Mark 4 Mission: Impossible

Mission Impossible. It’s a good phrase, even if the movies were all pretty confusing. I saw the first two, and I honestly couldn’t tell you what happened. The original TV series was really a lie… of course they weren’t impossible missions; the good guys completed the missions, the missions were just hard enough to be over in time for tea, and that there were enough gadgets in the cupboard to overcome the opposition. So really, if I’m paying attention to the movies, there’s no such thing as Mission Impossible. There’s Mission Difficult, Mission Expensive, an awful lot of Mission Unfeasable, one or two hundred Mission Stupid and 3 Missions That Require Tom Cruise Or We’d Simply Lose Interest.

One thing that we get taught in the movies is that nothing is impossible. We don’t even have the expectation of an impossible mission. We know the ending, we just want to know HOW it’ll get done. If you sweat hard enough, pull faces and show off your perfect teeth, have a hard-enough body… you can do anything. If you’ve had a massive car crash, you can still run like a maniac, correctly dial a number on a [product placement] iPhone, and use a pistol. Fall through the roof of a building while having a fight? No problem. I slipped in a bath a few years ago and I nearly snapped my leg in half. Obviously I’m not buff enough, because instead of wrestling my bath with my bare hands and throwing it clear through a wall, I just… fell over and clutched my leg like the wuss that I am. I howled – it hurt! It hurt for a few days! My wife asked me if I was alright, and then she laughed when she thought I couldn’t hear!

I like the real Mission Impossible stuff that I find in the Bible. Things that are absolutely impossible in real life. Things that Hollywood won’t touch, because they’re just so unbelievable.
Mission Impossible for a man named Gideon – he is given the task, by God, of gathering an army to defeat the Midianites. He raises an available army of 32,000 men, going up against an army that is evidently much, much larger. God says to Gideon - “Your army is too big.” Now we know that Israel is probably outnumbered here, because Gideon turns to his army and says “if you're scared... go home.” Twenty-two thousand people ran away. Basically a Super-Dome full of people did the bolt. Gideon is down to ten thousand men, God says to Gideon - “Your army is too big.” Gideon reduces the number of people in his army from ten thousand to three hundred – the details are in Judges 7 – before God is happy with the numbers. Three hundred soldiers. At a squeeze, we can get three hundred people into this building. So – have a look around. You’re up to fight a sellout crowd at the Olympic Stadium. And it’s full of angry Bulldogs supporters.

The story gets even stranger. As Judges chapter 7 unfolds, we see the army of not only Midian, but also the Amalekites – and all the people of the East lay along the valley like locusts in abundance, and their camels were without number.[1]

Anybody seen the movie 300? Having 300 soldiers set against a mighty army looked fantastic, didn’t it? Here’s Gideon’s army (a thousand years before the Battle of Thermopylae) – swords and shields at the ready? Here’s what they faced the enemy with… left hand holding a clay jar with a candle inside, and the right hand holding a trumpet. How would the movie look now? Gerard Butler passing out candles and musical instruments, like it was Carols in the Park! Now does it look like Mission Impossible?

We know how the story ends, don’t we? Question – did Gideon complete his Mission Impossible?
Did Gideon defeat the Midianites and the Amalekites and all those camels? No – Judges 7 makes it clear, over and over again, that the Lord alone would have the credit here. The enemy literally chopped itself to destruction, and only when the remnant fled did Israel give chase with weapons.
Sometimes we know the story so well that we miss the Mission Impossible. We remember the story, but we miss the workings of God.
We remember the story, but we miss the workings of God.

I wonder sometimes if we take this attitude with Jesus, with his Gospel, his euaggelion, his Good Message. I wonder if we acknowledge that yes, his mission was a Mission Impossible – but because we know the end of the story so well, we again miss the workings of God.

How do we see Jesus’ early ministry? How do we consider the first year or two of Jesus’ teaching and preaching? I think what often comes to mind is the series of miracles – some spectacularly public, some quiet and intensely private.
I think what often comes to mind is the series of brilliant teachings – Matthew 5-7, the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord’s Prayer, Luke 6, John 3 – being born again, Nicodemus, John 3:16.
We often see the high points – and that’s good, because they really are high points. But what we can do is miss how much of a Mission Impossible it was.
· Matthew 8:34 And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him they begged him to leave their region.
· Matthew 12:14 But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.
· Mark 3:6 The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
· Mark 3:21 And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.”
· Luke 4:29 And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff.
· John 5:18 This is why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him
· John 7:20-21 “Why do you seek to kill me?” The crowd answered, “You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?”
· John 7:25 Some of the people in Jerusalem therefore said, “Is not this the man whom they seek to kill?”
· John 10:33 The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”


Here’s a mission, should you choose to accept it.

Go to a place, as a missionary. Tell people that you are the one that the great prophets spoke about. Tell people that the Bible was written specifically to point the way to you. Tell people that you are THE way, THE truth, THE life. And just to make it all the harder, tell all this to a people who know their Bibles inside out, firmly believe that they are doing the right thing by God, are very wary of false teaching, and have a very real sense of how wrong it would be to take the name and the Word of the Lord God in vain.

In other words, people a lot like us.
If somebody came through the doors at the back, came up to the lectern, flipped open the Bible to Isaiah 61, read aloud, sat down and then announced that he was the fulfilment of that prophecy… how many people here would be likely to go “oh, cool – we’ve been waiting for you”? How would you react? What would you say to such a man?
Mission Impossible – to preach the coming kingdom of God to a people who think they know all there is to know about God’s justice, mercy and wrath.
Mission Impossible – the rescue of humanity from itself.
Mission Impossible – turn hearts around and save them from the wrath that is to come.
Do we begin to fathom just how difficult the task that God gave to Jesus really is? Do we appreciate how hard Jesus worked, how much he preached, how constantly he spoke, appeared, walked, taught, preached, chatted, lectured, told stories, healed, argued, persuaded, debated… for people to begin to understand how his teachings were not only different from all the other itinerant preachers that were also around, but that his words were the words of God? Do we get it?

We sometimes say – very easily and quickly – that Christ died for my sins. We rarely say that he walked, exhausted himself, taught, taught, taught and taught… so that I might understand what it is that he’s saying… so that I might KNOW that he died for my sins.

One thing that we see over and over and over again in Jesus’ early ministry is how much preaching he did, how the Devil got in his way wherever he preached, and how determined he was to keep on preaching non-stop.
Matthew 5:23 And he went through all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom of God.
Mark 3:20 Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they [Jesus and the Twelve] could not even eat.
Luke 4:42-44 And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And the people sought him and would have kept him from leaving them, but he said to them, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.” And he was preaching in all the synagogues of Judea.
No highway, no car, no public transport, no hotels overnight. No marketing campaigns, no radio ads, no guest appearances on breakfast TV.
No microphones, no public-address systems, no pre-recorded messages.

No internet to post blog-notes. No iTunes, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter or (gasp) email, no laptops, no typewriters, no printing presses. Just a pair of feet covered by leather sandals, the message of the Lord God to stir up the hearts and minds and souls of men… and this.
The Bible.
This is what Jesus taught from. The Bible – what we call the Old Testament. The Scripture. God’s Word, given to us by men through inspiration.
Paul knew exactly what the Old Testament was for.
2Tim3:16 says… what? All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, training in righteousness. Good – now, what about the verse before it: the purpose of Scripture is to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
That’s what it was for, and that’s still what it’s for.


One thing that we see over and over again, as Jesus preaches and teaches, is that the Scriptures are constantly on his lips – the Law, the Psalms and the Prophets and the Wisdom literature. It’s all through his speech, his answers are rooted in the Scriptures, his wisdom – which all the Gospels tell us is one of the things which is making him famous – his wisdom is recognised by others because it’s embedded in the Word, and he teaches the scriptures with authority.

We’re kinda used to using scriptures to back up our positions, or our arguments, or our moral position on things – and that’s not a bad thing… is it? Here’s the problem. We can have a tendency to concentrate on one verse, and make that one verse the proof-text. Is the verse in context? Is it out of context? How is the person I’m talking to going to be able to tell?
Malachi 3:10 Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. It’s a very popular verse in certain circles, and it’s often quoted before a collection or an offering. And – as it stands – it sounds like a very generous offer: give your tithe, and God will bless you abundantly and more-than-abundantly. Well, that sounds right - why shouldn’t I use that as a proof-text to show that if you give, God gives. It’s there – it’s in the Bible. Why not?

Because of what the rest of the book says. The verse before Malachi 3:10 shows a very angry God – You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. I don’t intend to exegete the whole of that Malachi text – we’re running short on time as it is – but the message of Malachi is that God’s people are not doing what the Lord requires of them [call it disobedience]. Be obedient, willingly obedient, and I will keep the covenant I set with Abraham, the covenant I set with Moses and the covenant I set with David. God had already promised over and over again that he would bless his people abundantly, and that blessing comes ONLY because God is faithful – not because I’ve stopped short-changing the collection-plate. Certainly not because my faithfulness.

And yet it’s being used to encourage people to give – in the hope that they’ll gain some special blessing from God’s hand over-and-above. See the difference?

You see why it’s so important to know this thing as well as you can? Reg keeps saying it until he’s blue in the face. Stu Crawshaw’s been saying it for as long as I’ve known him, and that’s longer than some of you have been alive. Read your Bible every day! Study the Word, and study it well, so that even these words can’t be twisted around. Satan is brilliant at twisting God’s words, getting us to question what we’ve been taught.
Genesis 3 – right at the very start of it, Genesis 3:1 He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?’” Well, no, God didn’t actually say that, as Eve points out, but it’s enough to get the conversation rolling. And he gets Eve questioning God, and His motives and His purposes, until Eve has actually forgotten what God said in the first place.
Did God actually say “You mustn’t have sex?”
Did God actually say “You must not cheat on your 2009 tax return?”
Did God actually say… you get the idea. As we saw in the Gospel reading – which Tim Beilharz is going to preach in detail on in two weeks – we see Satan using fact and Scripture. We see Satan using the Word of God against the Son of God.

Crazy but true – all of the things Satan tempted Jesus with had a foundation in Scripture. Stones into bread is a clear-cut reference to manna provided by God for His people in the wilderness. When he said to Jesus that the world had been given to him [Satan], there was truth in that - John 12:31 Satan is called the ruler of this world, I John 5:19 the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And finally, Satan quotes a Psalm of David… to the Son of David.

The replies that Jesus gives to Satan all come from the book of Deuteronomy, which is very significant in and of itself. Why is it significant? Tim will tell you in two weeks. Tune in. I’m not going to snaffle his sermon – but go back to the idea of how quickly Jesus turns to the Law. We see it over and over and over again in the early Galilee ministry.
We see it in the Sermon on the Mount – Matthew 5-7 – as Jesus firstly declares that he isn’t removing the Law, he isn’t abolishing the Law, he isn’t in any way watering down the Law… he is fulfilling the Law. Secondly he holds up the Laws that cover murder, adultery, divorce, lying, revenge, hatred, charity, prayer, fasting… he holds them up, then holds up the human heart next to it.
He shows how obedience to the letter is useless, because the human heart is too damaged to willingly obey the Law.

We see it as Jesus specifically confronts the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law over two issues – the Sabbath, and the forgiveness of sins. These two are issues of authority, and Jesus has to show them that their understanding of the Sabbath was flawed, and that he has the authority to mend people’s hearts as well as their bodies. Why do you think that Jesus’ healings were often coupled with teachings about the Sabbath and about forgiving sins? He has the authority to mend peoples’ hearts as well as their bodies.

Jesus came to God’s people, those who knew the Law, those who thought that they knew God. And he showed them where they stand in relation to the law, how far away from obedience their hearts truly are, how that even in their rigid obedience to the letter of the law they constantly broke it in their hearts and minds. John nails it absolutely at the start of his gospel – He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

Mission Impossible. We know the ending, we talk about it every Easter, we make movies like The Passion about it. We know the ending so well that we can miss the working of God. As Jesus’ mission is terminated, we see eleven men who knew Jesus more than any other men. We see eleven men who should have understood, who should have grasped it all… but fled in horror and terror and let their Master and their Lord be executed and be hanged on a cursed tree.

The Mission is impossible for men, and every man that knew and loved him had vanished. But nothing is impossible for God. Those men who ran away took hold of the saving gospel of Christ crucified and risen. They were given the Spirit, and they went forth. The Jewish leadership tried to beat the Gospel into submission – it grew and spread. The Roman leadership classed it as a dangerous cult and tried to stomp it to death – it grew and spread, and within three hundred years a Christian emperor sat on the Roman throne.

Mission Impossible. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is simply this. Preach Christ crucified and risen to the whole world.
Preach Christ crucified and risen to the whole world.
It’s impossible. So what?
Two questions – who do we say that Jesus is? Who do people outside these walls say Jesus is? Until those answers agree, we’re on mission. We’re on a mission that is just about impossible. It’s a mission that might take us anywhere. Two years ago, the notion of preaching the risen Christ would have scared me senseless. The thought of preaching Christ in Penrith would have... scared me a lot more. Some of you will be taken further than that, to places that you have no normal earthly desire to go. But you’ll know, and you’ll go, because your heart will burn.
Burn with the love of Jesus
burn fiercely for the hearts of those who don’t know him
burn because the Spirit set it on fire.

That’s when you don’t care about the impossible mission. That’s when the ending doesn’t matter. Mission impossible, should you choose to accept it. Take the saving message of God’s grace and Christ’s love to the whole world.

Your time starts now.

[1] Judges 7:12
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