Are We There Yet?
3 – Substance
Mark 4:3-9, 14-20
May 17, 2020

I want to tell you another road trip story where I (at times) just wanted to get home and was asking “Are We There Yet?” It was the road trip that was our honeymoon. I know, this is going to sound like the start of a really bad joke, but let me explain. Shannon was moving from Indiana to Canada. The plan was to load up a Uhaul trailer pulled by my car the day after our wedding, then drive through the night and get to Niagara Falls sometime the next day where we would spend a few days, then begin the long trip across Canada to BC where I lived at the time.

The trip began with excitement. We were saying goodbye to family when Shannon’s dad checked the trailer wheels, and noticed some play in one of the wheels due to a bad bearing. They figured we would be fine to get to Niagara, but we should get it checked ASAP. We left on our way. 45 minutes in, on the Interstate, all the trailer lights died. We had to park in a truck stop parking lot for a few hours only to find out that Uhaul wouldn’t help us until the next day. So, I had to rig up my own fix, bending the wires just the right way, and wrapping it in electrical tape. It was a ‘Red Green” fix without the duct tape. It seemed to work, and we were back on our way (at 2 am).

Then, the cat started up. Shannon had a cat we were bringing with us. And he did not like being in the car in his carrier, and he let us know about it with the most torturous, deathly sounding noises. There was part of me that wanted to turn around, drop him off at her mom’s and let him remain an American cat. But I reminded myself of my marriage vows the day earlier, and the cat stayed. We pressed on though, got to Niagara Falls, and had a wonderful time. I did get the wheel bearing fixed (they said they tightened it), and got the wiring fixed. And we went on our way.

I learned two lessons that trip: 1) I learned that not every hotel I get for free with Petro Points is worth staying in. Learned that twice as I pulled up to two dives (Toronto and Winnipeg) that my wife said no to.

I also learned that in Lethbridge Alberta, after driving across the country, that my trailer didn’t get the bearing tightened in Ontario because there was no bearing there! (I am still not sure what they adjusted that day.) The nice guys at the shop rigged something up so I could get through the mountains safely and home. All that to say, as much fun as we had in Niagara, we were ready to be home. We were asking “Are We There Yet?”

The last couple weeks, I have looked at how we as the church feel the same right now. The current COVID situation has taken us on a journey. We are likely a bit disoriented and lost, and we are tired. We want to stop, park our vehicle and say “aint it good to be back home again?”

Yet in our minds, we know life will be different after all this, and the church is no
exception. The problem is that we don’t know what this ‘different’ will look like. And that is unsettling to all of us. Yet, no matter how different things are, some things never change. God’s desire for us, his mission for us carries on even in such a time as this.

As HMC, we believe God wants us to be “Generations Following Jesus Together”. The last couple weeks we have looked at how Generations Following Jesus Together begins to happen as we be the family / community, or “Gather” as we call it. We talked about the need for togetherness. We talked about how authentic community requires intentional participation, and that practical faith happens in community, together. “Gather” is important. We “Gather” ultimately to do something… We gather to “Grow”.

Generations Following Jesus Together begins to happen as we grow more mature spiritually – growing up in our love, obedience, and service to God; as we grow in relationship with Jesus Christ.

Key Idea:

Substance matters
(plant the spiritual seed in good dirt)

Let me tell you a story from Scripture about planting. You can find it in Mark 4:3-20. Jesus here uses a common experience, gardening and growing crop to make a significant spiritual point.

Mark 4:3-4
“Scattered it across his field” – This phrase helps us understand the farming technique of the day. The farmer would often sow seed without plowing. Picture a guy standing there, throwing seed out, and where it lands, it lands, even on a footpath. Seeds don’t sink into the hard ground of a footpath and they can’t take root. The seeds then become fair game to the birds. One can’t plant on a hard footpath. Substance matters.
Mark 4:5-6
The audience would know this reference well. The shallow, rocky soil was common out there. Palestinian terrain was often rocky and uneven, covered by a thin layer of soil. In this kind of ground, the seeds can at least sink into the soil and take root. But roots are shallow because the ground is too rocky for the roots to go deep. Plants with shallow roots often don’t survive the elements (unless they are specific to that setting). You can’t plant in the rocky ground either. Substance matters.
Mark 4:7
Sometimes the soil is good, is deep enough, and plants can begin to grow well. But if the plant is in the same bed as something that takes over and kills anything else, eventually whatever you plant will be destroyed. The roots get strangled below the ground as well as the plant getting killed off above the ground. You can’t plant a garden with the blackberry bush! Substance matters.
Mark 4:8-9
Just south west of Israel was Egypt. And in Egypt they had some of the best land for growing around known as the fertile plains around the Nile. Even in famine times, they would have crop growth (which is why Egypt survived the famine in Genesis). Seeds that fell on the fertile soil with the right conditions sunk in and sprouted roots that went down deep. Plants grew up strong. Plant in the right soil! Substance matters.

In those days, yields of 5-15X were common and considered great. Jesus says that with things planted in the right soil, the yields will be much higher: 30, 60, and even 100X. Jesus obviously isn’t actually giving a farming lesson. He is speaking of personal spiritual growth and the right conditions, or the right substance for that growth to happen. He says “if you are hearing me, pay attention. Reflect on what I am telling you, figure out the lesson, and apply it!

What happens next is a conversation in private between Jesus and His disciples that I am not going to unpack or try to explain today – it is a whole message in itself. But the summary is that they tell Jesus that they don’t understand what He is saying, and they wondered why He was choosing to speak in parables rather than bluntly and completely clearly. Some of it had to do with the hardness of the hearts of people and that they would not accept what Jesus would say if He were to put it clearly, but more about that another day.

Jesus then begins to explain it, which is where we pick up in Vs 14.

Mark 4:14
We don’t know who the farmer is. Maybe a foreshadow to the apostles who would carry on the message of Jesus. Maybe it is a reference to Christ Himself. The farmer isn’t actually the main character or focus here. What we do know is that the farmer takes the seed of faith, the truth of Jesus Christ, the revelation of God to the hearts of those who don’t have it with the purpose of that seed planting, sprouting, and growing spiritual crops in their hearts. Hearts are the soil.

Mark 4:15
The hard soil / footpath is a reference those who had hard hearts to the message. In those days it would have been the Pharisees and Scribes. It is a reference to those who heard the message but would immediately say a determined no to what is shared. And when that happens, Satan comes, like the birds, to snatch away the seeds of faith because he wants to snatch away the opportunity for spiritual growth. Some of his preferred tools are temptation (Mk 1:12-13), and blinding people to truth (2 Cor 4:4). Substance matters.

Mark 4:16-17
The rocky, uneven soil is like those who hear about Jesus, and are very excited to believe it, but aren’t strong enough or ready in their heart to stick with it when the going gets tough. They are fickle. Maybe there is something sitting beneath the surface in their hearts (like sin for example) that doesn’t allow for the roots to go deep.

When He talks about “falling away”, it is the same term used in Greek for when the disciples deserted Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane as He was arrested.

The application here is that life will be difficult, sometimes even as a result of faith in Jesus. If the heart is weak and not willing to be fully committed to the truth you know, live, and believe, then heart is like rocky soil where any spiritual growth is superficial. The roots are surface. Any “heat from the sun” (pressure, persecution ) will cause it to wilt and die. Jesus says all this knowing that in a matter of a few years, the church would be born and endure persecution for faith. Substance matters.

Mark 4:18-19
The thorny soil represents a divided heart. It represents someone who wants Jesus sincerely, but also wants everything else. It represents someone who wants to serve Jesus, but also wants to serve wealth, possessions, position, influence, affluence, etc…

This is something Jesus dealt with this in His time as evidenced by the story of the rich young ruler (Mark 10:17-25). This young man comes to Jesus, eager to follow Him and be in His crowd. Yet Jesus tells the young man something shocking and hard: sell everything you have so that you can follow me. The man hangs his head in sadness and goes away. Jesus here is highlighting a principle mentioned elsewhere in Scripture (Matt 6:24) that we can not serve two masters. We will love one and hate the other.

The application is that unless Jesus is the #1 spot in your life, and if you aren’t willing to commit to Him at the expense of anything else that would seek to take the #1 spot, your heart soil is divided. It is like a garden with thorny vines; like a flower garden with a blackberry bush. The vines and the thorns strangle, they hold, and they kill off vegetation. Substance matters.

Mark 4:20
Those whose hearts are open to the Truth, ready to commit themselves for the long haul, let Him be #1 are like a garden with rich, fertile, good soil. They are not just surface deep.

Jesus mentions a couple things that need to happen to cultivate good soil; they need to: hear and accept so they can bear. And when the small seed of faith (tiny like a mustard seed) is planted in that soil, there is a huge crop that comes as a result. Not just the expected good 5-15X yield, but something bigger than can be imagined.

Substance matters. The soil needs to be cultivated, prepared, and mixed with the right nutrients for growth. When our hearts are open to Christ, when we cultivate our hearts, take out the rocky things that stop us from growing deep, take out the thorns that would seek to kill out future growth, we see a huge spiritual harvest in our lives. We see growth in our faith. We see growth in our relationship with God. We see others come to a faith relationship with Christ as well because we drop spiritual seeds from our lives (like any plant that self – reproduces).
How do we cultivate the heart soil? How do we have substance so that there can be that kind of spiritual growth? It has to start in our mind, our spiritual heart. We have to want to put in nutrients and special soils into the mix: Intentional daily prayer, worship, knowing God’s Word, walking with others who will encourage growth and keep accountable, dealing with the weeds, the thorns, the rocks, taking responsibility for our own spiritual growth.

Substance matters
(plant the spiritual seed in good dirt)

Why?

1) It is a normal part of the community life. It is natural. (Acts 2:42) What do we see in this verse? We see that as the community got together, that spiritual growth was a normal, natural, and expected part of the community life. They devoted themselves together to the Apostles’ teaching. They devoted themselves together to prayer. They devoted themselves together in the taking of the Lord’s Supper.

2) It is needed if we are to be healthy. (Heb 5:12, 1 Cor 3:2). We need more than spiritual baby food: milk. We need solid healthy spiritual food. Just like we would expect our children to grow out of just drinking milk so that they can be strong, healthy, and full of life, God designed us to do the same spiritually. To stick with the milk, to not crave more and want more is to not grow up to be healthy, to be full of spiritual life, vibrant, strong. It denies us the opportunity to be who God designed us to be.

Substance matters.

Assorted Passages
May 10, 2020

I remember the longest road trip I had been on. It was the summer of 2002, and I was driving to Indiana from BC to see Shannon. The drive was close to 8000km round trip. It was in the Summer, in a small car with no air conditioning (when that was considered a bonus / luxury feature). I love to drive and explore, so I loved every minute of it. I got to encounter tons of new things, see lots of new states and scenery. I even drove through Chicago for the very 1st time and lived to tell about it (those of you who have driven there know exactly what I mean). The most exciting thing for me was that I knew that at the end of the journey, my girlfriend who I only got to see a few times a year would be waiting.

The longest part was the drive home. In one long day, I drove from a location in Indiana, 2 hours south of Chicago, to Lethbridge AB, just south of Calgary. It was 25 hours straight of driving. I Would never do that now. But I was 20 and invincible. I would have stopped if I could but had no money – even the $39 Motel 6 was too much. I tried stopping to rest in my car at rest areas and truck stops, but I learned something about driving through Minnesota and North Dakota at night. Not only is it humid, but it has big bugs. I had no A/C so I was dripping from sweat inside the car if I tried to sleep. And if I opened the window, who knows what ‘friends’ would crawl in. I was uncomfortable to say the least.

I got an hour here, 30 minutes there for a nap. But kept drinking coffee and driving as much as I could (maybe that is why I like Tim Hortons so much now!). I was eager to get to my relatives in Alberta – to a comfortable bed, to a home cooked meal, to air conditioning. I could see the destination in the distance, but for now was stuck in my car. In my mind, I was asking several times “Are We There Yet?”

A couple weeks ago, looked at how we as the church feel the same right now. The current COVID situation has taken us on a different, inconvenient, and uncomfortable journey. We feel stuck, much like I did in my car with no AC, and big bugs outside. We have been on a long trip (because of quarantine, social distancing, closures), and we just want to get out. We hear the governments talking of a gradual opening, and we can’t wait. But unlike me where I knew where I was going, we don’t.

We know life will be different for everyone after all this, and what the church looks like is no exception. The problem is that we don’t know what this ‘different’ will look like. And that is unsettling to us pastors, to MC, to you as the congregation. Yet, there are some core values that are the same no matter where we find ourselves as a church and what is going on around us. We have a vision and we have a mission that God has called us on, even for such a time as this.

As HMC, we believe we are called to be “Generations Following Jesus Together”. We do this as we “Gather, Grow, Give, and Go”. Over the next several weeks, I want to unpack this more in light of our changing world around us. A couple weeks ago, I started talking about the Gather part, the importance of community. I said that “Practical faith happens in community”. Today, want to spend a bit more time talking about the importance of “Gather” – the need for community. And how:

Authentic community requires intentional participation

The church was designed, not to be a building where people meet, but an authentic community who can meet in a building, or today is meeting online; a community who can meet at any time and any place. But in order for the church to be an authentic community, as God designed it, there needs to be buy in, or investment in it. The church family without participation is not authentic community – just a disconnected, dysfunctional gathering of people.

Why should we intentionally become an authentic community?

Matthew 16:18

1. God created the church with community in mind
   -> There are three different potential applications here to “On this rock”. Not going to unpack them today. But later in this series I want to.
   -> Notice one word… on this rock I will build _ church….
   -> The church belongs to God, and He builds it. Takes the pressure off of us. Not about our methods, philosophies, wisdom, assumptions, ideas. It has to be about what God wants!
   -> First time this term “church” is used in the Bible. And it is Jesus who is speaking of an entity, something He is about to create. A very specific Greek word is used here that goes beyond a light suggestion or casual implication of what the church was to be.

Ekklesia: A gathering of citizens called out from their homes into some public space, an assembly. In a Christian sense, an assembly of Christ followers gathered for worship. Root words imply being specifically called out to a different purpose. Implication is that God calls us out specifically to be His community, His church, His family.

-> When we look through the pages of the NT, whenever the word “Ekklesia”/Church is used, it is referring to the group of believers as they come together as a community. It is not referring to individual, fragmented, isolated life apart from the rest of the church community. The church has always been a gathering.
-> The church isn’t what we do, it is who we are when we gather…..
-> Authentic community requires intentional participation. This appears to be what God had in mind when the church was created and named. He created the church with community in mind.

Rom 12:3-8, 1 Cor 12:12-28

2. We find our purpose within the church community.
   -> Both these passages describe something called “the body” that those who follow Christ were a part of. The word used in the original Greek manuscripts was:

Soma: Describes a grouping (small or large) of people who are closely united into one society or family, and in the NT, the church.

-> All who follow Christ are part of a body that is both global – meaning that we are united with all those who follow Jesus around the world – and a local expression.
-> The church is the place on a local level where that family / body identity finds
realization and purpose.
-> It is within this community that each one of us is given gifts, abilities, skills that this community body needs to function to the fullest. Meant to be used and find fulfillment in this community / family.
-> When we do not plug in, we deprive ourselves and the church community of the full potential available. When we do intentionally participate, we and the church are able to become a life giving, life changing, vibrant authentic community where we find purpose and connection.
-> Like the passage says, we need each other, just like the body needs all its’ parts.
-> Authentic community requires intentional participation. We find our purpose within the church community.

3. The church community was intended to be at the centre of daily life
   -> Often times, the church community has adopted a tendency to be separate from life in general. We are pretty good at compartmentalizing.
   -> The church community becomes just something we have to do. Not influential, not important, not a priority.
   -> What happens when the church community becomes compartmentalized is that it becomes irrelevant. When it isn’t a part of our general daily life, it loses its impact in any of our life.
   -> Yet this is not what Jesus intended when He designed His church – the community of His followers who were a united body, who needed each other to function, to find fulfillment in the setting of gathering together. He intended His church to be at the center of daily life.
   -> We see this as we go through the New Testament and look at all the ways in which the church was intended to be a part of daily life.
   -> By no means an exhaustive list. Go home today and google “one another verses in New Testament”. I also likely have a list that I will post this week online. And not going to unpack these today. But gives you an idea.

Where needs were met: Acts 2:44-45, 4:32-35

Where disputes were settled: 1 Cor 6:1-6

Where support was given: 1 Cor 12:26, Gal 6:2

Where encouragement was received: 1 Thess 5:11, Heb 10:24-25

Where accountability was offered: James 5:16

Where prayer together happened: James 5:13-15

-> This is just a snapshot of all the daily things of life in which Jesus intends for His church (us) to rise up, live, and function together as a community, as a family. The church community was intended to be at the centre of daily life. But in order for this to happen, authentic community requires intentional participation. You need to want to plug in, to be involved, to identify here.

SO WHAT??

COVID 19 has completely changed the landscape of the church, and how we function. Community life has now, for the most part, gone online. The physical gathering we used to enjoy doesn’t happen. We aren’t getting together in each others’ homes. We aren’t getting together here at the church building. Our interactions with each other are a lot more limited as today, I really don’t have much of an idea who is watching unless you post in here (and even so, I am not able to pay attention to those things). For me it has been difficult as I don’t get to see you all at the door when you are leaving. I don’t get to see your faces, hear your voices. It is a different world.

In some ways, this has been a change that has been long overdue. For a long time, our culture and society has been online, and the church has been resisting the push to get online. Now, because of COVID, we have been forced to go online. And it has given us cause to re-evaluate a lot of what we do and how we do it. What things actually matter and make a difference? What things don’t? What we do know is that we will continue, even as things shift to allow us to be open, to provide an online presence for HMC in addition to the physical gatherings that we will be running.

With COVID, a lot of us have gotten used to not having to leave the comforts of our house to join into any of the church life. Sundays are super casual now. Being able to watch church from the living room, not have to be dressed to leave the house. And if you sleep in, you can watch it later. Everything else is online. And potentially, you could take in a whole week full of stuff here at the church and never have to physically see anyone (minus on a screen). And take it in when it is convenient. There is a lot of convenience now to how we do our church community gatherings – out of necessity.

As we look ahead though, I want to encourage us, when the regulations lift, to fight the urge to stay isolated and disconnected in our homes. Yes, it is convenient, but we are also missing out on the authentic and life changing community that we were designed to be a part of. We need to invest intentionally in our family. Authentic community requires participation.

Being online can not replace physical connection, no matter how hard we try. A family needs to be more than just a virtual family in order to grow deeper. And as we become more isolated in our homes, not participating in the community, the harder it is for us as a community to live intentionally, as a community on mission together in our communities. As cool as being online is, it leads to us being even more disconnected to each other in this community, and to the larger community in which we live.

Gathering can be anywhere, at any time. It doesn’t have to be Sunday at 10am. It can be in your own home with a dozen others. It can be any time of day, over a meal even. And who knows… maybe this will be the catalyst for us launching a whole bunch of home based churches tied into HMC. I dream…. But however we do it, gathering needs to happen. And it needs our intentional participation. We need to pursue authentic community together.

And of course, if you have never met Jesus personally, never started a personal relationship with Him, He invites you to know Him, love Him, and follow Him. He invites you to become a part of His family, His community, and experience belonging on a spiritual level. A deeper purpose, a deeper connection. If that is you and you want to know more, any of us here on staff would love to be able to help you more with that so that you can experience being a part of the life changing community and family that He has designed us for.