus possesses absolute, perfect, universal authority. He is the Savior the people need, and therefore the people must follow him.

In chapters 1 through 7, Mark shows us Jesus' authority through his ministry. First, he acts in Galilee, among the Jews. He calls his disciples, teaches through parables, heals the sick, casts out demons, and demonstrates his power over nature. The religious leaders cannot tolerate him because they see him as a threat, and they begin to plot how they might eliminate him.

Even more surprising, after ministering among the Jews, Jesus leaves Galilee, goes to the Gentiles, and there too he teaches and performs miracles.

Then, in chapter 8, things take a different turn: Jesus heads for Jerusalem. He begins to explain to his disciples what it really means to be disciples, what it will cost them. He is transfigured before three of his disciples, proving that he is truly the Son of God. Everything seems to be going in the right direction: Jesus is walking toward victory.

But—and this is troubling for the disciples—Jesus repeats three times that he is going to Jerusalem, but that he is going there to die.

And that is where we are in the story. In today's text, which we have just read, we see that Jesus finally arrives in Jerusalem.

The triumphal entry (vv. 1-11)

Verses 1 to 11 serve as a kind of introduction to what we are about to see. Jesus told his disciples that he was going to die in Jerusalem, and yet what is about to happen here seems to contradict that idea.

Jesus and his disciples arrive in Bethany, on the Mount of Olives, just east of Jerusalem. First, he sends his disciples ahead of him and tells them to go into the village, where they will find a colt that no one has ever ridden. He tells them to bring it to him, and if anyone asks them what they are doing, to say, "The Lord needs it."

So the disciples must have wondered: How does Jesus know there will be a colt there? Why would someone we don't know let us take the colt just because we say the Lord needs it? If I were them, I would have some questions.

It's amazing, but it works—everything happens exactly as Jesus said it would. Even though he is coming to Jerusalem to die, he is in control of what is happening.

So they arrive in Jerusalem, with Jesus riding on the colt, and he is welcomed in spectacular fashion. This moment is called the "triumphal entry" for good reason. The people spread their cloaks and branches on the road, as if rolling out the red carpet for him. The crowd cheers him, shouting in verse 9:

“Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”

There is a lot of symbolism here, which tells us a lot about who Jesus is. By riding on a donkey that no one has ever ridden before, Jesus fulfills a prophecy about the Messiah found in Zechariah 9. The Messiah is the one who would come to save God's people, and the people know it—the word "Hosanna" they shout literally means "save." They also speak in v. 10 of "the kingdom that is coming, the kingdom of David, our father!" David is the idealized king of God's people, and everyone knew that the Messiah would be of his lineage—and that Jesus is too.

It is not just a teacher who is coming to Jerusalem. It is the Messiah, the Savior, the King of God's people. These people respond to Jesus exactly as they should.

The fig tree and the temple (vv. 12-21)

After visiting Jerusalem, they return to Bethany to sleep. The next day, they take the same route back to Jerusalem. And we see something really strange. V. 12:

12 On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. 13 And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. 14 And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.

At first glance, it's a little hard to know what's going on here: Jesus curses a tree because it has no fruit, even though it's not even fig season.

In our family, two people are early risers (Loanne and Jack), and two others are definitely not. Zadie and I need a lot of time to wake up in the morning; for a good half hour (or more), we're both pretty grumpy.

So... did Jesus have a rough night? Hasn't he had his coffee yet? Why is he so grumpy?

Of course, that's not what's going on. As Mark says, it wasn't fig season, and Jesus knew it. When he went to see the fig tree, he didn't really expect to see fruit on the branches.

Jesus does what he does for a reason that the disciples would not immediately understand. So we'll wait a little while too.

After this somewhat strange moment on the Mount of Olives, Jesus and his disciples return to Jerusalem. They enter the temple, and there, the grumpy Jesus seems to reassert himself. V. 15:

15 And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.

What Jesus does seems extreme—but again, it's not that Jesus is in a bad mood. What he does is very calculated and appropriate.

Historically, the temple was the place where God's presence resided. It was there that God's people gathered to worship Him. Jesus himself says this when he explains why he is doing what he is doing in verse 17: he quotes Isaiah 56, where God says, "My house shall be called a house of prayer" ( Is. 56:7 )... and the people who are there have turned it into a place of commerce, a "den of thieves."

What's more, all this business was taking place in the outer court of the temple, which was the only place in the temple where non-Jews were allowed to go: they were not allowed to enter the inner court. Essentially, the place of prayer for non-Jews had been stolen to be used for commerce.

But, Jesus says in verse 17 (quoting from the book of Isaiah), God's house was not only meant to be a house of prayer, but "a house of prayer for all nations." As R.C. Sproul says, "The Jews hoped that the Messiah would purify the temple of the non-Jews, but Jesus purified the temple for the non-Jews."

Jesus "cleansed the temple" because these people—and the religious leaders who allowed this to happen—had turned the temple into something it was not meant to be.

We see in verses 18-19 that the religious leaders are furious at Jesus' actions and are looking for a way to destroy him, because the people are actively listening to him. Jesus now a real and imminent threat to them.

So Jesus and his disciples leave, returning to Bethany via the Mount of Olives, and the next morning, they take the same route again.

And what did they find? Verse 20:

20 As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. 21 And Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.”

Let's go back a moment. If you participated in the co group this week, you probably talked about this.

All the authors of the Gospels are excellent theologians. They often structure their stories, and sometimes even rearrange the chronology a little, in order to show us a deeper spiritual truth.

Mark, in particular, likes what I call the sandwich: he starts with one story, moves on to another, then returns to the first story to show the connection between the two.

That's what he does here:

A) The fig tree (vv. 12-14)

B) The temple (vv. 15-19)

A) The fig tree (vv. 20-21)

This is not just a matter of chronology: Mark deliberately structures his passage in this way.

The question is: what does he want us to understand?

Why did Jesus curse the fig tree?

This kind of thing is not unprecedented in the Bible. God often told the Old Testament prophets to use objects or images to illustrate their point. Amos used a plumb line. Jeremiah used a yoke. For Hosea, it was his own marriage, poor man.

Jesus does exactly the same thing here: he uses the fig tree to present an image.

And the image was not new either. The fig tree is a frequent image in the Old Testament to refer to the people of Israel.

So what is so special about this fig tree? Not much, except that, as we see in verse 13, from the outside it looks like a tree that could bear fruit—its leaves are still visible. But there is no fruit.

And that is what we see in the temple.

The temple was a place that should have produced one thing, but it produced another. Because of the self-centeredness and hypocrisy of the leaders of the people, the whole purpose of the temple is obscured. There should be fruit here, but all we see are leaves: a place that looks like the house of God, but from which God has essentially been banished.

The fig tree, which looks healthy but bears no fruit, is a perfect picture of the temple and the people of Israel who turned it from a house of prayer into a den of thieves. This miracle, the only miracle of "destruction" performed by Jesus, is a warning. Just as Jesus "judged" the fig tree, God will judge his people who have the appearance of piety but bear no fruit.

The fruit of true faith (vv. 22-25)

Jesus could have stopped there—the symbolism behind his action was already clear enough. But he continues and gives his disciples an explanation of everything they have seen. An explanation that may be a little difficult to grasp, but one that will become clearer as we move through the next chapters.

Peter is surprised that the fig tree has withered: Jesus' curse the day before has worked.

And what Jesus says in response is, at first glance, just as surprising. Mark 11:22-24 (S21):

22 And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. 23 Truly?, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Verses 23-24 are well known. They are often used to defend the so-called "word of faith ministries." The idea is simple: if you have enough faith, God will do what you want. At the beginning of his book Your Best Life Now, Joel Osteen recounts how, when he goes to the mall, he often prays that God will give him a parking space near the entrance. And, he says, because he prays with faith, a space opens up right in front of him!

"Jesus showed his power with the fig tree, then told us that if we have faith, we can do even more incredible things, even move mountains! So if we really believe, what we pray for will surely happen."

At first glance, that's what Jesus seems to be saying. But we must always read verses in their context: in their immediate context and in the context of the entire Bible.

Look closely at what Jesus says. He does not say—as is often quoted—“by faith, you can move mountains.” He says, “If anyone says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and cast yourself into the sea’…”  He seems to be talking about a specific mountain, not just any mountain.

And in fact, if we remember the context, it makes sense. When Jesus said this to his disciples, they were on the road between Bethany and Jerusalem, which placed them on the Mount of Olives, outside Jerusalem, just to the east.

From that vantage point, there was one building in the city that would have been visible above all others.

You guessed it: it was the temple, which was built on the highest hill in the city—a bit like Sacré-Cœur in Montmartre. Even today, this hill in Jerusalem is called the Temple Mount.

So which mountain is Jesus talking about? It is either the Temple Mount or the Mount of Olives, where Jesus and his disciples are standing. And in both cases, what he says makes sense.

Why? Because Jesus had just cursed the fig tree.

We remember that the cursed fig tree was a living parable of the judgment that God would bring upon a people who did not bear fruit.

In the year 70, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman army, and the temple was destroyed. Most theologians consider this event to be the beginning of what Jesus called "the last days." The temple disappeared—today, in its place stands the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

As for the Mount of Olives, in Zechariah 14, God speaks of the day of Christ's return, when Jerusalem will be judged. This prophecy says (perhaps figuratively) that on that day, the Mount of Olives will split in two, and the faithful who are in Jerusalem will escape through the valley created by this fissure—like an emergency exit opened by God Himself to allow them to flee judgment.

In both cases, the message is clear: Jesus tells his disciples that God's plan will be fulfilled. Soon, all of this—all of these manifestations of pride and hypocrisy on the part of a people in rebellion against God—will be judged.

But you, my disciples, will be spared, because you will be different. You will not be like the fig tree that looks healthy but bears no fruit. 

Do you see what Jesus is doing? In the context of this entire discussion, Jesus distinguishes true faith from hypocritical faith. He contrasts Jerusalem—a city that resembles a people who worship God but bear no fruit—with those who will truly be his disciples, those who will bear fruit.

And he gives them two concrete ways to recognize this fruit—and thus, Jesus summarizes the entire spiritual life of a true disciple, represented by an inner aspect and an outer aspect of the life of a faithful disciple.

The internal act is prayer: he tells them to pray with faith.

Those who bear fruit for God have an intimacy with God that compels them to pray, and to pray in a certain way.

There are two traps we can fall into when we pray. The first is the "word of faith" mentality we talked about earlier: believing that God will do whatever I say just because I have faith. I don't think Jesus encourages us in this way, and I think the rest of the Bible makes that pretty clear. (See Paul’s prayer to God in 2 Corinthians 12 if you doubt me. If we take this verse out of its context and read it in its most literal sense possible, the only conclusion we can make is that Jesus is lying when he tells us we will receive whatever we pray for. When we keep it in its context, Jesus’s words are still difficult to understand, but we can at least see that he’s aiming for something deeper than God-as-divine-vending-machine prayers.)

But there is also a second trap we can fall into, and that is praying because God tells us to pray…but without much hope that it will change anything, because in any case, God will do what He wants.

We must be careful how we apply these words of Jesus—they can easily be twisted and cause a lot of damage. But what is undeniable—and impossible to miss when reading this text—is that in these verses Jesus encourages his disciples to pray with confidence, to expect that God will truly answer their prayers.

I bake really good cookies. When my kids ask me for one, I want to say yes, because they really are very good. But what do I do if they ask me for a cookie for breakfast? Then I say no. Not because the cookie isn't good, but because it's not good for them at that particular moment. When I say no, they'll be disappointed... but not disillusioned: they know I love them and that I have a good reason for saying no. My relationship with them isn't affected.

Those who truly know God, who have a real relationship with Him, know that God hears their prayers and answers them—even if sometimes the answer is no. As John Piper said, "God always gives His children exactly what they ask for in prayer...or something even better. " He doesn't always give us what we want, but He always gives us what is good for us.

And so we pray with confidence in the goodness, wisdom, and power of our God. We expect him to answer our prayers. In fact, the most fundamental prayer we can offer is that God will fulfill his plan: that he will judge sin, return to raise up his people, and take them to eternal life with him—exactly what Zechariah 14 announced, and what Jesus refers to here.

So how do we pray as disciples of Christ? We pray with confidence and hope, wherever we are, because we know our Father. Our intimacy with him gives us confidence in him.

That is the internal aspect. But there is also an external aspect to true faith, which Jesus summarizes in verse 25.

25 And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

I want to be sensitive here, because I don't know what you're all going through. Forgiving is never easy, and the degree of difficulty increases with the severity of the hurt. It's hard, and recovering from such a hurt often takes time to heal. We don't necessarily feel full of grace.

That is not what Jesus is talking about; he is not talking about a feeling.

He is talking about a deliberate refusal to forgive others.

It's hard to hear, and I don't want to be too harsh, but it must be said: anyone who prays to God while refusing to forgive those who have wronged them is committing a deeply hypocritical act. (Again, I'm not talking about the emotion of it, but the decision not to forgive.)

When we come to God in prayer, we know that the only reason we can approach him without being judged on the spot is because Christ was punished in our place for our sins on the cross. We have access to this intimacy with God because our sins have been forgiven.

So how can we, who have been forgiven, refuse to forgive others? How can we claim that our faith is real if our response to the sins of others is deliberately opposed to God's response to our sin?

You see, here Jesus gives only two examples of what the “fruit” of our salvation looks like. If our faith is real, there will be an inner change—in our spiritual life and our intimacy with God—and there will be an outward change—in the way we behave and treat the people around us.

There are attitudes and actions that simply make no sense to someone who has understood and accepted the gospel of Christ.

Those who bear fruit for God are not those who perform the right rituals or who are content to "obey" on the surface. Those who stop at superficial obedience will be judged as the hypocrites that Jesus denounces in this passage.

In contrast, those who have true faith are transformed. We are different. We are "new creatures," as the apostle Paul said. And this change is visible.

Conclusion

I mentioned my diagnosis at the beginning. Others have had similar experiences, where a diagnosis like this is truly life-changing. It changes the way we look at our whole life. It helps us see things as they really are. And it helps us know how to move forward. This text should have the same effect on each of us.

Some of you think that everything is going well in your Christian life, when in fact it is not. "Look at everything I do, all the Christian activities that fill my schedule." Yes, you are doing all the "right" things, but if we pay attention to the "fruit" that, according to the Bible, true faith bears in us, we see that these "right things" are not the things that God really wants to produce in you. You are playing a role, but you do not know God—or you know Him as you know that distant uncle you see once in a while. You don't trust Him. You don't depend on Him. You live your life as if God were involved, but in reality, you keep Him at a distance, because you know very well what He will expect of you if you really give Him access to the deepest corners of your life.

Others among you feel that you have a hard time living for Christ. You struggle, and so you tell yourself that you are doing something wrong. But you pray. You implore God to help you, and you depend on him, trusting him as best you can to bring you where you need to be. And the people around you—even if you have a hard time seeing it—are edified by your presence in their lives. You are bearing fruit, even if you don't feel like it. This text helps us to know what is true about ourselves, and thus to grow.

In any case, this text invites us to examine ourselves seriously. What kind of Christians are we becoming? Are we like fig trees covered with leaves but without fruit? Do we only give the appearance of being disciples of Christ, without the inner and outer transformations that He works in us?

On our own, we are incapable of bearing fruit. But thanks to what Christ has done in us, we can now do so, with his help. It is not an easy change—this transformation is as difficult as telling that mountain to move and throw itself into the sea.

But Jesus tells us to have faith in God: to trust that all the power he possesses is at our disposal so that we may be transformed—so that we may not be content with superficial obedience, but bear true fruit. He will do it: the King who was welcomed in Jerusalem with cries of “Hosanna” is the same one who lives in us today.

So let us examine ourselves. Let us ask God to show us the areas of our lives where we are content with a mere appearance of faith. Let us ask him to convict us by his Spirit, so that we may return to him and submit every area of our lives to him, even if it requires radical change.

And let us trust that if we come to him in faith and ask him to bring true faith to life in us, he will do so.

Vision 3: Send Equipped Christians to Serve the Church in France and Beyond (Matthew 28.18-20)

This is the final week in our series on our church vision . As we've seen over the past two weeks , we need to be clear about what our purpose as a church is and why.

Just as a reminder, here is the vision of our church . Eglise Connexion exists to:

• Embody the gospel for Parisians;

• Train disciples who make disciples;

• Send equipped Christians to serve the Church of Jesus Christ .

We've seen what it means to embody the gospel in the city; we've seen what it means to train disciples who make disciples. This week, we'll look at the final point of our vision: sending empowered Christians to serve the church of Jesus Christ .

And the good news is that to look at this third point , we'll be in a single text, as I prefer to do . It's a text that most of you are probably already familiar with ; we talk about it a lot in the Church , but I'd like to take it little by little. We'll start in the text and then we'll see together just a few ways in which we can accomplish this mission within our Church .

The Mission of the Church (Matthew 28:18-20)

The text we have read comes at the very end of the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus fulfilled his ministry , he died and rose again . Then he appeared to the disciples, and now at the end of the Gospel , he entrusts them with a mission, which they will then pass on to the churches they will establish in the years to come . This remains the mission of all churches today, Christ's mandate to us.

18Jesus came to them and said, “ All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me . 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And I am with you always, to the very end of the age. ”

There are essentially four commands in these three verses. They are all necessary ; each command depends on the others. And when we consider them , we should see them as assured — as not just commands, but as promises . The work is not yet finished , but the work is assured , because Christ has all authority ( v. 18), and he is with us in carrying out this mission (v. 20). No obstacle can stand in his way; nothing will prevent God's plan from being accomplished .

But now it has to be done .

So, what are the commandments that, together, constitute the mission that Christ entrusts to us?

The first is very simple: it tells us to GO (v. 19) . From all​​​ everywhere, in all nations .

Even though this command to go is very , very clear — I don't see how Christ could have said it any more clearly than that — it 's still very surprising how often we forget it , and expect people to come to us.

The mission of the Church is a mission that is necessarily centrifugal. When you put something in a centrifuge , what happens ? Everything is pushed towards the end , towards the outside .

And this is the mission of the Church . This is the direction in which the Church is called to go — not toward Jerusalem , where the disciples are at the time of this text, but outward , to all nations. We are called to go to people , not simply to bring them in . towards us.

Of course , this doesn't mean we shouldn't pay attention to what's going on here—quite the contrary. We've been talking about this for the past two weeks : the more we pay attention to what's going on inside the church , the better equipped we 'll be to carry out our mission outside . The Bible is full of commands about how we should behave and conduct ourselves . when we come together ; and as we saw two weeks ago, one of the most powerful tools we have to show people the gospel is the life of the church , which lives the gospel together.

But very often , churches are so focused on what's happening here that we forget to go out . We forget that there's a whole world outside , to which we're supposed to go . Where do we go ? We go outside, into the city, obviously — but even further afield, into all the nations. We'll come back to that later .

So we have to go, and once we 've gone, we 're called to make disciples.

Last Sunday we discussed where and how disciples of Christ are formed — they are formed in the local church — by Christians learning together to carry out the work of ministry .

Much has been said about Ephesians 4 in the past ; we won't reread it now , but in this passage Paul says that building up the church and doing the work of the ministry is not my job as a pastor ; it's our job as Christians . It 's not me as a pastor who builds up the members of the church ; it 's all of us , as members of the church , who have that responsibility .

This is how we grow in maturity . This is how we become more like Christ . We draw closer to one another and help one another understand the Bible, see how to live the Bible. We lovingly correct one another when we sin , and we humbly repent of that sin and help one another overcome it . We observe one another, encourage one another , and exhort one another — all parts of the body, working together to build up the whole body . We are not spiritual orphans, but brothers and sisters , members of the same family , following the same Master .

But how do we get people ready to enter this family? How do we get people ready to start this process? How do you get people to change — from hostility toward God to love for him and his family?

Occasionally, God does this in the twinkling of an eye , independent of any outside intervention : that 's what he did for the apostle Paul . But most of the time, that 's not how he does it . Most of the time, we are brought to faith in Christ because someone has preached Christ to us . As Paul says in Romans 10: 13For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved . 14But how then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? Or how will they believe in him of whom they have not heard? Or how will they hear of him unless someone preaches him ?

At some point , people who don't know Christ will need to hear the gospel — the good news of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection — because the gospel is the primary way God's Spirit works in our hearts to transform us . The gospel is the way he gives us faith, makes us aware of our sin and our need for a Savior, and compels us to put our faith in Christ and desire to walk with him.

People need to hear the gospel . And they need to see the gospel lived . ( So you see, I think there 's a natural overlap between last Sunday's point and today 's . )

At some point , it is not enough to stay among ourselves: the gospel must go out , it must be shared , because it is through the gospel that God draws people to him, and changes their hearts , and makes them disciples of Christ through the witness and life of the church , which lives the gospel before their eyes .

So these first two commandments are considered to be commandments almost exclusively centered on " evangelism " : that is to say : we are called to go out and share the gospel with others .

And even if that is the purpose of these first two commandments to go and make disciples, the problem is that many Christians stop there . They share the gospel ... without necessarily paying attention to what happens afterward . Listening to the gospel and praying a prayer is very good ... but what about the next day ? And the day after that ? And the day after that ? ?

There's a reason Jesus did n't just say, " Go and make disciples . " There's no point in going out and making disciples if those new disciples have no way of learning how to live as disciples. I was talking this week with someone who shared his burden for the church , for people who seem to be living a half-hearted life for Christ : all the right things are said , but there's no fire, there 's no life behind it . He's right to feel that burden. The Bible is clear that if we don't cultivate our faith, if our faith isn't " kindled , " we risk learning one day that it does n't really exist.

And as we have seen the last two Sundays, the context of our faith, in which and through which our faith grows, is the Church . This is why Jesus continues .

Which brings us to the third commandment . We must go . We must make disciples. And then we must baptize them. in the name of the Father , and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

This may seem like a somewhat incidental addition, but it is anything but. A disciple of Christ cannot grow without other disciples of Christ; and baptism is the visible sign that we now belong to this community of disciples.

The fact that Jesus gives this command here , in the midst of his great evangelistic mission , should shatter many of the preconceived ideas we have about what baptism is .

Many people see baptism a bit like the Baccalaureate. You go to school for twelve years, you learn a lot, you grow as a human being and as a student , and at the end of high school , you get your Baccalaureate, which proves that you have been well educated , and that you are ready to face your higher studies .

For many people, baptism is seen as the entrance exam to higher - level Christianity —the thing you do only after you've passed a certain number of spiritual milestones. They see baptism as a rite for mature Christians , to show the world that now they've " arrived " —they're no longer baby Christians , now they 're adults .

There are two huge problems with this way of thinking . The first is that no one seems to agree on what these "spiritual milestones " should be . Many churches couldn't even tell you what they require for someone to be baptized . It often comes down to a feeling. subjective opinion that church leaders have about the believer before them .

The second problem is much simpler: according to the Bible, baptism does not exist to be a validation of spiritual maturity . Baptism is the visible sign that shows that a person has been brought into the family of God by faith in Christ. And the Bible tells us that this integration into the family of God happens immediately : as soon as we repent of our sins and place our faith in Christ, we are members of his body, we are adopted by God and become brothers and sisters in the faith.

This is why , for example, in the book of Acts, the profession of faith of a new believer and the baptism of this new believer took place almost simultaneously . The gospel is preached , people believe, they repent of their sins , and they are baptized right away .

I said all this to say that this command of Jesus to go and make disciples of all nations is meaningless if these new disciples are not then brought into the local church , in which they learn to grow in their faith with the help of other Christians . Baptism is the first step in this process.

The second step we have already touched on a little . We must go and make disciples, baptize them to confirm their entry into the Church , and then, finally, we are called to teach them to observe all that Christ has taught us .

That was last week's message , so I won't repeat it all. But to put it simply, the church is supposed to spread the gospel by their words and by their lives together, not just so people go to heaven, but to equip the church to teach new believers to live as Christ commands us to live — and that applies not just to the words of Jesus found in the Gospels , but to everything taught to us by the apostles who followed him , for they were inspired by the same Spirit of Jesus Christ . The purpose of evangelism is not just to save people , but to teach them how to live like God . tells us to live .

We talk a lot about sharing the gospel , and it needs to be done. But I'm sure some of you have had this experience : You heard the gospel preached thousands of times when you were a child . But at some point, you met someone who was actually living in obedience to the commandments of Christ. And when you saw that person 's life — their joy in God and the choices they were making and the effect those choices had on their own life and the lives of others — when you saw that, Finally, You have understood the gospel . We have finally seen the effect that the gospel has on us, because we have seen what life is like when we obey the God who saved us , who gave us these commandments because he loves us.

This is our call:

Go [therefore] and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.

Sending qualified Christians​​

That 's the foundation. That 's the calling of every church . And there are three ways in which these initiatives of going and doing and baptizing and teaching take place .

The first has a more local scope : Christians share the gospel with those around them , and the people around them encounter Christ . This is by far the most common way , because it is the calling of all Christians throughout history .

But sometimes we have to go a little further. The second way the church works to fulfill Christ's mission is when it sends people trained in specialized areas to do specialized work elsewhere .

The classic example is the sending of missionaries and mission teams . We have a lot of missionaries in our church , and that's what they do. They've been trained , often in specific, targeted areas , and they 're sent to another city or country to do something specific .

It has been said that today will be Mission Sunday: at the end of this service, and even more so this afternoon , we will talk together about what the mission of the church looks like outside the borders of our country. We have a mission trip planned for this fall to Togo, and there will be others in the future . Our prayer is that these discussions and trips will light a fire in members of the church , and that they will be sent out to proclaim Christ where he is not yet known . If you have not heard this before , I hope you can stay with us this afternoon to discover this.

Another example of this sending would be church planters and church planting teams . This was the case for me — after receiving general theological training , I spent two years with Loanne being trained to plant churches in France , and then we were sent to plant this church . This is the case for the church planting currently taking place in the 10th , at Oberkampf Church ; Romu and Liz joined Connexion a few years ago with the goal of putting together a team to go and plant a local church on the other side of the Place de la République . Philip Moore and his family launched the Mountain Church in the 5th last Sunday . God is doing His work in particular cities through planted churches that will proclaim the gospel for His glory.

Another example for us at Connexion is our interns. This year we have three interns: Eva, Dahlia, and Silvain. The goal of these internships is to help Christians interested in ministry find their way so that , God willing , they can serve at Connexion or elsewhere . Marjolaine completed her internship with Connexion last year before she was “ sent ” to work with women at the church on Rue de Sèvres .

In short: this is the first way in which this sending occurs — the church sends people trained to do a specific job in a specific place .

But there is still one way to accomplish Christ's mission, which is a little particular to us and linked to our context .

Last week we talked about being disciples who make disciples of Christ. We talked about the biblical reasons why this should happen, and at least a little bit about how it should happen. And there's a very strong sense of this need, because the reality is that when Christians want to learn what it means to be disciples of Christ, all too often the church sends them somewhere else , outside of the church , to be trained .

The church , more often than not, outsources the training needs of the church , rather than taking them on itself .

The reality of our church is that there is a good core of people who stay here for the long term , but there are also easily 40-50% of people who will be with us for two or three years, before leaving for entirely legitimate reasons .

Rather than seeing this turnover as a constraint, we want to see it as an opportunity . We want to use the time we have with you to train you to be pillars in the church where you will find yourself tomorrow. That 's why we have everything we have outside of worship. That 's why we train community group leaders to prepare their Bible studies . That 's why we have Entre Elles (the women's meeting) and the men's group. That 's why we have the monthly Sunday Training sessions , where we train more deeply to understand the teaching of the whole Bible, and the application of that teaching. And that 's why we now have a very robust internship program. The purpose of all this is so that when people leave Connexion after their time with us, we can send them out ready to serve the church they arrive at. I can't tell you what a gift it is for a pastor to receive into the church people who have been well - trained in the past , and who come ready and able to serve faithfully — people you know you can count on, to love others, to live in obedience to Christ , and to teach others to do the same .

This is what we want to do with every Christian here . And the reason is simple: because all power in heaven and on earth has been given to Christ . Our neighborhoods, our city, our country, the whole world, have long lived in active rebellion against our King Jesus . If he were a dictator, a cruel ruler, this rebellion would make sense. But our King is not a cruel ruler.

The prophet Isaiah praises the Lord in Isaiah 64 : 3, saying: 

Never has anyone heard or learned of such a thing, never has any eye seen another god than you act in this way for the good of those who rely on him.

All our efforts to proclaim the gospel , to embody the gospel , to train one another in the gospel , to send out Christians to serve the gospel … All these efforts are not simply so that people can one day go to heaven. These efforts are driven by our love for the people around us, so that they may know this God who loves his people , that they may know God our Father , Jesus Christ our Brother , and the Spirit our Comforter.

And because all power has been given to Christ, and because he is always with us, we can do it. Our efforts are not in vain. We can accomplish the mission he has entrusted to us , for our joy and for his glory.

Vision 2: Train disciples who make disciples (2 Timothy 3)

We are currently in a series on our church's vision. As a reminder, our vision has three points. We exist to:

1. Embody the gospel for the people of Paris;

2. Train disciples who make disciples;

3. Send empowered Christians to serve the gospel in France and elsewhere.

Last week we talked about what it looks like to embody the gospel for the people of our city; this week we're talking about the next point: training disciples who make disciples. This is the next logical step: once we encounter Christ, we must learn to live like him.

To talk about this, we're going to look at a very well-known passage, chapter 3 of Paul's second letter to Timothy.

In case you don't know what's going on in this letter: the apostle Paul had a protégé, a young man named Timothy. Timothy traveled with Paul, listened to Paul preach, and observed how Paul lived.

One day, when Timothy was mature enough, Paul left him in Ephesus to be pastor of the church there. Some time later, Paul was imprisoned by the Romans.

He wrote this letter while he was in prison, shortly before his death. He wrote it as a final exhortation to Timothy, a farewell to his son in the faith. The letter is an exhortation to Timothy to keep what is truly important at the center of his life.

Paul does this first by expressing his gratitude for Timothy's faith and exhorting him to persevere in the gospel; then he puts his exhortation in the proper context by talking about the false teachings that have arisen in Timothy's church and elsewhere. These false teachings do not come from Timothy; they come from other Christians.

And that is where the danger lies.

The danger of false disciples (vv. 1-9)

This is where we will begin, in chapter 3, verse 1.

Know that in the last days there will be difficult times, 2for people will be selfish, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, rebellious against their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3insensitive, implacable, slanderers, violent, cruel, enemies of good, 4treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. 5They will have a form of godliness but deny its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

This is what happens when true discipleship is not lived out. This is the counterexample that Paul gives to Timothy.

In verses 1-5, Paul lists certain character traits that seem fairly obvious if you have read Paul's other letters. But here, he seems to be casting a wider net than usual. He speaks of people who are selfish, greedy, arrogant, deceitful, brutal, "lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God." It's almost a caricature of what we would consider a "bad" person.

But one thing sets these people apart, something we wouldn't necessarily expect here, and it's the most important thing. We see it in verse 5: They will have the appearance of godliness but deny its power.

These people have the appearance of godliness. Godliness is both a correct belief about God and the committed practice of the life He commands us to live. Simply put, godliness is knowing God and doing what He tells us to do.

These people appear to know God and do what He says. This means that despite the harsh things Paul has just said about them, if we saw these people in church, we would find them impressive. They are people who call themselves Christians and even seem to be model Christians. They have the appearance of godliness.

But, Paul says, they are not driven by piety; they are driven by the selfish desires that have always motivated them.

That is why these people are particularly dangerous; that is why Paul says at the end of verse 5, "Keep away from such people."

These false disciples are dangerous because, since they appear so pious, they are trusted. But since they are driven by their desires rather than by God, they are not worthy of that trust.

Paul says in verse 6 that these men "slip into homes and take in gullible women burdened with sins—that is, these women had sinned in the past, could not escape the guilt they felt because of these sins, and as a result continued to be led astray by all kinds of desires; they are always learning but can never come to the knowledge of the truth."

This can also happen to men, of course, but given the power dynamics between men and women at the time, this type of woman would have been easy prey. (A good example of the type of woman Paul is talking about is the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. She was in exactly the same situation, except that it was Jesus she met at the well, and thank God for that.)

What do these men do? They ensnare these women—and again, it could be men too—in their nets. They convince them of a false gospel, which has all the appearance of godliness but none of the truth.

Paul says in verse 8 that these men are like Jannes and Jambres. Who are they? These names do not appear in the Old Testament, but Jannes and Jambres are the names given in Jewish tradition to the magicians who opposed Moses in Exodus 7. Today we use the name Napoleon to refer to a haughty character; Jannes and Jambres were a shortcut used by the Jews to represent opposition to the truth of God.

These men have minds twisted by sin; they oppose the truth in their actions, while speaking the truth aloud. Their folly will one day be obvious to all, but in the meantime, they are dangerous to themselves and others.

Paul's purpose in telling Timothy all this is not to frighten him. He is trying to do two things: first, he wants Timothy to watch over his church: to be on his guard, to keep his eyes open for signs of this type of person, because they are dangerous to themselves and especially to the church.

The life of the true disciple (vv. 10-13)

But the second thing Paul wants to do is to encourage Timothy in the true life of a disciple. When true godliness is at work in someone, the "power" of godliness will be seen in the way others are drawn to Christ through that person's life. And that is what we see in the following verses. V. 10:

10You, on the other hand, have closely followed my teaching, my conduct, my plans, my faith, my patience, my love, my perseverance, 11as well as the persecutions and sufferings I endured in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! And the Lord delivered me from them all.

When we read verse 10, it seems that Paul is feeling quite strong. He reminds Timothy of what Timothy saw when he followed him. He speaks of my teaching, my conduct, my plans, my faith, my patience, my love, my perseverance...

One might say that Paul is getting a little big-headed here, but he is not praising himself. He is doing two things. First, he is showing Timothy what constitutes the true strength of our faith (in contrast to what he says in verse 5, speaking of those who have the appearance of godliness but deny its power). Some will come boasting of the extraordinary—sometimes even supernatural—deeds they have done for the Lord. But it is not these visibly impressive things that make up the strength of godliness; it is very simple things: patience, love, perseverance in trials, a commitment to the truth, and conduct in accordance with that truth.

And then, by saying everything that Timothy was able to see in him, Paul draws Timothy's attention, not to Paul himself, but to the way Timothy has followed in his footsteps. In verse 10, he is saying, "Timothy, you have followed me closely, and you have learned well. You have grown well. You are conducting yourself well. You have a good purpose in life. You have grown in patience, in love, in perseverance." Paul is commending Timothy here, not himself.

Timothy followed in Paul's footsteps, and what's more, he saw how Paul suffered during his ministry. He reminds Timothy that true discipleship is costly and often humiliating. Verse 12:

12Moreover, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived themselves.

For the disciple of Christ, suffering and persecution are part of the deal. As Jesus said, "A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you" (John 15:20).

Why does Paul talk about persecution here? Because it is another clear indicator of true godliness, of the true life of a disciple.

I have used this illustration before, but I will say it again now.

This summer we were on vacation in the mountains, and we went swimming in rivers and lakes several times. Most of the time, it was Zadie (our seven-year-old daughter) who wanted to swim. The water was freezing, but she was determined to show what she could do.

And so she went in: she gritted her teeth and said, "Wow, it's cold!" but she went in anyway. She got in the water and had a lot of fun.

I wanted to go with her because I love to swim, I love the water. But I'm also sensitive to the cold, and the water was really cold. I wanted to go in the water with her... but I didn't want to that much. I went in up to my knees, and then I said, "Actually, I'm fine. I'm good here."

That's the dynamic we see when we are exposed to suffering or persecution for our faith—we see what our faith is made of. Paul and Timothy are fully committed to this life. They are determined to follow Christ. So they accept persecution, they accept suffering for Christ, they are willing to brave the cold waters, because they know what awaits them at the end, and it is infinitely better than what they would have if they did not suffer.

The people Paul described in verses 1-9 would never go that far. They would never accept persecution for what they claim to believe, because they don't fully believe it. J. Oswald Chambers says: "We go through a spiritual crisis when we are forced to go beyond the convictions we had previously adopted." When the Christian life becomes costly, a false disciple will drop the mask and leave. As Paul says in verse 9, their folly will be obvious to all.

The question is, how did Timothy, this young Greek man who came to faith in Christ, reach a maturity that enabled him not only to demonstrate faith, patience, and love, but to persevere in this character even in the midst of suffering?

The answer is that he followed Paul. He lived with Paul. He learned from Paul.

He followed him in holy character and in the difficulties that Paul endured.

The point here is that Timothy did not do this on his own. He learned to live the Christian life faithfully, in good times and bad, by watching Paul and following him.

Of course, not all Christians have this same opportunity. Here is a classic example: if a man were shipwrecked on a desert island with nothing but his Bible, could he still grow in his faith?

Of course he could—the apostle John did. In such extreme cases, God is faithful to help us grow in faith. But we must recognize that this is the exception rather than the norm.

Jesus' disciples learned to follow him...by following him. And they themselves took on disciples who followed them. Paul trained Timothy. Priscilla and Aquila trained Apollos.

The norm for Christian life is that we learn to live faithfully for Christ by observing and imitating others who live faithfully for Christ.

So there are two things we need to note. The first is fairly obvious, but it needs to be said anyway:

First, if we have a local church, we cannot afford to live apart from it.

Some people are like me—they struggle in social situations. Others have trouble opening up. Others have been hurt by the church in the past. There are many excuses one can find for staying away from a local church, and many people will do so; they will say, “I love Jesus, I love the Bible, but I don’t need the church, because God will guide me.”

That's not how it works. It's a dangerous thing to presume on God's grace and choose to remain isolated from the church He has commanded us to be attached to because we don't want to open up there. We are clearly told, “Do not neglect meeting together” in the letter to the Hebrews (Hebrews 10:25).

If you have access to a local church—as we all do here—then the standard the Bible gives you for Christian living is to grow in Christ by living out your faith with your brothers and sisters in Christ.

If we have access to the local church, we cannot live apart from it. That is the first thing.

The second thing to note is that the stakes are enormous. In verses 1-9, Paul gives this long description of people who call themselves Christians but who are actually serving their appetite for pleasure. He says that these false believers are disqualified when it comes to faith.

And then he says to Timothy, "But that's not the case with you. You haven't lived like them. You haven't done what they've done."

What did Timothy do instead? He followed Paul. He learned from Paul. He grew in the Christian life by imitating Paul.

We may tend to think of an active discipleship as incidental to the Christian life: something we can do if we have time, but which is not strictly necessary.

It is true that we are not saved by our life of discipleship; we are saved by the grace of Christ alone. But we must see that the Christian life, after we are saved, is a life of discipleship. Always. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Only those who believe obey; and only those who obey believe.”

This life is not optional; it is what life with Christ looks like. We must invest ourselves in this life.

So we see the first means of discipleship in verses 10-13: we live as disciples by living our lives together, observing and imitating one another as we live faithfully. The first means of our discipleship is our life together.

The fuel of the disciple's life (vv. 14-17)

The second means of discipleship that Paul gives to Timothy is the most basic and the most important: it is the Word of God. V. 14:

14As for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, knowing from whom you learned it. 15From childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Verses 16-17 are the clearest description in the entire Bible of what happened when the Bible was written. All Scripture, all 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, are "inspired" by God—but that translation is too weak; literally, it says that all Scripture is "breathed out" or "breathed" by God. The words we have in the Bible are exactly what God wanted, while maintaining the style and personality of the person holding the pen.

I know it's easy to say that, and some of you will have questions about the Bible itself: Are there books missing from the Bible? Are there books here that shouldn't be here? How can we know that these particular books are truly inspired by God?

These are big questions, and good questions, and we have talked about them; a long time ago, in 2015, we did a workshop on these questions; and the first sessions of the second year of Sunday School were dedicated to this topic. You can find all of this on our website.

For now, I will simply say what we affirm as a church: the books contained in the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, the primary means by which God speaks to us today. We have very good reasons to believe this.

And since all Scripture is inspired by God, it is useful to us—it is sufficient: it is the fuel for our growth, so that the man of God may be trained and equipped for every good work.

There is no need for new "revelations"; there is no need for new words from God. He has said everything we need to hear in the Bible. But it is not as if God inspired the words of Scripture and then sat back and left us to figure it out for ourselves. The Scripture that God "breathed" into the biblical authors is useful to us because God still breathes.

Every time we sit down with an open Bible, asking God to help us understand it, integrate it, and live it out, the same Holy Spirit who inspired those words animates them in us and nourishes us.

It is an incredible truth that we get used to far too easily: every time we approach God's Word in faith, God himself speaks to us through that Word.

That is why the Bible is the center of everything we do as a church. The Bible is the Word of God, given so that we may hear God's voice, learn His will, and learn to love what He loves.

All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

But our emphasis on verses 16-17, while very good, often misses something; when we talk about these verses, we often forget the context.

The context of verses 16-17 is, of course, verses 14-15, where Paul tells Timothy to hold fast to what he has learned and to remember from whom he learned it.

Timothy was not sitting alone in a library studying the Bible. He was taught the Bible. In chapter 1, Paul thanks God for the way Timothy began in the faith: by listening to and observing his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. These two women exposed him to the Scriptures, and Paul later took up the baton.

That is how Timothy learned to know Scripture and to live Scripture. He did not do it alone. It was through faithful men and women who walked alongside him and helped him understand Scripture, who modeled Scripture for him, that he grew in his knowledge and love of God.

Application

It is not difficult to see how God is calling us to respond to what Paul says in this passage.

First, watch yourselves.

Paul wasn't afraid for Timothy, but God knew what He was doing when He inspired Paul to write these words. In verses 1-9, He gives us a clear warning against the dangers of not following Christ, of being "friends of pleasure rather than of God"—of what we can become when we pretend to be disciples of Christ but follow our own goals. And Paul also gives us indicators to look for in others, for he tells Timothy, "Avoid" such people. Obviously he is speaking to a pastor, and we want to be very careful before making such a decision (it has only happened a few times since we started this church), but we cannot miss his greater message: calling oneself a Christian while neglecting the true life of a disciple of Christ is dangerous for the church, and we must watch over ourselves to avoid such dangers.

Second: follow Christ together.

We tend to want to establish a whole program for what we call "discipleship," and programs can be useful. But the example of Paul and Timothy is so valuable because it shows us that a program will never do as much good as simply following Christ together. Timothy went where Paul went, he listened to what Paul said, he observed how Paul lived...and he did the same. Like a child learning to walk or talk. It's not easy, but it's not complicated either.

We sit down, open our Bibles, pray, read together, and discuss. And then we spend a lot of time together, to see what it looks like to live out the Word.

There are people around each of you—I'm talking to you—there are people around you who know Christ better than you do, who follow Christ better than you do, and who are more mature in their faith than you are. Find someone like that and ask them to read the Bible with you. Observe how they live and imitate them.

Singles, spend time with married people. Couples, spend time with singles. Parents, disciple your children. Make sure the gospel is omnipresent in your home. Talk about the gospel, memorize it together, show your children what it looks like when talking about the gospel is natural.

Those of you who are (a little) older, seek out your younger brothers and sisters too, because we learn as much from them as they learn from us. Paul said to Timothy in his first letter, in 1 Timothy 4:12: Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Timothy was the young one, but he was also the example.

You all have areas of maturity and knowledge and experience that those around you do not have, and you can—and should—help each other grow. We learn to follow Christ by following Christ, together.

And finally: whether you are together or alone, listen to God speaking to you through his Word.

Paul writes his last letter to Timothy, knowing that he will soon die. Soon, Timothy will no longer have his mentor.

But ultimately, Timothy doesn't need Paul; he needs Christ. Paul was a tool in God's hand, to train Timothy in the Word. And the Word of God, the testimony of Christ, brought to life by the power of the Holy Spirit—that is what truly transforms.

Don't follow anyone to such an extent that that person overshadows Jesus Christ. Dig deep into God's Word, when you are together and when you are alone. Pray that God will speak to you through His Word. Listen to what He says in His Word.

And when you hear Him, obey Him.

All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

We have everything we need to grow, right now.