This morning, we're going to be dealing with Mark six. So let's open to that. Mark six. And it's an interesting story. It's a very in your face sort of daunting story, but it's about the story of John the Baptist and Herod, King Herod.
So, Mark six, again, to read from verse 14 to 28. And the title in the NIV reads, John the Baptist beheaded. Mark 6:14. King Herod heard about this, the preaching of Jesus, for Jesus' name had become well known. Some were saying John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.
Others said he is Elijah, and still others claimed he is a prophet like one of the prophets of long ago. But when Herod heard this, he said, John, the man I beheaded has been raised from the dead. For Herod himself had given orders to have John arrested, and he had him bound and put in prison. He did this because of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, whom he had married. For John had been saying to Herod, it is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.
So Herodias nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him, but she was not able to because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled, yet he liked to listen to him. Finally, the opportune time came. On his birthday, Herod gave a banquet for his high officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests.
The king said to the girl, ask me for anything you want, and I'll give it to you. And he promised her with an oath. Whatever you ask, I will give you up to half my kingdom. She went out and said to her mother, what shall I ask for? The head of John the Baptist, she answered.
At once, the girl hurried in to the king with a request, I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter. The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oath and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her. So he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John's head. The man went, beheaded John in the prison, and brought back his head on a platter. He presented it to the girl, and she gave it to her mother.
On hearing of this, John's disciples came and took his body and laid it in a tomb. So far, our reading. The German theologian, and you may have heard of him, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was a pastor in Germany during World War Two. And as a Christian, he stood up against the Nazi regime, against Hitler, and actually was taken into prison, Nazi prison, on accusations that he was involved in a conspiracy to have Hitler assassinated. During his time in prison, he wrote some of the most influential writings on Christian discipleship the world has ever seen, and I encourage you to go and read those letters.
It was during these horrible times that he really discovered what it meant to be a disciple of Jesus in the face of amazing oppression. He said that he learned to accept his worldliness, meaning that he is just a man existing in a world that is harsh and corrupted. He had learned to accept that there is nothing to cling to in this world except Jesus Christ. A man, an essayist doctor, wrote, I've hardly ever seen a man die so submissive to the will of God. This was a doctor who wrote of the last moments of pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer as he was hanged two days before the end of the war in 1945.
I've hardly seen a man die so submissive to the will of God. Bonhoeffer's last recorded words were for his friend, Bishop George Bell. He wrote to his friend, this is the end, but for me, the beginning of life. You see for Bonhoeffer, discipleship, the following of Jesus, is nothing more than accepting the harsh reality of living in this world with its brokenness and sin, but clinging to Jesus above all else. This morning's passage from the Gospel of Mark happens at a point where Jesus' reputation had grown huge.
His ministry, his preaching, teaching ministry had exploded, and people everywhere were starting to whisper his name. So much so that it reached the highest ranks, the king of the Jews, so called Herod, had heard about it. People couldn't ignore Jesus anymore. And then we come to this shameful court drama, which bears the markings of the greatest Shakespearean controversies or tragedies, doesn't it? Verses 17 to 20 gives us this sinful and sorry backstory of Queen Herodias, a power hungry woman who was willing to divorce her husband for a more powerful one.
And the cowardly and immoral King Herod who is shown to be at the same time fascinated by Herod and terrified him at the same time. Verses 21 to 28 continues to show just how morally bankrupt both King Herod and his wife Herodias are in their scheming and their plotting, and one of the unfolding of one of the grossest displays of injustice in the Bible. At a lavish dinner party, Herod, quite well into his fifth, sixth, seventh glass of wine, invites his daughter to come up to dance for him and his dinner guests. She dances, and it's insinuated, implied that her dancing is so seductive that he is moved with lust. And he promises her, and he makes this amazing oath that he's willing to give her up to half his kingdom for whatever she will ask of him.
And then the evil scheming of Queen Herodias manipulates the situation, manipulates Herod's lack of a moral compass, and leads to John's gruesome and terrible death by decapitation. Out of the entire story that we find here, one point is being driven by Mark, the gospel writer. Proclaiming the kingdom of God has a cost involved. Proclaiming the kingdom of God has a cost. As we look at this passage further within the context, and we didn't read the first half of chapter six, we see that there are two costs involved in proclaiming the kingdom.
Firstly, proclaiming the gospel will cost you something because the Lord will demand it of you. The gospel will cost you something. Proclaiming it will cost you something because the Lord will demand it of you. And secondly, preaching the gospel, proclaiming it, will cost you something because the world will seek to take it away from you. Friends, we must realise that we belong, body and soul, to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And because we do, He will demand our lives to look a certain way. He will demand certain things of us. John the Baptist, which is a bad translation, should just be John the Baptiser, because he baptised people. He wasn't part of the Baptist church. John the baptiser was a man marked out by God since before his birth, the Bible says.
The angel of the Lord came to Elizabeth, his mom, and said that she would give birth to a very significant boy who would be used powerfully by God and much would be demanded of him. Similarly, in the passages before our passage we deal with, we see Jesus sending out his disciples on a short term mission trip. And he says certain things to them. He gave them these instructions. Don't take any extras for this journey.
Don't take food. Don't take a bag. Don't take money. Don't take extra clothing. And so taking just pretty much the clothes on their back and the message in their mouth, they go into the countryside and proclaim the simple message, repent and believe God is about to do something amazing.
Jesus commanded his disciples to go out with specific instructions that cost them their luxury, that cost them their comfort. Similarly, in John the Baptist, we see a man who belonged to God. In Luke 1:15-16, we see the angel telling Zechariah, he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is to never take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God.
This was his mission statement. John was to prepare the way of the Lord. He belonged to God and was used by God to preach a message of repentance, of turning back to God. He was singled out to be a powerful instrument in the hands of God. He was called to be something special, never ever allowed to have a nice crisp glass of beer or a beautifully tasting red wine.
He had to go out and live a simple life. He was famously known to be the one that wore camel hair, that ate locusts and honey. He was a strange man, a man marked out for a particular reason. He was a man specially chosen by God. But friends, what the disciples of Jesus and this special man of God had in common is that they were chosen and commanded to preach the gospel.
And that demanded certain things of them. They all preached a message of repentance to a lost world. They were all demanded to give up luxuries. Proclaiming the message of Jesus cost them something. Why?
Because the Lord demanded it of them. It's as simple as that. All of us sitting here have been commissioned by Jesus to go into all the nations to preach the gospel. All of us have been commissioned and taught by Jesus. Some of us have even been called to dedicate our entire lives to that task.
All of our energy, our time. Now whether you enter the preaching ministry or you become a chippy, of this thing you can be sure, proclaiming the message of repentance to a lost world will cost you something because Jesus will demand it of you. Whether it be giving up your creature comforts, giving up your comfortable middle class car, your 2011 Ford Falcon for a 1993 Ford Festiva, or a suburban Australian life, or a home in urban Nigeria. The Lord may demand things of you that you must give up in order to fulfil a particular calling in your life. When Jesus sent out his disciples on mission, he didn't say it's a good idea to take nothing for the journey.
Travel light. It'll help you. I highly recommend you leave your money at home or in the bank. He demanded it of them. It wasn't a request.
Take no money. Take no extra clothes. Take no food. It's a command. It's not a plea.
Preaching will cost you something because the Lord will demand it of you. The second thing we see in this story and in the context of Mark six is that preaching and proclaiming the gospel will cost you something because the world will want to take something. We see within this context, if you have a look at verses one to six in chapter six, you'll see the ironic case where Jesus was ignored by his own hometown. When he went back to preach to Nazareth, they didn't want to listen. They didn't want to hear what he had to say.
He was ignored. The Messiah, the son of God. Jesus calls himself a prophet without honour in his own home. He was belittled. They asked him, is this Mary's little boy?
The one we saw running around playing with all the kids. He's disrespected. Is this the carpenter? The uneducated tradesman? He's not a priest.
He's not a Pharisee. He's just a plain tradie. Jesus' respect and dignity is taken away from him by the skepticism of his own family and from his own community. In fact, the Bible draws a link between the incredible lack of faith in him and the lack of miracles that he could perform there. The lack of faith there resulted in his inability to heal or to drive out demons.
And Jesus himself is amazed at the lack of their faith. In light of this event, we come to John who was indeed a prophet without honour. We shouldn't overlook just how powerful he really was. Before Jesus comes and, I mean, our gospel is about Jesus. But if you were to look at historical documents of that time, John the Baptist made massive waves.
He had a huge following, a worldwide following. He was big. Thousands upon thousands were turning back to a living faith in God. People were repenting of their nominal cultural faith and turning to a real relationship with God. But John wasn't into having a big Twitter following.
He wasn't satisfied with having amazing preaching gigs. He wouldn't rest until everyone had heard the message that God's kingdom was about to come. And John is taken prisoner for this message because he goes right to the top. He goes to Herod and says, Herod, you must repent. You cannot live in sin like this married to the wife of your brother.
John's freedom is taken away from him for no good reason except that he dared to call the king to repentance for his sin before God. John's freedom is taken from him because he dared to claim that the good news was for sinners in need of repentance and forgiveness. We also see that John's dignity is taken away from him. Herod keeps him like a monkey on a string and brings him out to preach to him every now and then. Herod's intrigued by him.
Herod likes this preaching. He's a great communicator, but nothing happens in his heart. And he'll just send him back to the prison again and call him out whenever he needs him. And I wanna just put this in parenthesis as well. This can happen so easily in our lives.
There's many good preachers out there, and we have this fascinating, magnificent tool of the Internet. But we can fall down in listening to great communicators and not listening to the message. Not repenting, not changing, not growing, but being moved, being comforted. Filling ourselves with knowledge, turning from our habits or making God honouring decisions. So don't simply enjoy a good speaker.
Hear the message and apply it to your life. Now back to the story. In the last wicked, shameful act in our passage, we see that John's life is taken away. John's life is literally taken away by Herod. Why?
Because he proclaimed God's word. Preaching cost John his life. Now if you have read the story of Mark, the Gospel of Mark, you realise that this is sort of like a parenthesis. Jesus is in his preaching, stage of his ministry, and then Mark just plops his story in the middle of it and says, oh, by the way, Herod beheaded John. And so the question is, why is this sort of put here?
It doesn't flow chronologically. Mark includes the story of John to show the cost of discipleship. The disciples are sent out in really harsh sort of environments to preach the gospel purely and simply. And then Mark puts this story of John in here to highlight the cost of standing in the tradition of the Dietrich Bonhoeffers, who stood up for their faith, who said, I cannot and will not compromise. To stand in the tradition of the John Bunyans, the Martin Luthers, the Polycarps, the Pauls, the Peters of this church, those who have suffered much for the sake of the gospel.
The story of John is not a random tangent or a pointless parenthesis. Mark is stating emphatically that if you stand up and preach the gospel, don't be surprised that you will get opposition. Don't be surprised by that. In John's case, his freedom, his dignity, and his life is taken from him by the world. Preaching the gospel may cost you something because the world will try to take it away from you.
So why can we be asked to give up so much in order to be proclaimers of the good news of Jesus? Why are we expected to give up our creature comforts? How can we be at peace with the idea that our preaching may or will cost our comfort or our friendships or our dignity or our incomes? Well, the first step is to realise that it will cost you something. That sounds intuitive, but it's true.
Preaching the gospel will cost you something. It's not strange to lose any of these things for the gospel. If we live a life of fear that we might lose this, then we are the ones struggling with stress. But if you realise that you will lose stuff, that it will cost you something, then that burden is shrugged off. Why?
Because it's normal. It's normal. It's normal to be thought of as a little bit weird. It's normal to walk into a room and people change their conversation or change their tone. If we realise that we have a call to preach the gospel, to represent the gospel in all situations, and if we lose some of these things, we're not surprised.
We're not stressed out because that's actually normal. It's not simply the Australian government's policies that limits us or that says we can't and should not preach and share the message of Jesus. It's not the Australian government. It's the world. It's a system of the world that we live in.
It shows if you do lose some of these things that you are doing the right thing. So why can we be expected to give up the pride or the prestige or the comforts or maybe, God forbid, even our life? The Bible says because we don't belong to ourselves. We don't belong to ourselves. We've been bought at a price, 1 Corinthians 6:19 says.
The idea is that we were once sold as slaves to sin. We sold ourselves as slaves to sin. We became enslaved. But the great message is that Jesus, through His blood, ransomed us. That word means paid for our debts and took us as His slaves.
So now we belong to another master, But this time, it's a good master, a kind master, who has complete say over our lives because He has ransomed us from the evil master called sin. There's a great book written by John MacArthur, and some of you might know who that author is. The book is called Slave, and it's about this. I wanna quote you something from it. He writes that realising that we are slaves actually is a happy realisation.
He says, unlike sin, Christ is the perfect master. Sin is the cruelest, most unjust of all masters. Christ is the most loving and merciful. Sin's burden is heavy and loathsome. Christ's yoke is easy and His burden is light.
Sin traps its slaves in darkness and death. Christ brings light and life to all those who have been made alive, alive together with Him. Sin diverts and deceives and destroys. Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. Insofar as slavery to sin consists of everything hateful, of everything harmful, dreadful, and despicable, so slavery to Christ entails every good thing, every glorious, joyous, and right thing.
Jesus once said, to those who have been entrusted with much, much will be demanded. John had been given the Holy Spirit from birth. Something that was unheard of in the Bible. A baby, a fetus with the Holy Spirit. Much had been given of him, to him.
Much would be demanded of him. For those of us sitting here, much is demanded of us. And I can feel everyone's uncomfortable with this. I'm very quiet in here, but we need to hear this. Us sitting here, even the poor students like Marie with a concession card to go to movies and catch a bus, even the pensioner on a government stipend.
Do you realise that you are in the top 10% of the richest people in the world? From the poor student to the poor pensioner. Of that 10% of that 10% of the richest people in the world, we are further a 10% of that 10% who are Christian. Of that 10% of 10% who are Christians, we are another, say, 10% who have had the opportunity to choose what we want to do with our lives, that have been able to go to university, have been able to go to TAFE to study a career, to study a profession. Do you realise how unique you are?
Do you realise how unique you are? In other words, we are the ones with the wealth, with the faith, and with the opportunities. And the question is, what are we doing about that? Don't think that the Lord won't demand you to sacrifice your abundant wealth for His service. Don't think the world won't severely test your faith as you call it to come to Jesus Christ.
Proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom will cost you something, either because the Lord is going to demand it of you, or the world is going to take it from you. Being faithful is an expensive enterprise, but remember, we do it because it cost our Lord Jesus much more. We have the ability. We have the opportunity. Let's take it.
Let's move in our areas of influence and bring about what God wants to change in this world. Let's pray for His help right now. Wow. God, this is tough. This is uncomfortable.
But God, there must be more to life than this. There must be more to life than simply just going through the motions week in week out. Hearing a good sermon or a bad sermon, singing some songs, Lord, and feeling encouraged and motivated for the week. There must be more to life than that. There must be more to worship.
There must be more to discipleship than that. And Father, we are challenged again by the radicalness of that time where You were on the earth, Lord Jesus. And You grew Your disciples and You challenged them in those three years. That life was not comfortable. But then, Lord, even after that, when You left, it became even more radical.
It became even more revolutionary. Lord, and You changed an entire empire through 12 men, 11 men. Father, let us not fall into the trap of contentment. Let us not fall into the trap of self centeredness and comfort and having our itches scratched. Father, we pray that You will move in our hearts and open our eyes to see the opportunities.
Lord, give us the perspective to see that we are the 10% of the 10% of the 10%. Give us the perseverance to set our mind to something, Lord, and change it and do it. Give us the grace to accept help from others. Give us humility to accept help from You. And, Father, we pray that in our lives, we proclaim, as we live out, as we exemplify the gospel, that we will be good messengers of it.
Holy Spirit, fill us so that we may proclaim and preach this rightly and that the world, at least the Gold Coast, Lord, may be changed. Give us the Gold Coast at least. That is our prayer. So, Father, move within us. Comfort us where we need to be comforted.
Challenge us where we need to be challenged. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.