7/9/23 Mark 6:1-13 “There’s a New Church in Town!”

07 Jul 7/9/23 Mark 6:1-13 “There’s a New Church in Town!”

7/9/23   Mark 6:1-13       “There’s a New Church in Town!”

Well, here we are starting out a brand-new church and you don’t have a pastor yet because of the childish ways of the old denomination.  At least you should realize right away that you probably have made the right decision leaving them.  But you don’t have to worry about all that stuff anymore.  I know Satan is very upset with us but that is good.  Someone asked me if I was going to get into trouble for preaching in the new Global Methodist denomination.  My answer was something like this.  I’m retired.  There is really not much they can do to me.  Plus, I really don’t care what they try to do to me because I have been appointed a temporary pastor in the new denomination.  I told people that I would help out as much as I can to get these new churches off the ground.  Therefore, I will be here until Pastor Mark comes in September.  However, I have previous commitments on the first Sunday of the month so I won’t be here then.  Today, we are going to talk a little about sending out people with the message of God.  Hopefully, this will help you to build this new church.

I found this wonderful story from Eddie Young that should set us up right.  The year 1527 was the most trying year of Martin Luther’s life. On April 22 he was preaching in Wittenberg when he became dizzy and fainted. Over the next several months he dealt with debilitating depression and sickness. It had been 10 years since he had published his 95 theses. He had battled long and hard against the church and government, even against other reformers. Now he was broken and beaten. He wrote a friend about his illness, “I spent more than a week in death and hell.  My entire body was in pain, and I still tremble. Completely abandoned by Christ, I labored under the vacillations and storms of desperation and blasphemy against God. But through the prayers of the saints, God began to have mercy on me and pulled my soul from the inferno below.”  Eventually with the help of doctors he regained his strength and health.  Just as he was recovering a plague struck Wittenberg. Even though his wife was pregnant, Luther’s house was transformed into a hospital, and he watched many friends die. Then his son became ill and it looked as if he too would die. In the midst of all this he wrote his most famous hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”

You could say that Martin Luther had been dealing with many thorns in his life when he wrote that beautiful and majestic hymn. Sometimes in life we encounter a few thorns, sometimes there are many of them.  We try to avoid them, but they are everywhere. Even something as beautiful as a rose has thorns on its stem.

These thorns lead us into the first part of these verses.  Jesus tells us that a prophet in his home town is one without honor.  It seems that Jesus came to His hometown to minister or maybe to teach a lesson.  But He was unable to do much there.  I think that we often read this a little wrong.  We like to think that Jesus couldn’t do much of anything as far as miracle’s were concerned in His hometown.  I have heard and read that He couldn’t do these things because He was too well known there.  Everyone watched Him grow up so they knew all His good and bad traits.  I have to stop right here because Jesus had no bad traits.  Even though He was just growing up, He is still God and He is perfect.

Please remember this as you are inviting people into your new church.  Many of you are from this town or maybe you have lived here for many years.  You know everyone and those you don’t know are those that are newcomers.  Don’t start to judge these people as to who you should invite to church based on false assumptions.  Some of the best Christians in the world were at one time not very nice people.  Look at Paul, for instance.  He used to kill Christians before He found His way.  As far as I can see, there probably isn’t a person in this area that you shouldn’t invite to this new and wonderful denomination.  So go out there and invite and invite and invite.  You never know where there will be a diamond in the rough.

Now let’s go back to Jesus in His hometown for a minute.  Jesus does not say that He couldn’t do anything because of this or this or that.  He just makes the statement that He was having a very hard time to get people to listen to Him.  The reason for this is summed up in verse 6.  “And He was amazed at their lack of faith.”   In other words, He couldn’t do all the things He would normally do because of their lack of faith.

Hopefully, you will be doing a lot of outreaches into your community as you begin this exciting journey in your new denomination.  I would also guess that if I asked you if your community was fairly faithful, you would say yes.  But are they really or is it just lip service.  How many churches do you have here?  How many are full?  Then how many people live in the area?  I hope you can see where this is going. Then if you add the churches that teach false doctrine, well that is a whole other aspect.   If you had a faithful community, then all the churches would be full and everyone would be building on or building more.  Let’s face it.  This community in general is not that faithful at all.  There are hundreds of people who need the help of Jesus Christ and they don’t even know it and that is another huge problem.  You have a tremendous array of people that you want to get through the doors.  But it will not be easy because of their tremendous lack of faith.  It won’t be easy but it will be possible because you have the faith.  No matter what you do in the next few months, do everything in the name of Jesus Christ.

Notice what Jesus does next.  He went around the area teaching, from village to village.  He also called the disciples and sent them our two by two.  I think that this is a very important part of what we do today.  It was important back then also as there were bandits and others waiting to catch unsuspecting travelers.

You see, they weren’t the only ones with problems like this.  Whenever you go out to call on people in the name of Jesus, it is always a good idea to travel in pairs.  We don’t have to worry too much about bandits but it could happen.  What we do have to worry about is lawsuits.  Personally, I would trust just about any of you to go out on your own to minister to people.  And you often times can because you know the people.  They are your friends.  However, you need to remember that you are also dealing with the devil.  So often it happens in today’s world, that you leave somebody’s home and they will make up a story of some sort of physical abuse that you did against them.  Then they sue and there is trouble.  Also, it’s better to have two people who can help each other as you come across questions that you might not have an answer.  Plus, you and your partner are gifted differently so you might just complement each other quite nicely.

Then Jesus is giving them their instructions.  They were to take nothing with them except their staff.  In these ancient times, no one went anywhere without a staff.  A staff was just a big walking stick.  It’s different today as we would take a staff of 10 people with.  Anyway, the staff was used for all sorts of things.  They would use them for walking up and down hills.  A staff had many uses when they were herding sheep.  If the staff had a crook, it could be used to help get things or getting an animal out of danger.  It was also a line of defense when they came upon sudden danger, like a wild cat or bear.  So, Jesus allows them to carry their staffs because they just may need them.

Also, it seems that the staff just might represent the Word of God.  That would make it a very important item to have when recruiting new followers.  I think that the word of God is missing from most churches.  Yes, you heard me right, most churches.  If all the churches in the area had the word of God in their midst, then we would not be in all the trouble we are in today.  If you look around you will find that just about any wacky idea is not only doing well in our Godless society, but it is thriving.  Just like in ancient times, we need to carry our staff all the time.  You need to carry and talk about the word of God.  If you aren’t going to talk about the word of God, then why in the world did you start a new church.  You could just as well stay with the old one or gone down the street to another one as they are nothing more that some sort of country club in disguise.

Anyway, they were to take their staffs and no food, no money and no bags to carry things.  They weren’t even to bring any extra clothes.  So basically, they took off to the countryside with a big stick and nothing else.  What in the world was Jesus thinking?  These disciples would go out like this and they would win people over to Jesus Christ.  Through this basic little exercise, they would learn that they could trust Jesus for anything and everything.  This would be the beginning of the disciples building a new church by staying with the word of Jesus.

This applies to us in several ways.  You shouldn’t have to worry about taking things with you because are so close to home and you won’t be out overnight.  And when you think about this, you might realize that Jesus wasn’t really talking about food or clothing.  Jesus knew that if the disciples took these other things with them, they would have a distraction and they might not present the message.  They would be thinking about their food or clothing or anything else that was on their minds.  Jesus wanted them to be thinking about Jesus and His message all the time.  He didn’t want these distractions.  He wanted total concentration on the task at hand.

It’s the same thing in our modern world only our distractions are different.  I would say first and foremost, leave your cell phones at home.  Cell phones may be the biggest distraction we have for anything today.  Plus, they can be a colossal waste of time.  Instead of looking at your cell phone all the time when you are out visiting new people, try saying a prayer.  It doesn’t have to be big.  Just say a quick, mental prayer before talking.  I do this every week before I stand before people to speak.  If you start to pray before you speak to others or before you do just about anything, you will soon see some tremendous differences in you church and your personal life.

The last thing I would like to bring up today comes in an overlooked little sentence in verse 11.  “And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them.”  Unlike today, many people of that time had no idea as to what this religion was all about.  Jesus knew ahead of time that they would run into people like this.  As I have said many times before, all they could do was plant a seed.  The rest is up to God.  And even though these things happened, the disciples drove out many demons and healed many.

I foresee that this will be a problem here also.  You will be rejected by many.  I have done several door-to-door events and this is just something that happens.  So put on your thick skin when you go out to invite people.  I have a couple of ideas on how to invite people.  You have a brand-new church meeting in your same old building.  If you just do nothing to promote your new church, then nothing will happen.

In our modern world we have many different ways to reach out into the community with the message of a new church.  Not just a new church, but a new church that believes in Jesus Christ resurrected from the dead.  I would suggest that you post things online to make people aware.  Also, make some ads for the local paper.  Make some posters to put up around town.  Whatever you can think of to promote this new undertaking, do it.

Then sometime in the near future, you should hold an old-fashioned burger and hot dog night, maybe with ice cream.  Get as many people as possible to come to this event.  Don’t be afraid that other churches will get upset.  They won’t get upset as long as you are both on the same page.  But I know for a fact that most main line denominations are not on the same page.  Many don’t even believe in the resurrection, the first chapter of Genesis, the virgin birth and most of the miracles of the Bible.  Many of their people are sick of all this liberal non-Christian agenda in their church.  They are looking for a way out of their situation.  Well, here you are.  Invite them even if you think they go to another church.  After all, what is the cost of a burger or hotdog.

We were at a church recently promoting the Global Methodist Church.  The second time we were there, there was a couple from down the road that happened to be Lutherans.  It’s ok.  I’ve nothing against Lutherans.  Anyway, after the second service, they were talking to me about how sick and tired they were of all the liberal garbage happening in their church.  They wished they could get out of it and into a church more to their line of thinking.  I just looked at them and said, “Why don’t you come here to worship?”  It’s that easy to invite and there are many people who feel that their denomination has let them down, kind of like what the United Methodist Church has done to you.

What I would like you to do for the rest of the summer is to be dedicated to talking about this new Global Methodist Church that believes in the Bible first and foremost.  Tell people that they are welcome to come here to worship.  There are GMC churches in this country that are growing by leaps and bounds.  That is because people are starving for the truth.  When you offer the truth, the truth of Jesus Christ, then great things will happen.  And the great things will begin with the love of Jesus Christ for all.  And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.