Welcome And Scripture Reading

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Would you continue to stay standing and give a warm welcome to our scripture reader this morning as he comes out and reads today's verse? Hello, my name is J.R. Robinson. I attend Green Valley Middle School. I'm in eighth grade. And today I'm going to be reading Mark 9, 38 through 41. Now John answered him, saying, Teacher, we saw someone who does not follow us casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow us. But Jesus said, Do not forbid him, for no one who works a miracle in my name can soon afterwards speak evil of me. For he who is not against us is on our side. For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in my name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward. This is the word of the Lord.

Meet Dr Carl Tony

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Well, good morning, everyone. Have a seat. Uh, if you haven't guessed already by now, I am not Pastor Lawrence. Um I am Dr. Carl Tony. I am the Dean of the College of Ministry and Biblical Studies at Hope International University down in Southern California. So greetings from the southern part of the state. Uh we're still around, I promise you. Uh I'm originally from Northern California. I was born in San Jose and I lived in Reading for most of my life. My father was an engineer and my sister is an engineer. My dad worked for IBM. And so I feel right at home as I'm here. When I came up yesterday, I did all the touristy things that one does, uh, Fisherman's Wharf and all that stuff, just because that was reliving what it was like for me as a kid growing up in Reading to come to the big city. Uh and so we would come down and spend the day doing that stuff. So thank you for being so hospitable of having me here today as I enter into this study as we continue going through the gospel of Mark. And we are going to be looking at Mark chapter nine, verses 38 to 41. Um, I have a picture here of our ministry students and our ministry program. We have about 35 students at Hope International University in our undergraduate ministry program. And I'm excited about this group. Uh we're doing, we have this weird architecture at Hope, which the shirt shows and the logo shows. It's called Googie. And so they're we say Googies up, so they all have their Googies up, uh, trying to make the best of some ugly architecture. Uh, but that's what that's our brand, that's our logo. Um for me, this group is it's exciting because for years I've heard churches uh getting worried about what the next generation will look like in terms of Christian ministry. I've heard pastors at pastors' conferences come up to me and saying, Carl, what's going on with students today? Uh it doesn't seem like we have many people that are entering in full-time ministry. What's Hope doing about this? What are you guys doing to prepare young Christian leaders? And for us at Hope, we are heavily invested in the next generation of Christian leaders. In fact, on November 12th and 13th, every fall, we have an event called the Pursue Event, which this QR code links you to, um, where we spend two days just talking to students about what does it mean to be entering into full-time ministry. I gotta admit, it's when I told my parents that I was gonna go into ministry, um, that that involves some conversations. I was the son of an engineer, my sister was an engineer, um, my family had certain thoughts in terms of what that pathway and career would look like for me. Uh I'm thankful though, that my parents said, Yeah, well, what's God calling you to do? We want to be behind you and to support you in that. My youth leader over and over would say, Hey, what are we doing for people entering ministry? And in our church, it used to be if you love Jesus, uh, then be a missionary. If you kind of love Jesus, then settle for being a pastor. Uh I became a Bible professor. I wasn't even on the map. Um, but I'm so grateful for the support of my parents, the belief. I think that there's a lot of concerns from parents and grandparents and even kids in terms of like, what does it look like to go into ministry? Uh, can you make it? Can you survive? Is there a job for us? The good news, ministry is one of the areas where AI is not going to take over your job. Uh is pastoral care and counseling and the attention that it requires to care for people and to show people the love of Jesus is not something that we can hand off to others. And I'm excited about pastoral ministry. I'm excited about this generation of pastoral leaders. And I'm excited for you. I believe in this church, there's not just one or two people that are called into full-time ministry. I think there's 10 or 20 young people in this church that are being called into full-time ministry. I grew up into a church this size, and two of my closest friends became missionaries in China and Japan. I became a Bible professor. Several of my friends became pastors and teachers along the way. And that was from a small youth group of 30 people up in Reading, California. And so I believe that there are plenty of you in this church that are young people that are being called to minister. I've already talked to some people between services. I know this church is calling and sending people out into full-time ministry. And I love that about your community, and you ought to be proud of yourselves for that because you're pointing people to Jesus and what it means to serve him. And so I just want to encourage you, continue to do that. For parents, don't worry. God will take care of people. I'm 50 with change at this point. I have four kids, I've got a house, uh, mortgage that goes with that. Uh, so I guess the bank owns the house, but still, uh, God has provided for me in many wonderful ways. I moved away from my family. My church became my adopted family, my spiritual grandparents. Many of you, if you're uh on the upper end of life and you're wondering what I can do to serve the church, well, one of the things you can do is adopt some young people, babysit their kids. I can tell you, as a young parent, when people from my church offered me free babysitting, like that was one of the best gifts that I ever got. And it moved from free babysitting to some of those spiritual grandparents still now sponsor my kids as they go on mission trips today and still pour in and invest because kids need to hear not just from their parents what it means to follow Jesus, but they need at least five adults, including spiritual grandparents, pouring into their lives. The community and connections you make here matters. And I just encourage you, if you want to find out more about Hope, more about ministry, we have online ministry as well as residential ministry. I'd love to talk to you about it. We believe in ministry so much that we offer over $100,000 in scholarships for young adults to come to our program and to learn to study ministry because we want you to graduate without debt so that you can jump into full-time ministry. So that's my that's who I am, where I'm coming from. Let's get into the word of God, because that's really

Calling The Next Generation To Ministry

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what you came here for. It wasn't to hear about me, it was to hear from the word of the Lord. And so we heard it was great. Thank you, J.R., for reading this message from Mark chapter nine. Um, last week, Pastor Larry he talked about the need to matter. And this week, what I want to talk to you about is the need to belong. And it's interesting when we look at this text, how we hit this insider language and this outsider language. If we look at Mark 9, we discover that John says teacher and we and us. And he uses all this language to identify, like Jesus, you're the teacher, which means I'm the disciple. Uh, we're a group, I know we're part of the 12, we know what's going on. And then you see this language of them, uh, he. Uh, we try to stop him, and we see this othering, like they don't even give this guy a name in the biblical text. We know who John is, but we don't know who this other guy was. This insider-outsider language. There's a beautifulness to belonging when people know your name, know who you are, and we get comfortable with that, and that's important. But there's a dark side to belonging as well. What happens when we're so secure in our belonging that it begins to exclude other people? And we have to be careful of that. Biblical belonging is not about pushing other people away, it's about pulling people towards Jesus. In today's divided society, it's easy to see us versus them. We're heading into elections, people. If you didn't know that, I think there's going to be a lot of us and theming happening. We already have seen that year after year as a nation. The church needs to be difference makers here. We need to be people that center our hearts on Christ and his kingdom, not the kingdom of our politics and our institutions. That doesn't mean that we don't have strong opinions. Have those strong opinions, have those beliefs, but remember Jesus is king. All right. With the sense of belonging, uh, this is something that's fundamental to us. Uh, it's interesting. There was a study that was done uh by R. F. Baumeister and Mark Leary, and they discovered that belonging was a human, universal human need. It's so fundamental that it's like clothing, it's like shelter, uh, it's like food. It's something that is so important to us that we cannot survive without a sense of belonging. And what is challenging in today's culture is we have a society that has been built on a promise of belonging. Think about all the promises of social media and the internet. And it's interesting how we have these technologies that promise points of connection to us that actually are fundamentally tearing us apart. There's a guy named Nicholas Carr who in his book Superbloom tracks some of these ways that technology has torn us apart. In 2012, half of teenagers said they would rather socialize with friends through screens than in person. Half. Between 2010 and 2019, the amount of people ages 15 to 24 that reported spending time with friends, it plummeted. It went from 133 minutes a day to 67 minutes a day. High schoolers report they often feel lonely, and this trend has doubled from 23% to 42%. We have a society that longs to connect, and we look for ways to connect with each other, and yet we have an epidemic of loneliness, don't we? Well, the good news is you're in church today. The good news is that Scripture has something to say about what it means to belong. The good news is that belonging begins with a name and a cup of water. One of the first steps to belonging is to learn somebody's name. How many of you are good at learning names? Raise your hand so we can all hate you. I've been learning a lot of names today. Uh I've messed up names today. Uh it's been it's interesting stepping in a new community. But uh, in a sermon about learning the names, the pressure as the guest speaker to try to remember your names is very high. And I gotta admit, I'm not doing great at this. Uh but in order to begin to belong, in order for people to feel connected, the first thing we really need to do is we need to learn a person's name. Now, I have a family of six. Uh, so we have a lot of names. And my kids are children of a pastor, who's my wife, Lisa, and a theologian, me. So when it came to their names, we thought and argued and prayed and all the things you're supposed to do, did not consult with the parents about what those names should be. And our oldest daughter, her name is Zoe. And we named her Zoe because my wife and I met in the most romantic place possible. We met in Greek class. I know, it's amazing. You want to meet your spouse? Go to Greek. I like to brag that she asked me for my phone number, and then she points out that she was asking for everybody's phone number in that small group. My wife is an organizer. Our son Gus, his name is short for Augustine, my favorite theologian. He's Augustine of Hippo. Growing up, Gus thought that Augustine was a hippo, and then he learned that he's from Hippo. So that was a little bit of a bummer for him, but that's Gus. And then in the front, we have our daughter Eden. My wife and I broke up in Greek after Greek, but we got back together in Hebrew. So thank God for biblical languages. So we named her Eden after the Garden of Eden and uh the Hebrew word for garden, Eden. And that's our dog apricot that she's holding. Um, some of my northern California comes in there. I don't say apricot, I say apricot. Uh, and then in the back in the center is our youngest son, Pax or Paxton. That's Latin for city of peace. My wife and I like to lead trips to the Holy Land, to Israel. We're going in the spring uh on a trip uh down to Greece and Turkey. I have some information at my table. If you'd like to learn more about that, we do trips together. I also have at that table uh books that my wife has produced. My wife is a pastor, she's also an author. She does small group Bible studies that are geared towards women. So if you are interested in small group Bible studies, I have samples of what that looks like. And that also makes me a really good husband to be promoting my wife's uh books that I carried in the suitcase. So uh just tip for yourselves. In the last service, I forgot to mention my wife's name, and someone was like, What's her name? So at least this service I got that one right. So that's what we do as husbands is we learn from our mistakes and try to do better. Um but that's my family, and all of their names had meaning and significance. Um Annie Evans says this about names. A name is what we call ourselves and what others call us. A name can reflect what we stand for, who we are as

Why Belonging Matters In A Lonely Age

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people, a name is how we distinguish ourselves from the masses and leave our mark in the world where we're simply not simply another faceless, nameless number. When someone's name creates a connection and appreciation between two people. Names matter and they're significant. When you learn somebody's name, it's the beginning point of a connection. Now, I'm gonna do something. I know you already greeted each other, and I really do appreciate how friendly this church is. Uh, but I'm gonna have us in a moment do an exercise where we are going to practice learning each other's names. Now, you may be next to somebody you think they know your name, but they may be like me and you've known them for six months and they actually don't remember your name. Uh now, if it's your spouse, uh, you should probably find somebody else to talk to or your parent. Um, but I want to practice what it means to learn each other's names. And we're gonna get up in a moment and do this. So, person number one is gonna get up and you're gonna say, Hello, my name is, and I'll say, Hi, my name is Carl. And this is where you can say, You belong here. Person number two, we'll pretend it's Pastor Lawrence. Hello, Carl, you belong here. My name is Pastor Lawrence. And then I would repeat back, nice to meet you, Pastor Lawrence. You belong here. So I want us to get up. If you know the person next to you, then try to find someone you don't know, but we're gonna get up and just say hi. This is a bit of a risk in the middle of a sermon, getting you guys to chat. Uh sorry, introverts. Uh, you can stay seated if you want to, but go ahead and let's get up and just introduce yourselves to some people. All right, good job, everybody. At the risk of cutting off some good conversations, we're gonna bring it back together. So, and I love looking around this room, seeing people walking across the room, meeting some different people, which is great. Here's my challenge for you. That was that was actually the easy part. My challenge for you is next week, you may want to ask their name after service again. Next week, I want you to see if you can see that person, say hi to them, greet them, and tell them you're happy that you're here and they belong. It doesn't mean that you have to now become best friends, but it's amazing the difference that it makes when we actually know people. Churches are good at cre about creating friendly environments and opportunities of friendliness, but it's these small exchanges that begin to develop and cultivate friendships. Um, you don't have to learn people's life stories, you don't have to go out for coffee afterwards. But just saying people's names each week that helps us all to feel like we belong. And that's important. So thank you for doing that. I'm an introvert, so if I had been in your shoes, I would have already left. So thank you for introverts in the room for doing that. So I love this, I love the songs that we sang this morning about Jesus' name. And we want to ask, what do we learn about the name Jesus? And Jesus is another name for Joshua. Uh in Aramaic, it's Yeshua. And uh I love that. We in America we have lots of Jesus and lots of Joshua's. One of my favorite things to do with my Josh friends is to go around and call them Jesus, yelling, Hey Jesus, how you doing? Because Jesus and Joshua are the same name. And in Jesus' day, there were lots of Jesus and Joshua's. That wasn't a special name, that was a name that a lot of young Jewish boys would have been called. And it was really Joshua is the original Hebrew name. Jesus is a Greek version of that name. So he wouldn't even know who who you were talking to if you called him Jesus. Uh he went by Joshua or Yeshua. But the name, even more significant, it had a meaning and a purpose. It meant and means Yahweh saves. In your Bibles, we don't usually use the word Yahweh. It's translated as Lord. And sometimes in the Old Testament, it's capitalized, L-O-R-D. The Lord saves. And we discover with Jesus' name a promise from God that when we say the name of Jesus, we're reminding God and ourselves this promise that God saves. When you give that problem to Jesus, when you ask for forgiveness for something wrong that you've done, when you are happy about the things that are happening in your life, we're reminding ourselves and God over and over that God saves. God saves us from the difficult situations in our lives. And the reason we're able to celebrate is because God saved us into those situations. The name of Jesus is powerful and it's a powerful reminder. If nothing else that you can remember today, I hope you can remember what Jesus' name means. It's not just a tagline to your prayers, it's a promise from God that He saves you. And he's saving you from those problems and saving you into those celebrations. His name is important. Matthew 121, when Joseph is told about Jesus' name, he says, She will give birth, Mary, to a son. And you're to name him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. Jesus came to save you and I from our sins. But more than that, the reason he saved us from our sins or the wrong things we did and are doing is to save us into the new life that he promises through the power of the resurrection. And so we want

Learn Names And Say You Belong

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to remember what the name of Jesus means because it's powerful. But our name also tells us something. Our name tells us that we belong to Christ. Did you know that the word Christian, it was a made-up name, and it means little Christ. It was meant actually as a nickname that was meant to be an insult by the people of Antioch. They were known for make nicknames. Uh and we hear here in Acts, it says, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians. Acts 11, 26. That's where our name came from. And it means little Christ. Which is pretty amazing. It identifies for us that we are followers of Jesus, that we are followers of the one who saves. When we say that we're Christians, we're telling the whole world who we belong to. And if we want to talk about the need to belong, we need to begin with the one we belong to. And the one we belong to is Christ. The great thing for you and I is that God is listening to us because of Jesus' name. Jesus said this to his disciples I'll do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. Now, I don't get to call God up and ask for a double double with animal fries and it's going to show up with an Uber driver. It's not that kind of asking a name. That would be nice. Asking names, it's according to God's will and God's promises. And sometimes we ask for things that aren't healthy for us, probably like a double double. But when we ask for God, it's a chance for him to mold our will into his will so that when we're asking God for things, he knows the good gifts that you and I need and he provides them for him because we're praying in Jesus' name. And God saves us. There's a power in Jesus' name. It's interesting, this exorcist, he's going to invoke the powerful name of Jesus. John says to Jesus, Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he wasn't following us. Craig Evans notes, Jesus' name is so powerful that someone outside of the circle of the disciples can invoke it to good effect. That's how a powerful name is. You don't have to know Jesus to be able to invoke the power of his name. In fact, knowing Jesus' name does not guarantee a relationship with him. You can come to church today, you can be sitting in that seat, you can worship the songs, you can help out with the coffee bar, you can greet, you can lead on the worship team. You could even be a pastor. And just because we know Jesus' name and we say the right words does not mean that we have a relationship with him. But you gotta come through the door, you gotta begin to know his name. But one of the things that this passage points out is there's this other exorcist. And the sad thing is the disciples say, we tried to stop him because he wasn't part of us. He knew Jesus' name. Why didn't they take this as an opportunity to say, you know his name? Come with me and let's introduce you to him. We need to be a people that are invitational with the name of Jesus. Society knows Jesus' name and they know the church. Often they'll say, I like Jesus, but you know, his family, they're problematic. Every family has challenges. But what are we doing as the family of God to introduce others to Jesus? It's important that we are showing people what Jesus' name, who that who we are connected to. In in Acts, we even have this curious story where there's these exorcists who cast out demons. And when they do, they say, Oh, I know Paul, I know Jesus, but I don't know you, and they beat them up. Jesus says this. Many will say, On my day, Lord, Lord, I prophesied in your name. We drove demons out in your name, we performed many miracles, but he says, I never knew you. Away from me, you evil doers. It's not about doing stuff for Jesus, it's about knowing and having a relationship with Jesus. It's more about being with Jesus than doing things for Jesus. John found he belonged by following Jesus. Jesus said, Come follow me, and I'll make you fishers of men. It's a simple, come follow me. And what's interesting in the gospel is we discover, as you've discovered, as you walk through Mark, is that John shows up in a lot of situations. John's there when Jesus heals Peter's mother-in-law. He's there when he heals Jairus' daughter, brings her back from the dead. He's there at the Transfiguration, where Jesus somehow glows and reveals his glory. He's going to show up at the Temple Mount when Jesus starts to talk about the temple's destruction and his return. And John's going to be with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane in some of Jesus' last moments before he's going to be taken off to be crucified. John had an intimacy with Jesus because he was following Jesus. If we want intimacy with Jesus, it means that we have to follow Jesus. But here's the trap, here's the challenge is that intimacy does not always mean alignment. John knew Jesus, and yet he didn't fully know Jesus' will and desires. It was sad that he was pushing this other guy away, this exorcist, rather than bringing him in. Interestingly, in the gospel, there are two times that John speaks. This is the first. You're going to hear him speak again in chapter 10. And both times when John speaks, he says the wrong thing. He screws up. If you haven't noticed that in

The Power In Jesus' Name

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Mark, the disciples screw up pretty well from beginning to end of this book. The only one that doesn't screw up is Jesus. And part of the story of Mark is it's not about our successes and our failures, it's about whether we continue to follow Jesus. And that's what John is doing. Here in these screw ups, we're going to learn some lessons in terms of what it means to create a community of belonging. The first lesson is follow Jesus, not us. Follow Jesus, not us. Now, notice this teacher, we saw someone cast in demons in your name. All good so far. Oh, we tried to stop him. Big mistake. Even worse, because he was not following us. Now, if you remember from Mark 117, Jesus' call was not follow us, it was come follow. Let's try that again. Come follow. Come follow me. If we're honest, church, we do a lot of come follow us. Come to Northgate. We have an amazing pastor. We've got amazing small groups. We've got amazing programs. Come follow us. Be part of our community. Oh, that other church, it didn't work out for them. Try it out for us. Or you've never been to church, come follow us. We've got signs, banners as you walk in that tell our values. We can tell you all the values. Come follow us. There's nothing wrong with that at all. We need to have a common sense of identity and community, but we want to make sure that the community is not on us, but it's on Jesus. There's an us and Jesus, but there's a whole lot more that goes in that, isn't there? So community, Northgate. Remember, belonging starts not by asking people to follow us, which we fail, like John did, but by following Jesus, the one who never fails. Second, we need to learn to serve others and don't make others serve us. This is the second time John speaks up. He and James ask Jesus about sitting at his left and right hand in his kingdom. And Jesus' response to that is, Well, whoever wants to become great in my kingdom amongst you must be your servant. They were looking for the status, the prestige, the glory, how to be in charge. And Jesus said, it's not about who's in charge, it's about who serves. Belonging is not about serving the church, it's not about serving the pastor, it's not about serving, you fill in the blank, it's about serving Jesus and about serving each other. If we want people to belong, we start with centering people on Christ. And second, we take that posture of service. How can I help you? How can I serve you? What do you need today? That's second for belonging. It's interesting. David Garland says there's an intolerance that insists that God can only work through those who can who we condone and who have met our standards. Follow us, serve us. We need to make sure that we're serving people and we're putting Christ first. The third simple hospitality. John said to him, Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him. That was what he said, but there's Jesus' response. This is what's up here. Truly I tell you, whoever gives a cold cup of water in my name has by no means lost the reward. Cup of water. It's pretty simple, isn't it? Now this has Hope's name and Hope's logo on it, so I'm representing hope today, but we all represent Jesus, right? Simple act. They were looking for the grand gestures. Cast out demons. We think we have to do big things for Jesus. Believe it or not, it's not your big grand gestures that win people over to Christ. It's the small things, the small moments. Did you give a kind word instead of being frustrated? Did you encourage somebody who was being discouraged that day? Did you ask people what's

Follow Jesus Serve Others Welcome All

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going on with your life? And truly listen in that moment. Being there for people in the small moments is what matters. It's giving the cup of cold water in our name. We want to do the miracles, and sometimes God invites us into that. But really, what it means to create a community of belonging, look for the small gestures, the small ways that you and I can help people to feel like they belong and matter. Because I feel like I belong a lot more when someone notices the small things in my life than someone who does the big gesture, the grand gesture, because it feels like the parading in front of me, trying to prove something. But this shows me that you know me. So belonging involves following Jesus, serving others, showing hospitality, giving a cup of water in Jesus' name.

Prayer To Build A Belonging Church

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I want us to wrap things up. As we're pulling things together, I'll be outside if you have any questions. Love to talk to you about school, love to talk to you about belonging, love to learn your name. You can test me on it. I'll probably fail. But I'd love to do that with you. But I also want to just pray with you now and invite Jesus to show someone in our lives who we can help them to feel like they belong today. So would you pray with me? Lord, thank you so much for today and thank you for this message. Thank you for the examples of John and the other disciples. Thank you that we can learn from their mistakes so that we can follow you faithfully. God, I admit, I confess that in my own insecurities and in my own sense of comfort, when I attend church, um, I often just want to get to my seat. Um and Lord, I just ask for all of us that we would be people that would be looking for someone who we can help feel like they matter today and that they belong. Help us to be people that are learning names and remembering names and sharing life together because you shared your life with us. If there's anyone here, Lord, that only knows your name but is not following you, I ask that you would move in their hearts to talk to someone here today to share that so that they can become a follower of you. For those of us that may have not been following you well, that we've confused intimacy with alignment. Lord, may you realign our hearts today and make it soft and malleable and open towards you. And may we be a community of compassion, of kindness, representing you in this world. In your son's name, amen.