#476 Move Series# 4, Unstoppable

#476 MOVE Series# 4, Unstoppable
By: Zach Sloane, Sept. 20, 2020

Recap:
Following Jesus changes everything:

He came out of the water as an accepted and empowered Son.

He went into the wild, overcoming the wilderness and all temptations.

We saw that Jesus on the MOVE, He changed the world.

Intro:
Being on the move is incredibly important. The Passover was to be eaten in haste… no time for leavened bread!

Exodus 12:11
This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.

Exodus 12:15
For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel.

Luke 12:1 “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”

If you’re moving in the unforced rhythms of grace you don’t have time or energy or opportunity to sit around and build and create formulas, patterns, and systems of rules and regulations that form the basis of performance religion.

Power Portals: we looked at how through the connection we have with God, established and maintained by Jesus Christ, we are able to access God and God through us accesses the world around us. Therefore, our movement is vital. He is moving through us, yet there are somethings that attempt to STOP our moving.

Dishonour (not recognizing worth)
Feeling Inadequate
Religious Tradition
Distance and Delay Mindset

Intro:
Jesus was moving because God was moving in Him and through him, and he knew it, he embraced it, and by faith got moving too!

John 5:17-20
“…My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working…“Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.

He lived and moved out of the Father’s genuine affection for Him as a person. We too are moving. But as we move with Jesus there are a few obstacles that attempt to STOP us from moving.

1. Dishonour (Not Recognizing who “we” are in Christ.)

In Mark 5 Jesus has just had amazing successes. He then decides to bring his disciples to his own hometown. This is what happens:

Mark 6: 1-3
Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. “Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing?

Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

They took offence at him, not the teaching or the miracles.

Offense:(σκανδαλίζω) skandalizó: set a snare (“stumbling-block”); (figuratively) “to hinder right conduct or thought; to cause to stumble” – literally, “to fall into a trap” (Abbott-Smith). See 4625 (skandalon).

Sometimes we can do this to others and even ourselves. We fail to see ourselves and others God has placed in our lives for who they, or even who we really are.

Mark 6:4
Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.”

dishonour: ἄτιμος, ον – atimos: properly, unrecognized, the opposite of attributing (acknowledging) worth

Mark 6:5-7
He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith. Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. 7 Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits

Jesus:
(i). Didn’t let the words of others or their lack of recognition define him.

(ii). He did not sit around and stop moving!

2. Feeling Inadequate
Almost preemptively, Jesus addresses all their concerns so they wouldn’t let any feelings of inadequacy stop them from moving out in faith.

Mark 6: 7-8 (MSG)
Jesus called the Twelve to him, and sent them out in pairs. He gave them authority and power to deal with the evil opposition. He sent them off with these instructions: “Don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this. You are the equipment. No special appeals for funds. Keep it simple.

Acts 1:8
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;

2 Corinthians 1:21
Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God,

3. Religious Tradition
Disciples report back on ministry success. They feed the 5000, Jesus calms the storm, ministers to the multitudes. He’s moving, has momentum, people are moving with him, and then… he finds himself surrounded by Pharisees.

Mark 7:5
Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?”

The disciples and the people are moving in a new found freedom, and immediately the religious want to stop them and bind them with religion and tradition.

Religion: the etymological roots = Latin word “religare,” which means to bind.

Mark 7:6-8, 13
He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions…. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”

We can become fossilized and stuck, bound to a standstill if we try to live by human traditions, ideals, rules, regulations, and not the power of God.

Colossians 2:8, 16, 20-23
See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ…

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day…

Why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

4. Distance and Delay Mindset
After the confrontation he tries to get away, but he is found by a Gentile woman who wants him to cast a demon out of her daughter. Jesus tells her:

Mark 7:27
“First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

But, the time was now!

Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Ephesians 1:3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

Revelation 22:2
“In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”

Summary:

1. Recognize the gift of God that you, and those around you are and carry.

2 Corinthians 5:16-17
So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

2. KNOW that you are fully resourced, equipped, and anointedto step out into what God is calling you to move into.

Luke 4:18
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me to…”

3. Live freely by the Spirit, don’t get bound up by religious tradition.

Galatians 5:16-18 (MSG)
“My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness…Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?”

4. Live fully in the NOW! Today is the day and now is the time.

2 Corinthians 6:2
“For He says: “In an acceptable time I have heard you, And in the day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”

We are on the move, don’t stop! Walk in the unforced rhythms of grace and you will keep moving with Him and be UNSTOPPABLE!

Romans 8:12-17 (MSG)
So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa..?”