jon mark

this week has been my first week with no school work to get done, which has been awesome! so i picked up one of the books i got for Christmas, “Standing Against the Wind” by Erwin McManus. it’s a short quick read, even for me! the final chapter sealed the deal with the topic of my recent blogs. so i figured that i would briefly share about “the greatness of servanthood”.

again Jesus is being used as the example to show how life is not about “me”. this is what McManus shares, “The character of God, the beauty of His personhood, the expression of his goodness, He longs to share with us. What would the world look like, what would we look like, if we became like Him? The One who wrapped a towell around His waist and washed His disciples’ feet invites us to become like Him in His servanthood.”

Jesus came to the earth to “save the world” (john 3:17) and He did this with a servant’s heart. He was our ultimate example.

so what would we look like if we became like Him? i pray that i would continuously become a clearer image of Him!

the last passage i would like to look at is matthew 26:36-46. this is Jesus’ prayer in the garden with Peter, James, and John following the last supper. i’m sure that we have all looked at this passage at one time or another, maybe even in recent weeks. but i would like to take a look from a different angle, perhaps different than any other?

the first thing i see in this story is Jesus, being fully human. He is facing a time of great crisis, and we find Him with His three closest friends asking them to pray. then He tells them that His soul is crushed with grief. Jesus asks His Father to take the “cup of suffering” away from Him. Jesus is suffering physically, mentally, and emotionally because He is fully human. not only that He was handling the situation as you and i would or should.

but while Jesus was fully human, He was also fully God. and being fully God, Jesus was aware of what He was about to endure with the physical beatings and suffering as well as with the seperation from His Father. not only that, as Jesus was praying to the Father and asking for the “cup of suffering” to be taken from Him, He knew what the answer would be. Jesus knew that He had to follow through with giving His life. yet He prayed this three times for that to change.

in the end we see that Jesus is the perfect example of how life is not about me or you, but about doing the Father’s will. He prayed, “yet I want Your will to be done, not mine.” (vs. 39) His prayer didn’t change things, and Jesus was fine with that. being fully God He could’ve done anything at that point…He could’ve provided another sacrifice…He could’ve wiped out all of those who were trying to take His life. but in that moment Jesus knew that it wasn’t about Him, but about doing His Father’s will. He was so dedicated to doing the Father’s will, doing what God had for Him to do, that He gave His life.

i pray that we would be that dedicated and focused on doing what God has for us to do. i pray that we would be focused on LIVING as children of light and making disciples…bringing in the five o’clock workers…making that dinner huge!

thank You Lord for Your example!

so tonight i’m wriing about Luke 14:1-14. we come upon the story in the midst of Jesus’ teaching ministry, again on His way to Jerusalem. He is making the pharisees extremely angry. in chapter 11 of Luke Jesus has dinner with the pharisees and calls them fake, telling them that they won’t enter the Kingdom”…and the pharisees became hostile…”(vs. 53) then in chapter 12 Jesus turns right around and preaches about the pharisees and their hypocracy while thousands have gathered. He continues in chapter 13 by healing a crippled woman on the Sabbath…in the synagogue. so we all get that point that Jesus is walking on some thin ice with the pharisees.

in chapter 14 Jesus is now having dinner on the Sabbath “in the home of a leader of the Pharisees,” (vs. 1) and people are watching His every move. so He decides to heal a man right then and there, and question the pharisees about this. they are rendered speechless. then Jesus takes the opportunity to teach all who are there a lesson, that is not so simple.

He starts out by addressing the guests who are there for the dinner. everyone seemed to be heading for the seat with the greatest honor. but Jesus said nope, “take the lowest place at the foot of the table.” (vs. 10) He instructs them to basically be humble so that others may exalt us. Jesus goes on to address the host of the dinner and says, “don’t invite your friends, brothers, relatives, and rich neighbors…they will invite you back…instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” (vs. 12-13)

my take…it’s not about you and i and the barriers we put around life and what makes sense to us. we need to stay humble and not seek to make much of ourselves, but leave that up to God. and we don’t need to invite people who don’t need an invitation…if we were having a dinner, our family and friends wouldn’t need an invitation, it would just be understood. but there are those people who we don’t know all that well or maybe “don’t deserve” an invitation. for them to be at the dinner, they would need an invitation.

life is not about making us comfortable with how things are or making others comfortable for that matter. as believers we need to be inviting those people to a relationship with God, that don’t already have one or in the eyes of most may not even deserve one. i don’t deserve that relationship nor all of the blessings that come from it, but someone invited me…that’s what it’s all about, you and i sharing an invitation with those who need it. it’s about making that dinner as big as possible.

who is it today that needs an invitation from me or from you?

so what’s it all about.

the first example i would like to look at comes from Matthew 20:1-16. Jesus is traveling with the disciples from Galilee on His way to Jerusalem, and ultimately to His death. Jesus is speaking along the way to people who would call themselves believers. they were religious people, as are many who pass through the doors of churches all over the world each week. Jesus tells them the parable of the vinyard workers. we’re going to look at four comparisons that i see, which point out what it’s all about.

comparison #1 – the Kingdom of Heaven vs. a landowner (vs.1-2)…the landowner wants to hire workers for his vinyard, so he went out early. he found some people who agreed to work for a days wage, “and sent them out to work.”

comparison #2 – workers in the first group vs. workers in the four later groups (vs. 3-7)…the workers in the first group worked at least 10 hours, while the four later groups worked progressively less, down to the final group who only worked one hour. the workers in the first group were found early in the morning, most likely there ready to work. the later groups were, “people standing around doing nothing.” these people slept in and weren’t doing anything to find work, yet the landowner hired them. those in the later groups were people that “didn’t deserve” this work.

comparison #3 – hours worked vs. wages earned (vs. 8-15)…this is the most interesting to me! no matter how many hours the workers had worked, they all received the same wage. obviously the workers who had worked at least 10 hours were very upset and protested with the landowner. (vs. 11) but the landowner said that he had not been unfair. (vs. 13)

comparison #4 – the first vs. the last (vs. 16)…this was even shown in the order in which the landowner paid the workers. he started by paying those who had only worked an hour. this theme of the last being first seems to show up all over, here are a few passages: Matt. 19:30; 20:16, 26-28; Mark 9:35; 10:31; Luke 13:30

the King is looking for people who are willing to be workers, to allow Him to work through them. He will go to any length to bring in workers, even those who “don’t deserve” it. to show this, God gave the best that He had, His only Son, for those five o’clock workers (John 3:17) and no matter what hour we become workers, our reward is the blessings of a relationship with the God of this universe and the great privilege to spend eternity with Him in Heaven.

it’s not about me, it’s not about you…it’s about the five o’clock worker. what are you and i willing to do to bring in the five o’clock worker? we have to start by realizing what it’s all about, and realizing that it’s not about us!

stay tuned for more examples of what it’s all about…

in the past few months i have had several encounters with humans having to be “in control” of the world around them. (i would have to include myself in this group, for the record!) for one reason or another we humans have this desire to have it our way, or for things to make sense to us, or to just make sure that things are done right…whatever we think right is. you know what i’m talking about, because i’m sure you’ve done it at least once…today!

the more i think about it, the more i think that pride is at the root of this problem. by taking things into our own hands or manipulating situations to work out the way we want them too, aren’t we saying that we know better than God or that our ways are higher than His ways? but that’s not how God sees it…

“My thoughts are completely different from yours,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” Isa 55:8-9 (NLT)

that is pretty plane and simple!

so what’s the answer? the answer is to realize that life is not about “me” but about God, about doing what God has for me to do. a few months back i taught a series of lessons that looked at different examples in Scripture where this is played out. so in the coming days or weeks i hope to take a look at these stories/examples that have been given to us in the Scriptures.

keep tuning in!