Shane Willard 2010 (4 of 5) Shane Willard 23.04.2010 pm
[Shane Willard] A couple of quick things. Some of you have come back to our table and you've asked me this question; which ones are the good ones? [Laughter] Listen, you cannot travel the world and market yourself poorly. Now it's not all about marketing but listen, I have preached tons of bad sermons. I just choose not to reproduce them [laughter] you see, because then people say listen, everything we get from you is good. That's because for every one up there I did 10 [laughter] and that's what you market so listen, some of the best places to start okay - people say where do I start? This is the best place to start if you don't have this. It's an all day seminar called How to Read the Bible Like a Hebrew okay and it will go through all the basic stuff. It'll really set you up well okay, so you could start with that one.
Another really good one back there is Jesus' first sermon. It's very important what someone says first in Hebrew culture, so I do a whole rabbinical thing on the beatitudes okay. It's called Be Happy. It looks like this - you won't forget it right? And the other thing that's very basic that will help you see the Bible a lot differently in a lot of areas is one called The Tabernacle of God where I go through all the pieces of the tabernacle. All of this stuff comes back through the whole Bible okay, and we've got plenty of these because most of these are fairly new. I've got plenty of these because I sent enough here for here and for Invercargill which is where I'm going in a month's time. But if we sell out I can get more from Brisbane. That would be a good problem to have okay, so you guys go back there and you can get as much as you can. It'll change the way you look at God forever. It also helps us to fulfil what we feel is our mission to the poor okay, so it's a pretty good trade; you give me something that helps me feed people, I give you something that helps you revolutionise the way you look at God. Pretty good deal okay, so you guys check that out.
Also I mentioned this last night but I'll mention it again tonight. We've started an online eMentoring program where once a month for one hour I'll be in an online classroom teaching people what my rabbi taught me. It'll be a little bit deeper than this because you've got to go back even further, but if that's something you want to participate in you can just check out my website and it's up there. Okay, let's keep going because I have somewhere I want us to get tonight and I'm just warning you already I'm setting you up, okay? I've been setting you up all night, because we have to deal with these things. These things are the things that are destroying the credibility of Christianity, is this idea that the kingdom of God means going to heaven one day. The whole world can live in hell, it doesn't matter as long as I go to heaven one day: that's the most selfish Christianity I've ever heard in my life. It's not what God called us to be.
Okay, Mark, Chapter 10. It's another imagery from Jesus' life that talks about what it's like to be a kingdom person, and the imagery is casting aside your garment, casting aside your garment. Mark 10:46 through 52, it's a very common story but there's an interesting verse right in the middle that we can read over if we're not careful. It says this: And they came to Jericho. As He was with the disciples and a large crowd went out to Jericho, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, was sitting on the side of the highway begging. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth he began to cry out and say Jesus, Son of David - there's that Son of David, Son of 14, so it could mean either one. He could have been saying Jesus, Son of David, or he could have been saying Jesus, Son of the 14th [taldof. 00.04.05] Either way it's the same thing. They're calling Him messiah. Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! And then he warned him that he should be quiet, and he cried a great deal more; Son of David, have mercy on me!