Howdy Mars Hill Church.
Pastor Sutton Turner here and I'm in Ethiopia.
And I just want to thank Jesus
for continuing to use Mars Hill Church
to make disciples and plant churches.
Mars Hill Global is the arm of Mars Hill Church
that makes disciples
and plant churches all over the world.
We not only do church planting,
but we help better equip church planters.
Most recently we shipped and now distributed
1,000 bibles into Amharic,
which is the language here in Ethiopia.
And we launched a project
to translate Pastor Mark Driscoll's doctrine book into Spanish.
We have people from over 29 different countries
that are giving on a monthly basis to Mars Hill Global.
So whether you're a member
of one of our Mars Hill church locations
in the United States,
or you're 1 of 100,000 podcasters every single week,
we encourage you to pray
about giving above and beyond your tithe
to Mars Hill Global.
Thank you and let's see more materials translated,
more pastors sent out, more churches planted,
and more people saved by Jesus Christ.
I grew up in a Catholic family that left the church
pretty early in my life.
Then it was as a young man of about 19 years old
that I found Jesus.
And I became the first in a movement that's going
a very different direction in my family.
Yeah, I was in the army at the time I met her,
and Denise used to send me a Bible and gospel tracks
all the time,
and I wasn't all that much interested in that,
so I'd throw those away and I'd read her letters.
And when I came to the states,
I came up to the state of Washington
to meet her for the first time, and boy,
I just fell head over heels in love with her
and she didn't have the same kind of reaction to me.
And after about 3 days,
I asked her to take me back to the bus station.
It was on the way to the bus station
that we were involved in a terrible car accident
and I broke my back,
and I was in the local hospital there,
and Denise came in to visit me, and she left a Bible
and some gospel tracks on my nightstand.
And I picked them up and started to read them,
and read about Jesus' substitutionary death,
and his grace for me, and forgiveness of sins,
and that he wanted a different kind of life for me.
So, it was in the hospital bed
that I received Christ as my Savior.
And Denise and I got married about 6 months later,
and had 3 boys, and I went to graduate school
and got my degree in biblical counseling
from Grace Seminary, opened a private practice.
I was in practice for about 25 years
and I did just a ton of marriage counseling,
and counseling with single people
that were struggling with things,
and helping them through those times to get close to Jesus
in a different kind of a way
that wasn't just a behavioral fix,
but a transformation in the heart.
I'm the lead pastor of Mars Hill Sammamish.
I have been for about 2 years, and one of the greatest things
in the world is that my whole family is there.
My wife, my boys, their wives, and their children
all worship together with us.
To see my boys serving Jesus and loving the church,
to see them leading their family in worship,
and my grandchildren, seeing them love Jesus
and worship them every Sunday.
They bring them with them when they serve at the church,
they bring them when we're worshiping at the church.
It's been one of the real blessings of my life
to have them be a part of what Jesus is doing through me.
That's mine to enjoy every Sunday at
Mars Hill Sammamish Church.
All right, think back in your life.
Who's your favorite teacher, your best teacher?
For me, I only remember one of my elementary school teachers.
Her name was Mrs. Hitchcock.
She had long, red hair, wore red glasses,
loved to wear red clothes, and drove a red Volkswagen Bug.
She was a big personality, super encouraging,
and I just really loved her, liked her, enjoyed her,
appreciated her.
I was asking Gracie yesterday--we were driving out
to get a Christmas tree.
I asked her, "Well, who was your favorite teacher?"
She remembers every teacher she had in elementary school.
I only remember one, Mrs. Hitchcock.
Who's the worst teacher you ever had?
I won't tell you the name of my worst teacher,
but I'll tell you the story.
It was a teacher that was headed toward retirement,
but had basically given up a little before that.
And so this teacher would show up with a thermos
that was full of "coffee."
It was a little bit of coffee and a lot of liquor.
And wasn't a very good teacher, the first period.
By the second period, was not a very good teacher
but a happier teacher.
By the fourth period, was a slurred speech,
making no sense, but fairly entertaining teacher.
By sixth period, was a snoring, face-down-on-the-desk teacher,
passed out from all the liquor.
No, I was not homeschooled.
And it's amazing
because teachers positively and negatively impact us.
A good teacher can really change your life; so can a bad teacher.
A bad teacher can teach you some things that you've got to spend
the rest of your life unlearning.
And some of what we learn in life comes through experience,
but most of what we learn comes through instruction.
And even as we have experiences, we don't know how to interpret
them or respond to them apart from teaching.
And so the Bible has a lot of teaching,
it has a lot of teachers, it has a lot of admonition
and exhortation for teachers, and to speak of it more broadly,
this would include parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles,
small group leaders, student ministry leaders,
children's ministry, workers, elders, deacons, coaches,
older siblings, schoolteachers, authors who speak into our life,
mentors, pastors, preachers, you name it.
And in our day of technology, we have at our disposal
more teachers and teaching than at any point in the history
of the world.
So, this means that students need to be discerning, is this
a good teacher or a bad teacher, and that teachers
need to be working out of a love for God and a love for people,
and not just themselves where they're using the people
and using God, but they're loving God and loving people.
And so our instruction today is going to be a lot about
teachers, and you're going to learn about good teachers
and bad teachers.
Good teachers uplift God and help people;
bad teachers upset God and harm people.
And not every teacher in the Bible is a good teacher.
There are some bad ones.
You're going to meet some today in Malachi 2:1-9.
As you find that place in your Bible,
I want you to understand the tone.
How many of you have misunderstood a communication,
a letter, an e-mail, a text
because you didn't hear the tone.
There was no facial expression or emotion behind it.
You didn't have access to that so you misrepresented--
you misinterpreted the information.
It's important for us, as we come to the Bible,
that we don't just understand the content of what is being
said, but understand the context in which it is said,
so that we have not just the words,
but the tone and the facial expression,
if I could use that metaphor of the Lord behind it,
including the human author that he is speaking
and working through.
And when it comes to the Bible,
sometimes it's like a wedding, right?
The information is super exciting, we're all celebrating,
Jesus is alive, sin is forgiven, somebody got healed,
we live forever in heaven-- really great stuff.
Number two, some sections of the Bible are like a funeral,
somebody died, Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed,
a flood came in the days of Noah,
we murdered God on a cross, and the sky turned dark,
and it was a funeral.
There are other times that it's more like a classroom:
it's not super emotionally up or down; it's pretty consistent.
You need to learn this, know this, think about this,
work on this.
Proverbs is like that.
Here's what you need to know about relationships, and money,
and marriage, and sex, and investments,
and here's some things to learn and think about.
Oh, OK.
It's like a classroom.
I've got to capture that, and I've got to consider that.
Sometimes the tone of the Bible is more like a half-time speech
by a football coach.
How many of you guys played football?
I can still remember, I'd never played football--
I tried out in high school, I made the varsity somehow,
mainly just to stand on the sideline.
And we went in; we were down.
I think it was for our first game.
Half-time, we're down.
We get in the locker room-- coach is a big guy,
got a big mustache, kind of like a walrus--and he gets up
and just starts losing his mind, saying stuff I can't tell you,
and his face is all red,
and "We're going to war, men. We're going to war.
You've got to be willing to die for this."
And you know, we're all teenagers, so, "Whoo!"
He's all fired up, we're running out of the locker room,
running down the-- "We're going to kill you!"
You know?
And some parts of the Bible are like that.
You read it and you're like, "It's war time, boys!
Let's go! Whoo!"
But not all the time.
Other times, the Bible is more like a drill sergeant.
Any of you from a military background?
How many of you, boot camp didn't go like this?
You showed up, the drill sergeant hugged you
as you got off the bus, rubbed you on the back, and said,
"Tell me about your dad.
"Do you have any father issues?
"Tell me about your background.
"Is there anything I can be praying for you about?
"Is there anything we can do to make your stay
more comfortable?"
Did he earn the right to be heard so that he could speak
into your life?
Did he say, "You know what?
"I don't want to push on you.
"The first thing we need to do is build a relationship of trust
so that then I could give you some advice."
No, it was, "Shut up, maggot, and stand over there!"
"Oh, yes sir. OK, OK," you know?
And they just--they're commanding and they're
demanding, and sometimes the Bible's like that.
And here's what happens:
Topical preachers tend to pick a tone
that they're most comfortable with
and then teach sections of the Bible
that are in that emotional category.
If we're gonna walk through whole books of the Bible,
you're gonna have a lot of variance.
So today, not really a wedding sermon.
More like a drill sergeant sermon, OK?
So you're going to get yelled at and God's going to say
some intense things, really strong, difficult things.
But hear me on this: it's in love.
He says in chapter 1, verse 2, "I have loved you."
That's the banner that flies,
the flag that flies over the whole book.
So, just because God has strong words,
they're strong words from a loving Father.
He tells us that he's our Father in Malachi
and that he loves us early on.
"I love you. I'm your Dad."
So when Dad is going to have something a little intense
to say, it must be because he's very passionate,
it's very important, and there's a sense of urgency.
And hear me in this: the God of the Bible tends not to use
this tone all the time or for everyone,
but he reserves it most of the time for men,
particularly men who are leaders.
So, God turns up the volume for male leaders.
That's what we do at Mars Hill, right?
I yell at men more than single moms, OK?
And here, God's going to turn up the volume,
and it's for everyone, but especially for you men,
us men who are leaders.
OK, you ready?
Here we go:
The first thing we learn is that bad Bible teachers
harm their family.
Malachi 2:1-3, "And now, O priests."
The priests in the Old Testament
are like pastors.
They had the temple; we have the church.
They had the priests; we have the pastors.
It's like that.
Spiritual leaders.
"This command is for you."
So, it's specifically for the male leaders among God's people.
"If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart
to give honor to my name"-- it's not about you--
"says the Lord of hosts"--
the God who rules over the angels and the demons,
"then I will send the curse upon you,
and I will curse your blessings."
Children are a blessing.
He is going to curse their blessing.
"Indeed, I have already cursed them,
"because you do not lay it to heart.
Behold, I will rebuke your offspring."
So, they're bad Bible teachers.
How did they get to be a bad Bible teacher?
And you and I are all capable of this, susceptible to this.
Well, he tells us two things: closed ears and hard heart.
Closed ears-- you will not listen.
Who should you be listening to?
What should you be listening to?
What areas or aspects of your life,
that when God starts to speak to you about them through his Word,
through your conscience, through someone else, you're like,
"I don't want to hear that.
"Don't talk to me about--fill in the blank--money, relationships,
"attitude, sex, theology.
"Whatever it is, don't talk to me about that.
"I don't want to hear about that.
I don't have ears for that"?
And they have a hard heart.
God says, "And you won't take it to heart."
The Bible here is connecting our heart and our ears,
that listening requires both, that the truth comes in,
and it needs to sink in.
And oftentimes, the resistance to the truth is not that
we don't understand it, but it's that we don't like it.
This is like a kid who covers their ears,
or puts their earbuds in, or "La, la, la, la,"
makes a lot of noise to drown out their father's voice,
or walks away-- "I'm not listening to you."
That's what these adult children of God are doing,
particularly the pastors, the leaders.
And he says there will be a consequence for their family,
that their children will be cursed and rebuked.
Cursed and rebuked.
Now, you would think, with this much hanging in the balance that
they would have a sense of urgency to get it right,
but they don't, and what they're afraid of is
change and conflict.
When your ears are closed and your heart is hard,
it is because you don't like change
and you don't like conflict--
“change” meaning, "I am the way I am.
"It works for me. I like it this way.
"It's too much work.
If I do change, do you know what that'll cost me?"
How many of you, there are areas of your life God can't speak
to you because you don't want to change?
You're not listening.
And what God wants to do with the leaders is get them
to change and then be agents of change to go teach others
what it's like to change.
But the leaders won't change and they don't want to tell others
to change, in part because that leads to conflict.
And they're demonstrating this by having conflict with God.
God says, "I want you to change and help these people change."
That's what leaders are supposed to do.
And they say, "God, we don't want to change
"and we have conflict with you,
"and we're not going to tell these people to change
because they'll have conflict with us."
Hear me on this:
if your life is committed to resisting change
and avoiding conflict,
you'll end up where they are.
And now it's infecting and affecting their children.
Their children now will be cursed and rebuked, OK?
I've got five kids.
At this point, God's got my ear.
See, and some of you have lived under the myth that
you're an individual and that the decisions you make
don't affect anyone else.
And the same people that I hear say that oftentimes are bitter
against their parents, saying, "The decisions they made
"have implicated my life, and I'm very angry about that.
"But I'm an individual, and the decisions I make
don't affect anyone else."
That's what blind hypocrites do.
They clearly see how other sin has affected them
and they refuse to see how their sin is affecting others.
They close their eyes.
And here, God is trying to open their eyes and say,
"What you're doing is affecting your legacy, your children,
your blessing."
And some of you will be emotionally resistant
to this for this reason.
You will think it is an injustice and unfair.
For you, it will read like, you know,
"Dad was drinking and driving, and they arrested his kids."
That's not fair.
Why should the kids be penalized for what their father has done?
The only way--and this is what happens too, is that atheists
and critics of the Bible, they'll come along and say,
"See, God is unfair. God is unjust.
"God is mean. God is angry.
"God is harsh.
The God of the Old Testament is an ogre."
The only way you can get there is to wrongly assume that
the entire family is innocent.
They're not.
Have you ever seen where a family is in something together?
He's talking here about the priests.
They come from this line.
He's going to call them the “Levites,”
so you go way back in the Old Testament
to a guy named Levi.
And the priesthood was, generally speaking,
a family business.
Dad's a priest, has sons, the sons become priests.
Those sons have his grandsons; they become priests.
So, they're all in it together.
They're all on the payroll.
They're all on the staff.
They're all in the same events.
They're all teaching the same doctrine.
They're all working together.
So, God can't just say, "Mom and dad are really off."
Dad and mom are leading the family,
but the family is following them headlong over the cliff.
And these are not just little kids;
these are grown adults that should know better,
and they have access to the same Scriptures
and the same Holy Spirit.
Why is God so upset?
Why is God so angry?
Why is God trying to get their attention?
Why is his volume raised?
Why is his tone intense?
Because he loves, because he's concerned,
because it's reached a point of crisis.
I had a guy one time say,
"A father should never raise his voice at his children."
I said, "Well, what if the house is on fire?"
There are occasions where it's urgent.
Here's what's happening in Malachi 2
and why God is so concerned.
Next week, we'll look into it.
Bring a helmet, OK?
It's going to be intense.
The next section, Malachi 2:10-16,
here's what the pastors are doing.
They're marrying believing women.
As they get older, they divorce their believing wife without
any good reason, to run off with younger, hotter, unbelieving,
godless women that they've been committing adultery with,
and they're still the pastors.
Then, the children of these pastors are asking their dad
to officiate their wedding to unbelievers, and dad does it.
And these children are asking their dad to bless their
relationship where they're living and sleeping together,
and their dad does it.
And then the other leaders in the church decide,
"Well, we'd like a trophy wife instead of a trophy marriage,
"so how about if we trade in our wife and go get
a couple other options?"
And the pastor says, "That's OK.
"Who are we to judge?
"We believe in tolerance and diversity,
and God's a God of love."
And everybody's getting divorced,
and everybody's committing adultery,
and all the singles are dating people that are unbelievers,
and it all starts with corruption at the top.
Imagine if I came to you and I said this week,
"Grace and I are both 43, and I've met a 22-year-old girl
"and a 21-year-old girl,
"and I'm trading her in for those two girls.
"We're getting a divorce, but that's OK.
"I'll still be here next week to preach; bring your Bible.
"Oh, and by the way, the gals I'm running off with,
"they're not Christians.
"And I've talked to my sons about this, and I want them
"to marry non-Christians.
"And my daughters are welcome to marry non-Christians.
"And I was talking to some other elders in the church,
"and they're not feeling very sexually satisfied,
"so they're going to get girlfriends and divorces.
"And all of you singles who are living and sleeping together,
"feel free to sign up for our premarital class.
"We just edited our curriculum, and God's OK
with everything you're doing."
Yes or no, that has some massive implications?
That's exactly what's happening in Malachi.
Read ahead next week to the rest of Malachi 2.
God's like, "No, I'm not OK with this.
"This is wrong. You're ruining your marriage.
"You're ruining your church. You're ruining your family.
"You're ruining your legacy. You're dishonoring my name.
We can't reach anybody if you're lost."
It's urgent.
OK, I'll tell you this.
As a leader,
I live under this burden of responsibility.
All leaders should live under that burden of responsibility,
and they are not, and it's harming their family.
Number two, bad Bible teachers harm themselves.
OK, before we read it, this is pretty intense.
This next section, you would be very--some of you,
some of you religious people,
you're head is going to explode, OK?
So, if you're sitting next to a religious person,
lean over because their head's going to explode here
in a minute.
And as a religious person, you're like,
"You should never say mean things, or bad things,
or say--use bad words," and then God does,
and their head explodes because they're holier than God.
OK, should we read the Bible together?
Yes or no, Mars Hill?
Should we read the Bible together?
OK, well, what's God say?
"I will spread dung on your faces."
How many of you didn't see that coming?
How many of you have been in church a long time, you're like,
"I never got the dung- on-my-face sermon.
"I never got that one.
I never got that one."
How many of you are like, "I didn't see that VeggieTale.
"Did VeggieTales pick that one up?
I don't think they picked that one up."
I was in Baptist church, we had a flannelgraph.
We didn't have a... on our flannelgraph
to put on their faces.
It's awkward, right?
It's 2,500 years ago.
It was no more appropriate then than it is now.
How many of you, if your kids said this,
you'd put a bar of soap in their mouth, right?
If you had two sons and one looked at the other like,
"I'm going to poop on your face," you're like,
"You can't say that."
"It's in the Bible. I read it in Malachi.
Biblical."
Some of you, you're immediately doing the Hebrew.
You're like, "Well, what does dung mean in Hebrew?"
You're trying to find an off-ramp.
You're just like, "I don't like where this is going.
I need an off-ramp."
It's dung, feces, turds, crap.
Yes, that's what it says.
Some of you are like, "I can't believe he said that."
It's in the book.
Now you know why some people don't preach through whole books
of the Bible.
What do you do with that?
Drive around it. Drive around it.
Do you think--OK, do you think this was an odd day for Malachi?
"Malachi?" "Yes, Lord."
"I need you to write some stuff down."
"Really? OK.
What about the priests, can't they do it?"
"No, actually, this is for them.
Get something to write with, son."
"OK, all right, Father.
OK, OK."
So Malachi's, you know, sitting, "All right, I'm ready, Lord.
"I'm ready, OK. I'm ready, OK.
What do you want me to write down?"
"All right, tell them--you ready, son?"
"Yeah, I'm ready, Dad.
OK, what do you want me to write down?"
"OK, write this: 'I will spread dung on your face!'"
"Really? Really?
"We're going to do this? Really?
"This is my first book. Do I have to start here?
"Oh, this is going to go so bad on Twitter.
"I can't believe it.
"Like, this is going to Tweet horribly.
"Are you sure, Lord, because cell coverage
"is terrible out here.
"I thought you said, 'dung.' Oh, you did?
"Oh, OK, well, do I get any royalties from this book?
"No, it's a--really? Oh boy.
OK, well, what do you want me to do with it?"
"I want you to go on a book tour.
"We're going to call it, 'Spread Dung on Your Face Tour.'
"And you're going to go from city to city
"and yell at people,
and talk about me smearing dung in their face."
How many of you, if they were advertising this job
on Craigslist, you'd just let it go?
You'd be like, "I'll find something else for a career."
Looking for one crazy prophet
who does not have a fear of feces.
I mean, this is a bizarre text, amen?
Yes.
How many of you read ahead, saw it coming,
that's why you're here?
You're like, "I can't wait to see what he does with this."
OK, God doesn't use this language a lot.
It's not like Dung-on- Your-Face Tuesday, right?
It's--God uses strong language rarely in extreme circumstances
where people aren't listening, OK?
So, you young guys, don't just be like, "That's it.
I've got a poopy verse and I'm just going to use that."
No, OK?
He doesn't do this all the time.
This is very rare because the circumstances are very dire,
but he uses bad words for bad things.
"I will spread dung on your faces,
"the dung of your offerings,
"and you shall be taken away with it.
"So shall you know that I have sent this command to you,
"that my covenant with Levi may stand, says the Lord of hosts.
"My covenant with him was one of life and peace,
"and I gave them to him.
"It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me.
"He stood in awe of my name.
"True instruction was in his mouth,
"no wrong was found on his lips.
"He walked with me in peace and uprightness,
"and turned many from iniquity or sin.
For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge,"--
he's a teacher--
"people should seek instruction from his mouth,
for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts."
He talks about a covenant.
God says, "I made a covenant with the Levites,
the priests, the leaders."
And a covenant is this:
God blesses us and gives us burdens.
The burdens are obedience that is going to be difficult.
It's going to come with a price.
God blesses and gives us burdens.
And the blessing here is, "I'm going to bless you
and your family," but the burden is,
"You're going to be my messenger.
"You're not allowed to say what you want.
"You're not allowed to say what you think.
You need to echo me."
All right, it's like a father teaching their kids to talk.
Dad says something; kid says what Dad says.
That's how we learn to speak.
God says, "It's going to be like that.
"I'm going to say something,
"and then you're going to say it to the people.
"And for every action, there's a reaction.
"There's going to be a backlash against you.
It's going to come at a price."
All right, the prophets are exiled, they're out-cast,
they're hated, they're murdered.
There's a burden with that.
The blessing is, "I'll take care of you and your family."
The burden is, "You need to be my messenger."
They wanted to renegotiate their deal,
and you can't do that in a covenant.
It's not a contract; it's a covenant.
And their deal was this: "All right, Lord,
"how about we say whatever we want
"and you still bless us?
Deal?"
And the answer is no.
It's like a husband and a wife get married.
The terms of the covenant are fidelity.
The wife looks at the husband and says,
"OK, how about you keep all of your vows and I rewrite mine?
I put in boyfriend and some other things."
No, you can't rewrite the covenant once you're in it.
You need to know that Christianity's a covenant,
that God has a relationship with his people on his terms,
and you don't get to be an exception to the rule,
getting all the benefits and blessings like eternal life,
and none of the burdens and obligations
walking with him faithfully.
It's an all-or-nothing deal.
And they wanted to receive all from the Lord
and give nothing to the Lord.
God says, "No."
The consequence for breaching the covenant was God threatening
to wipe feces on their face.
And what's going to happen, then,
is, this is going to get all over their lips, right?
The lips they use to teach with.
And what God is saying is, "As bad as that sounds to you,
your instruction is to me."
God's saying, "Since it's nothing but dung coming out,
"we may as well rub some dung on it so that everybody knows
what comes out of your mouth is nothing but waste."
Strong words.
A couple of things about this:
God holds teachers accountable because students follow their
teacher, and if their teacher is heading off a cliff,
it's bad for the students.
Number two, God not only sees the external,
but he sees the internal.
And externally, if you looked at these religious professionals,
oh, they seem so holy.
Before they go in the temple, they wash their hands,
they change their clothes, they say their prayers.
They visit the sick in the hospital.
They smile.
They have those compelling eyes.
They're so compassionate.
God says, "I see your heart,
"and it's disgusting.
"You're not loving me; you're using me.
"You're not loving people; you're using people.
"And the people are confused
"because they can't see your heart.
"All they see is your face, so I'm going to take the contents
"of your heart and smear it on your face so that the people
see you as I see you."
Number three, this is as bad as it gets.
A priest was to stay clean, pure, ritually-speaking,
so they could be in the presence of God.
How many of you have gone fishing and gutted a fish,
or gone hunting and gutted an animal,
or been a butcher and gutted your own meat?
The first thing you learn is, this part we keep,
this part we don't.
Know what I'm talking about?
OK, if you catch a fish, don't eat all of it.
Get rid of certain portions of the fish.
So it is in the sacrificial system.
The priest would offer sacrifices of animals,
and it was to be offered unto the Lord,
but there were parts that were ritually unclean,
the nasty parts.
According to the law, those were to be taken outside of the camp
and burned.
And God is saying, "I'm going to take those unclean parts
"and smear them on your face.
Because you are unclean, I will show you as unclean."
This means that they're defiled.
This means that they are disgraced.
This means that they are disqualified.
They can no longer be priests.
God is threatening here, and he says it twice with a preface
of "if" in this section.
So he's giving them an opportunity to repent,
but he's saying, "I'm going to fire all the priests.
"You're all unemployed.
"You're all cast away from my presence.
"You're all former ministers of mine.
I'm getting rid of everybody."
Why is this?
It's bad enough when someone harms themselves,
but when they start harming their students,
God takes it very seriously.
So that's his next point,
that bad Bible teachers harm their students.
Malachi 2:8-9, "But you have turned aside from the way."
All right, you were walking down a straight path,
and now you're going down another path.
"You have caused many to stumble."
You're putting sin, and folly, and rebellion in front of people,
and they're tripping over it.
"You've corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts,
"so I make you despised and abased before all the people,
"inasmuch as you do not keep my ways but show partiality
in your instruction."
A teacher of God's word is to be imparting life and nourishment
to people.
This is why Jesus looks at Peter after his resurrection and says,
"Peter, feed my sheep."
Peter's feeding is teaching.
The teaching of God's Word is to be nourishment
and sustenance that people would grow in Christ's likeness.
That's why Paul tells a young man to teach sound doctrine,
and the word there is literally "healthy."
The reason why God is so frustrated is, imagine a mother
who changed her child's diaper and then fed it to the child.
There's no nourishment in it.
The kid's going to get sick and eventually they're going to die.
Some spiritual leaders are like that.
They feed people nothing but waste, and it causes people
to get sick, spiritually speaking, and to die.
And see, we would say,
"Oh, but there's different interpretations
"and perspectives, and pluralism, and tolerance,
"and diversity, and 'Who are you to judge?'
and 'That's not loving.'"
God's like, "I'll tell you what's loving.
Not feeding waste to people and making them sick."
And here, they've come to serve up trays of waste, dung,
through what he calls corruption and partiality.
“Corruption” meaning, "I'm getting a good living,
"and if I tell these people this is wrong,
"they're going to stop giving
"and they're going to start leaving.
"And they could hurt my bottom line, make my life harder.
"I've got to work more.
Don't want to do that."
Partiality, "Oh, well, is it right or wrong?
"Well, tell me, who are you?
"You're rich and powerful; you get to do what you want.
"You're poor and powerless;
"the rules are different for you.
"We have different rules for different people
"because we show partiality.
"We have partiality for different doctrines.
"Oh, there's certain doctrines we like--God loves us.
"Other doctrines we don't like--God's angry with us.
"Certain doctrines we love, oh, there's heaven.
"Oh, other things, oh hell, don't like that,
"so we're going to be God's editors
"and not God's messengers.
"We want this to be easy for us as leaders.
We want to take this and make it into a job."
And it's amazing that, though the book is 2,500 years old,
the issues aren't.
We don't like to speak negatively of other churches,
but let me just say this:
just because there's a cross on the top doesn't mean
you'll walk in and hear Christ from the pulpit.
There are some churches that hate sin, love Jesus,
and teach the Bible.
There's a lot of them.
There's a lot of them that smell like Malachi chapter 2.
I'll give you an example,
an illustration of a Malachi 2 moment:
We started Mars Hill; I was 25.
Started teaching the Bible-- most of you guys know the story--
a little Community Group Bible study on our couch, Grace and I,
for about a dozen people.
And a handful of them are still at Mars Hill,
and we appreciate that.
And I didn't get paid for the first 3 years. We were small;
there was no money coming in.
I didn't know if I'd ever get to stop my side job,
which was fine.
I just wanted to teach the Bible,
so I worked a side job.
And we had Ashley by that point, so Grace was home, being a mom,
and I was taking any gig I could to preach.
I'd go and preach at a youth camp or a student ministry--
anything. I'd go teach.
I wanted to get more hours in
and learn how to teach the Bible.
And I got what I thought was a big gig.
They're going to put me on an airplane, which was a big gig,
and they flew me to Florida for a national conference of
a main line liberal Protestant denomination that I didn't know
anything about because I didn't grow up Protestant--
I grew up Catholic.
And they wanted me to do a breakout seminar
on how to reach young people, and I was a young person,
so apparently I was ready to do that.
This was a long time ago when I had no gray in my beard,
I could eat carbohydrates, I could stay up past 10--
long time ago.
So, I show up and I had--I was scheduled to teach a number
of lectures through the course of the day,
and the first one I started in, Romans 1--full tank of gas,
ready to go.
"I'm not ashamed of the gospel.
"It's the power of God for the salvation
"of everyone who believes.
"It all rises and falls--it all begins and ends with
"the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
"He died in our place for our sins!
He rose from the grave! He alone saves!"
And I'm going for it.
"And you've got to preach this to young people.
Get them excited about Jesus."
And a pastor raises his hand.
He said, "What if you don't really believe that?"
I was like, "What?"
He said, "The resurrection part."
I was like, "Do you not believe in the resurrection?"
He said, "Well, I'm not sure."
I said, "What do you do for a living?"
He said, "I'm a pastor."
This is like I'm teaching at a vegan conference
and they're not sure that vegetables exist.
Like, what?
What are you doing here?
What are you doing?
How did you get in here?
He said, "Well, I'm not sure I believe
"in the resurrection of Jesus.
Is there any way to reach young people?"
I said, "You can't reach young people if you're going to hell."
OK, today, this is the sanctified version of me.
Imagine 15 years ago what that guy looked like.
I was two guys back on the evolutionary chart,
with a sloped forehead saying crazy stuff, you know?
And I was like, "Well, you're going to hell.
"You shouldn't teach anybody.
"If they'll follow you, they'll follow you to hell.
You're going to burn in hell."
And I just kept going for it in front of all the other pastors
who were his peers.
And then I looked around and I realized that I wasn't getting
the groundswell of support
from the crowd that I was anticipating.
They're all looking at me like, "Hmm."
And I said, "OK, how many of you are not certain that Jesus
rose from the dead?"
and a bunch of hands went up from the pastors.
So, I went for it again.
"You're all going to hell.
You're all going to burn forever!"
Like, I've got no reverse gear, right?
Like, I'm forward, you know?
And so I thought, "I'm going to do an altar call.
"I'm going to invite them to turn from sin.
"We're going to do Billy Graham right here with the pastors.
"This'll be like the best day ever.
All the pastors got saved."
So I'm like, "All right, who wants to give their life
to Jesus?"
Did not get the response that I was anticipating.
People did get up to walk the aisle,
but it was to walk out of the seminar that I was teaching,
not to come forward to receive Jesus.
Next thing I know, an older person comes in and says,
"Mark, thank you for your time.
Feel free to take the rest of the day off."
I was like, "Oh man, I have two more lectures."
They're like, "No you don't, OK?"
So I was talking to one of the honest pastors afterward.
I was like, "Dude, why are you a pastor if you don't believe
in the resurrection?"
I'm, you know, in my 20s.
I didn't understand this.
He said, "Well, I kind of grew up in church.
"And then I went to seminary, and I got a degree.
"And you know, I've read a lot, and I'm not sure Jesus rose
"from the dead, and I've got a lot of questions.
"And once you get a seminary degree,
"you can't really go get another job.
"There's no way to pay the bills.
"And my retirement account's tied up,
"and we're living at the church house,
"the parsonage.
"And you know, I've got my benefits, my wife's sick,
"and everything's tied up.
"And so, you know, I just am trying to do a good job
and just hang in there and help people."
That's what's going on in Malachi 2.
And people are following these people,
and they're headed off a cliff.
Now, in saying this, I don't want to give this impression.
I want to be careful in this.
I'm not saying, "The world is filled with bad Bible teachers,
and me," because that would be bad Bible teaching.
There's actually a lot of good Bible teachers,
and there's some that aren't.
Some of you are visiting.
You need to find a home church.
Some of you, God's going to move you because there's
other churches that love Jesus and preach the Bible,
and you're really needed there to help them grow,
and that's a good thing.
Some of you, for school or work, God's going to relocate you.
Podcasters will hear this.
I need to plug into a local church.
Because our job is not to preach the Bible at a local church
and send it out to the world so that people wouldn't care
about their local church.
That being said, I would like to give you five things to look for
when you're looking for a good Bible teacher,
and they come from Malachi 2:5-7.
And I really do love the people that I have an opportunity
to teach, and whether or not I ever get to teach them again,
I want them to learn God's Word.
It doesn't matter necessarily who is teaching;
it matters what's being taught.
And if it's me, great, if it's somebody else, great.
As long as the Bible's open and it's about Jesus,
I want you to eat well, OK?
And here's five things to look for in a Bible teacher.
And I say this as well because some of you want to be
Bible teachers.
You want to lead Community Groups,
Redemption Groups, Student Ministry,
Kids' Ministry, Women's Ministry, mentoring.
Some of you want to be deacons, some of you want to be elders,
some of you want to be church planters, whatever.
OK, these are things to aspire to for those who feel called
to teach and these are things to look for for those
who are under teaching.
Number one, character.
It says of Levi, and I'm just pulling from Malachi 2:5-7,
quote, "He feared me," God says,
"and he stood in awe of my name."
All right, Levi's issue was,
"What does this say about the Lord?
How I live my life, it says something about the Lord."
We'd say he lived coram Deo.
He lived in the face of God.
Malachi is a man of character as well.
He fears God, and he loves people.
They can't look at him and say,
"You committed adultery. You ran off on your wife.
You're no better than us."
No, no, they can't throw any of that at Malachi because
he wasn't a perfect man, but he was a man of character.
OK, and let me say this.
I want to be careful.
Some of you are religious neatniks and nitpicks because
you've been hurt by spiritual authority over you or because
you don't want spiritual authority over you.
You will find any fault or flaw with any leader.
Like, if Jesus came back, you'd be like,
"I don't like his sandals. I just don't like his look.
"He looks hippie; he reminds me of the leftists.
I don't like it."
You'll find some way to criticize everyone.
I'm not talking to you about giving you permission to go
seeking ways to discredit teachers so that you're
an authority unto yourself and under no one's authority.
The issue here is not a minor one; it's adultery,
and unbiblical divorce,
and remarriage to unbelieving women.
That's huge.
It's not just, "Well, I have a criticism of this leader.
It's a big deal."
Character, character, character.
Are they faithful to their wife?
Are they stealing money?
Are they out of control?
Number two, clarity, meaning you know what they're talking about.
It says this of Levi, "True instruction was in his mouth,
and no wrong was found on his lips."
You knew what he was talking about.
Malachi, true or false, we pretty much know what
Malachi's talking about?
How many of, you read Malachi, you're like,
"I think God's angry, and the priests are nasty.
That's kind of what I got out of it."
Good.
I remember some years ago there was a sort of young, hip,
up-and-coming teacher, and everybody's like,
"Man, so arty, so cool,
so poetic, amazing stories, mind-bending, so cool."
I was like, "What is he saying? What is he saying?"
They're like, "We don't know. It's so amazing."
That's a turd with sprinkles, not a candy bar.
There's nothing there.
There's no nourishment in it, right?
It's fine to be a good communicator,
but you need to have good content.
Clarity.
OK, so let me make it clear:
There's one God. He made you. You sinned against him.
He loves you, so he came as Jesus Christ to save you.
Jesus lived without sin, died on the cross in your place
for your sins. Three days later, rose from death.
He's ascended, seated in heaven right now,
coming again to judge the living and the dead.
You've got two options, bottom line:
You close your ears, you harden your heart,
you live in your sin, you stand before him,
and you spend forever in the conscious,
eternal torments of hell. Or you open your ears,
you soften your heart, you confess your sins,
you receive him as Lord and Savior,
you close your eyes in death, you awaken to see him
face-to-face and to be with him forever in heaven.
Clear.
OK, there's nothing worse than someone who opens the book
and fog comes out.
It's like, "I don't know where we're going.
"I can't see what we're talking about.
The guy opened the book and fog came out."
Clarity.
I try to be clear, and not everybody likes that.
And sometimes it's my personality,
my resurrected personality,
going to be a sweet guy-- that guy.
And by God's grace, I'm getting more sweeter.
Those that have been around for a while will tell you,
"He's a nice guy compared to the guy he was."
But for me, I never want to back away from clarity.
I always get frustrated watching a media interview,
and the interviewer will be like,
"All right, millions are watching.
Is Jesus God?"
They're like, "Well, there's various perspectives,
and critics believe, and the ancient hieroglyphics--"
And I'm like, "Say yes!"
I'm just slamming the TV, "Say yes!
Come on!"
"Well, what will people think of me?"
That you were clear.
See, the Bible teacher's job is not always to be liked,
but to always be clear.
Number three, consistency.
It says of Levi, quote, "He walked with me in peace
and righteousness."
When the Bible uses the language of "walk,"
this is a lifestyle, walking with God.
It's not like, "Well, he walked with me one season,
"and then he walked with his girlfriend when his wife
"wasn't looking, and then he walked over to the church
"and embezzled some money,
"and then walked away from the ministry because he just
"didn't feel like it, and then walked back in
and asked for his job."
It's like, that's not a good walk.
"Walked with me."
Eugene Peterson calls this
"long obedience in the same direction."
All right, a true teacher of God's Word
can't have a reverse gear.
They're like, "I love Jesus, and now I don't,
and I'm walking with Jesus, and now I'm not."
Like, you've got to keep going forward.
Like Billy Graham, consistency.
What's Billy Graham been talking about his whole life?
The cross of Jesus Christ.
Billy just preached his last sermon.
What was it on?
The cross of Jesus Christ.
Good job, Billy.
I praise God for Billy.
Right, you're like, "What's Billy talking about?"
Sin, and Jesus, and salvation.
Anything else?
That's it.
And then when he dies, Jesus will say, "Good job, Billy.
That was consistency."
Some of you get enamored by what is new and you get bored with
what is eternal.
The key is to be consistent over time.
I've had people come up and say, "Pastor Mark,
what you told us today, we already knew that."
Well, maybe you needed to hear it again--that's why sometimes
the Bible says things more than once--or maybe somebody
just showed up and they never heard it.
Consistency.
Courage, number four.
It says, "Levi turned many from inequity."
This takes courage.
What this means is sin--and here in this,
most doctrinal problems are actually sexual problems,
historically, even in our own day.
What it is is people want to have some sort of sex that God
says no to, and all of a sudden they will couch it
as theological problems.
That's what's going on in Malachi.
Guys are like, "I want to be with that girl, not my wife.
We have theological issues."
No we don't; we have pant issues-- with theological implications.
We have pant issues.
And when everybody's got an appetite to go do something
sinful, to turn them from their inequity,
oh, that takes some courage.
Single people, "No, no, no, no, no, no,
"you can't sleep with them, can't live with them.
"They're not a believer, you can't date them.
"No, turn, turn, turn.
"Married couples, no, no, no, no adultery.
"No, no, no, no coveting anybody else's spouse.
"No, no, no, no pornography.
No, no, no, no, no, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn."
There's resistance because people's desires for evil can be
very strong, and so to redirect them, it can be
very, very complicated.
True or false, Malachi's got some courage?
I mean, to say what he has to say, courage.
You young guys, hear me in this:
it's not enough to be courageous,
you need to be courageous for the right thing.
All right, that's the difference between a soldier
and a terrorist.
They both have courage, they just don't have the right cause.
At least, the terrorist does not.
As soon as I say courage, there's immediately young guys
who are like, "Yeah, I'm going to fight with all
"religious leaders.
I'm going to be Malachi."
No, you're not. No, you're not.
Be courageous for the glory of God and the good of others,
not for your own power base.
And number five, Christ.
Every good Bible teacher points you to Jesus Christ.
If you forget everything I said, and you probably will except for
the feces part, remember this:
a good Bible teacher understands
that the Scripture is for us, but it's not about us--
it's about Jesus.
Any time that the Bible is open and Jesus is not proclaimed,
the Bible was not rightly opened.
Malachi is all about Jesus.
You're going to see it in the next few weeks
and you can read ahead.
Malachi 3, "The Lord you are seeking will come to
his temple."
Hmm, so the Lord's going to become a man,
walk around on the earth,
and go to a place called the Temple
that was destroyed in 70 A.D., historical continuum.
The Lord Jesus is going to come to his temple.
How will we know that he's coming?
Chapter 4, the end of Malachi, a guy who's a prophet like
Elijah's going to come and preach repentance
and get people's hearts ready for the coming of Jesus.
What's his name?
John the Baptizer.
And then this is God's final word for about 400 years.
What he's saying is, "Get ready for the coming of Jesus!"
And we're in the same position.
They were awaiting Jesus' first coming;
we're awaiting his second coming.
I don't know if you know this: we're waiting for Jesus Christ
to come again, to judge the living and the dead.
They were waiting for him to come;
we're waiting for him to come again.
And they kind of got bored, and they kind of got tempted,
and they kind of got indifferent,
and they kind of got settled in, they kind of got wearisome.
And God's trying to get their attention to say,
"No, no, no, no, no, it's going to be 400 years.
"What about your legacy?
"What about your kids, your grandkids?
"What about the people in your Community Group?
"What about the people in your church?
"What about those people? Are they going to be faithful?
"When you're dead and gone, will anybody be waiting
for the coming of Jesus?"
He's trying to get them up from their circumstance and get
their eyes and our eyes fixated on the horizon of opportunity
in our future.
And then Jesus Christ does come, and then we realize why God
was so frustrated with the priests.
The priests were a temporary placeholder until the coming
of Jesus Christ, our great High Priest,
and he comes to mediate between men and God.
That's what priests do.
And he does it as God becoming a man.
Well, these priests were not mediating between men and God.
They were not holy; they were unholy.
We needed Jesus to be our mediator.
Jesus comes as well to teach.
They were supposed to teach, but they weren't great teachers.
Jesus comes as a rabbi, the perfect teacher,
and he teaches that all the Scripture's about him.
And they're offering sacrifices,
but they're offering lame sacrifices.
And Jesus comes and offers himself as the perfect sacrifice
in our place for our sins.
So, the whole point of the priesthood was foreshadowing
the forthcoming of Jesus as our mediator, teacher, sacrifice.
As Hebrews says, our great High Priest.
And these priests are taking advantage of this opportunity
and they're corrupting this ministry
that ultimately belongs to Jesus.
And hear me in this: the ministry belongs to Jesus.
The problem with the priests was they thought
it was their ministry.
It's Jesus' ministry.
They couldn't do with it as they wanted.
They needed to do with it as he wanted.
Mars Hill is not my ministry. It's Jesus' ministry.
It's not your ministry; it's not our ministry. It's his ministry.
They lost sight of that.
They lost sight of that, and as a result,
they were not ready to meet Jesus at his coming.
If you give me a moment, I'd like to fix your eyes
toward the horizon.
That's what God is doing here.
He's trying to get people ready for 400 years.
I don't know how many years it'll be until Jesus comes back,
but between now and then,
we want to build and leave a legacy.
Looking back and forward--those of you who know my story--it's
not all about my story, but some things to pray for for me.
God saved me when I was 19.
I was a religious guy, moral and spiritual,
didn't know Jesus.
I was like the guys in Malachi.
I would say I believed in God, and I was going to do
whatever I wanted.
And then when I became a Christian at 19,
God spoke to me at a men's retreat for my church.
And it was an awesome church.
I'm glad I didn't have to unlearn a lot
from my first pastor.
He was awesome.
God spoke to me.
He said, "Marry Grace, preach the Bible, train men,
plant churches"--four things.
Audible voice of God doesn't happen a lot.
So, I was unsure.
This had never happened to me, so I took it to my pastor.
I said, "OK, here's what I heard.
What should I do?"
Because there's nothing worse than a 19-year-old guy
with a "Jesus told me" flag.
You 19-year-old guys, you're like, "Jesus told me.
Jesus told me that you're supposed to be my wife."
Really, really?
Ask her dad if that's what Jesus put on the flag.
You know, go ask.
"Jesus told me to be an elder."
OK, Jesus told me it'll be 50 years.
Hmm, interesting how we both got a call.
You know, there's nothing worse than somebody running around
with a "God told me" flag.
So, if you think you've got a "God told me" flag,
take it to godly leadership and see if godly leadership agrees
it's a flag that Jesus gave you.
So, I came to my pastor and the elders and I said,
"Here's what I think Jesus told me,
"but you're my pastor. I don't know,
what do you think?"
He said, "I'm going to think about it, pray about it.
We'll get back to you."
"OK, thanks."
He came back, he said, "I believe that was a word
"from the Lord.
"That's what you need to do with the rest of your life.
I'll pray for you."
"OK."
He started discipling me and encouraging--OK.
He said, "OK, you are supposed to preach the Bible.
"You're not ready.
"You should plant a church, but you're nowhere near ready.
You should marry Grace if she'll have you, and you're not ready."
I was like, "OK, so there's a lot of work to do."
Just because God calls you doesn't mean you're ready.
I had a lot of work to do.
I married Grace at 21. Pastor did the service.
We graduated, moved back to Seattle.
I did college ministry for a while.
At the age of 25, started Mars Hill Church
in the fall of 1996, and I wasn't ready.
I should have waited longer.
I should have gotten more training.
I learned how to fly, you know,
while in the air with passengers.
OK, so, those that have been around a while will be like,
"Oh yeah, I got really sick."
I'll tell you why, rookie pilot, OK?
I needed to sit in the other seat with a seasoned pilot
before I ever got on a plane, but God was gracious
and kept it out of the trees.
We started it at the same time that something called
the Internet came into existence.
I don't know if you've heard of this thing.
It's really taken off, this Internet thing.
And a lot of our early core, they were working at
a little company you might have heard of called Microsoft.
And it's like we paddled out on our little surfboard
and then this huge wave comes.
We started putting sermons online in the '90s.
In the '90s.
At that time, churches had cassette ministries.
Remember these things?
And we didn't do a cassette ministry because we couldn't
afford a cassette recorder or a cassette duplicator.
So, they're like, "Well, we'll throw it on the Internet and see
if anybody's out there."
They were.
And I'm amazed that God was gracious enough to allow us
to live at a time in history when Bible teaching can go out
further and faster than at any time.
So, I asked the guys this week,
"What have we done by God's grace?"
They guesstimate I've preached 3,000 different sermons--
at least 7 of them were great.
I've preached about 15,000 hours.
I've preached through 21 books of the Bible.
Malachi is 22.
James starts in January, 23.
We pick up a chunk of Acts after Easter as we're working on 24.
I've written or contributed to 21 books.
I don't even know how many study guides.
I've written 1,400 blogs.
Every year, my sermons are downloaded
15 to 18 million times.
I've been hit on YouTube, total about 16 million times.
I also do leadership coaching interviews,
and I do media interviews, I do conference messages,
I teach classes, I write articles for Fox or CNN,
or whoever will have me, and I'm on social media as well.
We've always believed at Mars Hill that the teaching
of the Bible about Jesus is central and essential,
that a church is not just a sermon,
but a church is certainly not less than a sermon.
It's a sermon plus a whole lot of other things that all
revolve around loving and serving the people.
I want to thank you for letting me teach for 17 years.
I think I'm better than I was 17 years ago,
and by God's grace I hope to be better 17 years from now,
still teaching at Mars Hill.
I live under a burden that I make mistakes,
and sometimes it causes me grief,
and other times depression.
I give it all I've got, and sometimes I get it wrong
and I need to do it again.
And if you would just pray for me,
I've got plenty of critics that I could probably use
some more prayer.
By God's grace, I'm really glad that I get to do what I do,
which is teach the Bible at Mars Hill.
I'm glad that we get to do campaigns,
building Community Groups and the life of the church
around the teaching of the Bible.
If you're going to put anything at the bedrock,
I think the teaching of the Bible about Jesus
is the way to go and the place to begin.
And I would tell you this, too;
In Mars Hill, my work is primarily priestly,
to use the language of Malachi.
Love people, set up the systems,
try and help people.
Outside of Mars Hill, my work is largely prophetic, like Malachi.
Say something a bit provocative and then watch
the mushroom cloud, OK?
Have any of you noticed this?
And I live in those two worlds, but don't let that world
distract you in any way.
"Love one another, be the people of God,
and don't waste your time on foolish and stupid arguments,"
the Bible says.
That being said, some years ago when I first started teaching at
Mars Hill, I was with a group of young pastors that started to go
astray into all kinds of weird, abhorrent doctrine
in the name of hip innovation.
And I was like, "I don't want to be a part of that."
They're denying hell, and the Bible,
and the resurrection.
I mean, like, what the heck?
No way.
And I was young and I didn't have enough training,
and so I tried to find a school.
But I couldn't find one in Seattle
that I was super thrilled about,
so I found Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon,
and I got in my truck, 1978 Chevy pickup truck
that we affectionately referred to as Chuck the Truck.
And I jumped in Chuck the Truck.
He's got low-gear ratios,
doesn't go over 55 miles an hour,
gets about 2 miles a gallon, has no air conditioning,
or cruise control, or arm rest, and it's so loud
you can't talk on the phone in it because it's loud.
So, I jumped in Chuck the Truck, which was my daily driver
at the time, and I drove down to Portland, Oregon,
to go to Western Seminary.
And I sat down with a professor and I said,
"I need more Bible training," and he said, "I've heard of you.
You do."
I said, "But I can't quit my church and go to school,"
and he said, "Then I'll build a program for you,
and I'll be a mentor to you, and I'll invest in you."
His name was Dr. Gerry Breshears,
and he taught me a lot, and he worked on some books with me.
And so I think I took the longest to finish
a master's degree of anyone in the history of the universe.
And I would drive down once a month in Chuck the Truck
in the morning, drive back in the evening for years,
working on my degree.
Well, I finally got my master's degree.
And part of my hope at Mars Hill has been to build
a Bible-teaching institution that outlives all of us,
something that when you're gone, and I'm gone,
and our kids are gone, and our grandkids are gone,
there's still a place where there's robust,
faithful Bible teaching, and we teach Bible teachers.
And this was part of my vision 17 years ago when we
put together the original vision for Mars Hill Church.
I am very happy to report that God
answered those prayers recently.
Starting next fall, we will be offering accredited
undergraduate education at Mars Hill Bellevue
through Corban University.
We'll start with a 1-year certificate
in Bible and Theology,
and I've raised my hand to be one of the professors,
along with some others.
We also will be welcoming Western Seminary,
fully-accredited master's, MA and MDiv,
in theological education at Mars Hill Bellevue.
Those two institutions will be
the degree-granting institutions.
They've got a long history and a good partnership.
We will be the host and also participating
in the instruction.
For those of you who want to learn more Bible, this is it.
For those of you who want to become Bible teachers
in some capacity, here it is.
We're just waiting for final pending approval from
the state of Washington for all the accrediting purposes.
I would ask you to pray for that.
I'm really excited about it.
And if you want to find out more,
you can go to marsHill.com/schools.
And in light of that, one of the big problems in Malachi
was whoever was teaching the teachers was teaching them
poorly, and then the teachers were teaching the people poorly,
and then the people were suffering as a result of that.
And so our hope and our goal is to create a place where there is
good teaching to teach good teachers to teach good things
so that people might have good lives by God's grace.
I hope you're excited about that, because I sure am,
and I want to welcome Corban and Western.
I'm over time. I know that's shocking.
So what we're going to do at this point,
we're going to collect our tithes and offerings to give
toward the legacy of our future and what God has for us.
In addition, we'll then partake of Communion,
where we give God our worst, our sin,
and we receive from God his best,
the death of Jesus in our place for our sins
as our substitute and Savior.
And as we are transitioning our time of worship,
I want you guys to see what God is doing,
and I hope that it opens your heart.
So, open your ears and open your heart to hear and see what Jesus
is up to right now.
Howdy Mars Hill Church, this is Pastor Sutton.
I'm here with my family.
My wife, Marcy, my daughter, Grace,
my daughter, Faye, and Joe Joe.
We're just here to say thank you for being a part of
the extended family of Mars Hill Global.
And Jesus has done some crazy, awesome things through
Mars Hill Global this last year.
As you guys know, we support church planters and evangelists
in Ethiopia and India.
This last 12 months,
we've supported 20 evangelists in Ethiopia.
They preach the gospel to 11,000 people
and 890 people have been saved,
so it's just pretty amazing.
And in India, as a partnership
with Arjuna and Vision Nationals,
we've planted over 53 churches.
And next year, what's super exciting is is that
our 43 church planters and evangelists
are going to grow to 73.
So, I just ask that you guys continue to pray and continue
to give to Mars Hill and to Mars Hill Global.
And I just pray that through Mars Hill Church,
that legacies will be transformed, changed by Jesus,
not only in the United States, but in Ethiopia and in India.
Thank you.
Pastor Bubba here with my wife, Shelly, our son, Jones,
and our son, Jackson, and we are in Tacoma, Washington,
where the need is great.
There are over a million people in this area
who've yet to meet Jesus.
And I say yet because we are planting Mars Hill Tacoma
in the area to be a regional church
to reach multiple cities.
And we would ask, be praying for us.
Pray for more leaders.
We need 10 more pastors, 60 more Community Groups.
As well, we would ask to be praying for conversions,
that people would meet Jesus, that Jesus would save people.
I'm praying for 200 baptisms in 2014.
And so we just want to say thank you.
Thank you for praying, thank you for giving,
thank you for helping build the legacy in Tacoma.
Hey, Mars Hill.
Pastor Ryan here from Phoenix.
This is my family, my wife, Kate, our daughter Ella,
and our Son, Liam.
We are standing in our building.
It's an art gallery.
It's in downtown Phoenix.
It's a really cool place to meet,
and we're really excited to be here.
We have over 4 million people that live
in the surrounding areas of downtown Phoenix,
and a lot of them don't know Jesus,
so we have an amazing opportunity to invite people
into a relationship with Jesus Christ.
So far, we've already been very blessed here in Phoenix,
where our 1st quarter gathering a few weeks ago,
we had 386 people come.
And then this last week,
we launched our first 14 Community Groups,
and we had nearly 100 people show up
to our first week of Community.
So, God's do amazing things, but we need for our public launch on
January 12th, we need a lot more leaders.
We need more production help, more kids volunteers,
more security, more Community Group leaders.
So please be praying for that as we head towards
our public launch.
Thank you for praying, thank you for giving as we live
for a legacy here in Phoenix.
Hey, Mars Hill. Pastor Ryan here.
This is my awesome wife, Natasha,
and we are standing in the auditorium of
Mars Hill Church Everett, the armory.
This is about to be transformed into the place where we're going
to have about 700 seats available for people to come
and hear the gospel of Jesus proclaimed
in the heart of Everett.
We are super excited about being here.
We have been given
such an amazing opportunity right in the heart of Everett
to minister to this city and to this county.
We trust that Jesus is going to continue doing
what he's been doing for the last 2,000 years,
building his church.
And so we want to invite you guys to pray for us.
We need tons of volunteers.
We've had so many new people come to our church already.
We've outgrown our old space.
We're about to move into this new space.
So, would you guys pray that more volunteers would come here,
that they'd get involved?
We believe that this building is going to stand
for over 100 more years,
and we believe that legacies are going to be changed
here by Jesus for his glory, and that families,
generation after generation of families,
are going to worship Jesus right in this space,
that their hearts are going to be changed,
and that thousands of people are going to be baptized
for God's glory.
Howdy, Pastor Mark here with the family,
part of our "Living for a Legacy" series,
is letting you know what's coming up this summer.
We've got something brand-new and super cool.
We're calling it the Jesus Festival.
We'll pick a nice day, be outside.
We're going to have bouncy houses for kids,
lots of fun stuff.
We're also going to do baptisms, and preaching,
and music at Marymoor Park.
All the Mars Hill churches are welcome.
We want to see you all there.
We started the church 17 years ago.
We didn't have any kids.
Ashley was one of the first kids born,
and now that first generation is getting ready for college,
so it's time for us to get ready to help them get ready
for their future.
So, fully accredited undergraduate and graduate
Bible-based, Jesus-focused education through Mars Hill.
The credits will be able to transfer to other universities.
Both institutions are accredited.
We're excited about that, and with
3,000 kids ages 10 and under, we've got to get ready
for the future leaders.
And the Driscoll family wants to give the church family
a very merry Christmas.
Good job.
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