Light on the Hill

Guest (Male): Next on Light on the Hill, we'll discover that sometimes the crowd isn't just wrong, it's deadly.

Guest (Male): As Christians, we are a special group of people, so special that we have a calling. That calling has nothing to do with the crowd around us. We are not in a popularity contest. We are in a real fight and we must depend on the most powerful tool we have to fight it. Today on Light on the Hill, Pastor James Kaddis urges us to not follow the crowd, but to choose life.

James Kaddis: Mark chapter 15. We're going to start in verse 21. And there isn't a lot of history that's needed here to be able to get you to where we're at at the current point because what's happening is they're in the process of crucifying Christ. And we have taken a lot of time to sit and to just analyze everything that's been communicated thus so far and to talk about some of the things that are behind all of this and why it's so critical of a moment. So we've been talking about all the things leading into this. And by the way, over the next several weeks, we're going to spend some time focusing on this, but we are talking about a very interesting time in history here.

Not just interesting from the sense that the story is really interesting and the history is interesting and the circumstances that surround it are interesting. But what's more interesting are the mechanics behind the salvation that we have. I am a very very bothered by the mindset that happens to think that somehow, some way, it's okay to walk away from the mindset of intentionality, especially in the world in which we live today. You know, things feel like they're random in the world in which we live because of how overstimulated many of us are, when in reality, there's nothing random about virtually any of the things that we deal with on a day-to-day basis.

And here's the thing. When we look at the love of God and all of the things that God has done for us, none of that is random, okay? None of that happens to be a story that just came out of nowhere and now all of a sudden we've just been enriched with this little piece of data that, you know, is sort of an interesting thought to carry for conversation. No, every bit of it was intentional. And I And I really think this is important to understand because we hear passages all the time where we see evidence of this.

Yet for some reason, we have no problem singing songs like the Reckless Love of God. And God's love is not reckless. It's never been reckless and it never will be reckless, right? The love of God is deeply intentional. And we see evidence of that intentionality given to us very distinctly, very succinctly as well. And it's something that we have to pay attention to because here's the thing. When you take the time to pay attention to the intentionality expressed by God with respect to our salvation and with respect to all that we have, it will be a motivator to you to be intentional about the way you live your life.

It will It will be a motivator to you to help you better understand the call that God has placed upon your life to make the most of every moment that he's given you and the fruitfulness of it all. And I think that this is so important because I know that there are characteristics that this world produces that are so dangerous. They're scary. And one of those characteristics that I often times see is actually something that is indicative of someone who's very depressed. And that is the the mindset of procrastination. You know, you have somebody that you know, you procrastinate.

I think the the opposite of what intentionality is is procrastination, you know. Oh, we'll just see what the Lord brings. And you know, you hear the the Christianese come out of it. And it's a really fancy way of just basically saying, oh, you know, whatever happens happens and it's not a big deal. Well, what you're basically saying is, God, I stand as a direct repudiation to all that you stand for in what you did for us. And everything that God did for us was planned out. Everything that God did for us was articulated beautifully. Everything that God did for us was remarkable.

And these are the types of things that we should be meditating on because they serve as filters by which we should live our lives and to understand it. And that's why I think on so many levels believers should be the ones who stand as models in all areas of life, right? We should be the best in business. We should be the best in finance. We should be the best in It doesn't matter what field you're in. You're a construction worker. You should be the best. If you're an engineer, you should be designing the most beautiful buildings.

You know, it doesn't matter what area you're in. It doesn't matter. God has asked you to be excellent. And that excellence should be an extension of all that God had to become to you in order for you to experience the salvation that you have. And I think that when we go through passages like this, it doesn't need much of an introduction because you can see the succinctness of it all. You can see just how beautifully articulated it was and how wonderfully it was orchestrated. It was It was almost like God had every little detail put together so beautifully.

And when it all layered on, it was a it was just a very interesting picture. You know, it's it it's unique to me because I was reminded of something that I have not seen in years and years and years, but leave it to Jack Hibbs to remind me of it, right? I'm being interviewed by him this last week, the week before last, when when he interviewed me, he reminded me of something that I I completely forgot existed because the last time I saw it was I was in elementary school, maybe in junior high school. You guys remember those machines, big block machines where you would the the teacher would would be facing you and then they would set the it was a projector.

They would set the projector on the you know, on the desk. And then they would put the laminated sheets on there. You remember that? And then sometimes they would draw on the laminated sheets, you know, with the markers and and it was something that I don't know. For me as a kid, it was always kind of cathartic to see those. They were really cool because the teachers that I had were always good at building upon the images that were there. And the the picture that Jack drew was the one where you would have one sheet and then you'd put another on there.

You'd put another and it kind of layered it and made it very complicated and sort of the the old school way of animating something, you know, in many ways. And I had teachers that did both of those things. They would layer one thing on top of the other. Sometimes they would just draw and add to things. And you would see a blank canvas at the beginning. By the end of the class, you'd see something spectacular where what you looked at in the very beginning, you didn't understand, but at the very end, you understood it clearly.

I think that's what God is doing for us. He's drawing this massive like this just beautiful picture of of of actually what that looks like. You know, and the young kids that are listening to me, you know, ask your parents or people close to you that are a little older to show you what I'm talking about because it is very special. I actually think we have one of those things buried around here at the church and I have this like hidden need to just erect it. You know what I mean? Like just use it just for once, one Bible study, you know, get a a screen up behind me just to do it once.

But the picture is really remarkable, which by the way, I I don't even know if you guys even remember this. But all the teachers that I had didn't just have it sitting on top of their desk. They had a hole in the desk. You remember that? And it made it to where it was like anyway, it's just very very interesting. When you go through passages like this, you are seeing this beautiful layering going on. And I think that one of the the most difficult things that we have in front of us, challenges that we have as pastors and as teachers is to show you how those layers work, right?

To be able to effectively demonstrate to you the multiple pieces that exist in all of this to help you be able to see the complexity that exists with respect to the level of intentionality expressed by the God that created us while at the same time understanding that it was all prepared for us to be able to experience in a very exquisite and dare I even say powerful way. And so there's all this stuff to learn from this. I just think it's just so remarkable and it's very very interesting. And that's why I keep using the word interesting because you see the level of intentionality that God has expressed right down to the simple minute details that a lot of people might not think about.

Let's go over one of those details right now as we get into chapter 15. And we're only going to go for through a few verses, like 11 or 12 verses or so, but it is important that we really go through some of these. Let 's go through a verse that we already read through. And that was last week. We read through verse 21, but I'm going to do it again. And they compel one Simon, a Cyrenian, who passed by coming out of the country. Notice what it says here, the father of Alexander and Rufus to bear his cross.

So we already talked a lot about this last week and I talked about what I felt like were the important mechanics of what was going on. We talked about being compelled. We talked about going the the extra mile upon being compelled. We spent some time talking about a lot of these what I believe to be very important foundational principles that you can draw from what this Cyrenian went through. By the way, when we talk about Cyrenian, we're talking about North Africa here, okay? There's some debate as into what part of North Africa we're actually talking about.

In my opinion, I think that's somewhat superfluous. I think it's a bit of a moot point. Now, I'm not going to say it's completely superfluous because God went out of his way to tell us where he was from. But I think the purpose of understanding where he was from has less to do with geography and a little bit more to do with understanding and identifying the individual people involved in this process. And so this is really interesting because you have to stop and you have to think through the articulation of these names that are being given to us.

Now, we've already went through the fact that Christ, physiologically speaking, is completely exhausted and that he was incapable of being able to carry this bar that went across his back. Christ was exhausted. Obviously, his body was just completely worn out. And And I want to say this and I can't say this from experience because I don't think any of us experienced the kind of level of suffering that Christ experienced in this moment. But there is one thing that I can say effectively and I think it's important. And that is when your bodies get to a certain level of exhaustion, there is a functional level of performance that's just lost.

You know what I mean when I say that? Like if you get so tired that you can't do much anymore, you know you probably need to sleep. Now, I for one am not the best example in this arena because I'm the type of guy that will just like try to plow through it even though it's insane to try to do it. I am the guy that will be, you know, 3:00 in the morning and I know I've got to like review a 5-minute video. And normally to review a 5-minute video, it might take 15 or 20 minutes.

But the first 30 seconds of the video, I have to review it. It It takes me This is not an exaggeration. It takes me 45 minutes to review the first 30 seconds. Why? Because I hit play to review what my editors are doing and I fall asleep within the first 30 seconds. It plays almost to the end. I get to the loud point at the end. It wakes me up and I realize I didn't watch anything. So I got to go back and watch the first 30 seconds. And by the time I wake myself up long enough to actually sit through the first 30 seconds, I'm so tired after being out of breath, walking around, doing something to keep me awake that I actually don't understand what it is that I read, right?

So the idea here is that you can exhaust yourself to the point where you're kind of worthless in the sense that you really can't think clearly. You can't really react reflexively. It's just not It's just not a good place to be, right? It's just It's not a good idea, okay? So you know, this man, our savior, our Lord, he's suffering. He's going through a lot. He's going through a lot of pain. So we know that Simon is being compelled to be able to do this, this Cyrenian man. And here's the thing that I want to stop and point out.

These names are mentioned specifically for a reason. And again, I want to talk about the fact that when we when we consider the intentionality of all that God has done, there is something so spectacularly beautiful about this because we see the name Alexander and Rufus mentioned. And the way that Mark is writing this is he's writing it in a way that would appear to tell us that at the time of his writing, the names are familiar to the body of Christ. And if the names are familiar to the body of Christ, it would appear as though And we know this confirmed to us through some historical accounts that this Cyrenian man I just think the thing is really important to understand.

This Cyrenian man actually must have come to put his faith and trust in Jesus, to walk with the Lord. And his sons were known by name, which means they appear to have been very faithful men. And it's remarkable because I think the picture that it actually draws here is there would have been a very powerful implication handed down to the audience that was reading this who actually were believers and understood that these men were put at a very elevated level. They were even treated almost as a celebrity. And I hate to use that term because I think the way we understand the word celebrity today is very broken.

But they were elevated men. They were highly regarded men because they were men known to have carried the cross of Christ on his way to Golgotha. And the thing that I I think that we should draw from this that I think is mission critical is to understand that even our own intentionality should be an expression of the desire to carry our own cross to the place of ultimate death, thus experiencing the beautiful reward of life that Christ gave when he did what he did. And I think about this because these men were absolutely I mean, without a doubt, these men were just astoundingly brilliant men.

These men had to have been put in a place where they recognized in the moment, my goodness, I'm a part of history. Something is special. And I think that they took it happily, understanding what would happen here. Look at this in verse 22. And this is really important that we look at these details. It says this. It says, and they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is being interpreted the place of a skull. Now, this is interesting because this area Golgotha is something that you can actually see very easily. It's not very hard to be able to discern what is actually happening here, that he is at the place where normally a person would be taken to be killed.

It was not a place that was highly regarded. It was not a place that you would have gone to if you wanted to enjoy the afternoon. It wasn't a place that drew big crowds. I suspect that there was a big crowd on this day because there would have been a lot of people to see the spectacle of the of the murder of Christ. There would have been a large crowd of people, but this was a place that was very for lack of a better term, very undesirable. As a matter of fact, if you go to Israel with us, which, you know, who knows when that's going to be now, but if you were to go to Israel with us and you go to the place where we actually believe Christ was crucified and you see the place where the skull is, it's amazing to me because you actually now see at the bottom of Palestinian bus station, nothing about it looks attractive.

It's really ugly. And then there's a sign on top in Arabic that basically says that God does not have a son. Right? So it's just it's very very interesting to think about it. To this day, it's still not a place that's highly regarded. It's not even a place that's iconic to the average person unless you're in the know and you are aware. And I think that this is exactly what God had in mind. God had it in mind to bring us to a place where we would recognize that his son would go through everything that the common man would have to go through in this context.

I think that's really really important. Look at this in verse 23. It says, and they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh, but he received it not. By the way, I should just note this right off the bat and I think it's kind of an important thing to note. And that is the fact that what they offered him here was a narcotic, okay? So they're not offering him something, hey, you know, take a little sip of wine, you get a little sip sip and you know, kind of get over it. That's not what's going on here, okay?

What's happening is they're offering Christ literally a narcotic to take because there is something about these men who are crucifying him that are not identifying to a degree with the pain that they are watching him go through. And although it was customary for a one who would be crucifying somebody as a Roman to offer this, often times to prolong the time involved in the pain that they were going through, it's really interesting to me that Christ rejected the narcotic. And I think that it's something that has spoken to me over the years because I think that it has spoken to it it is like taught me some things.

I'll give you one example of this. I believe that when Christ said, no, I'm not touching it, I believe that he wanted to not just only keep the promise that he made that he would not make contact of anything that came out of the vine until he's resurrected, right? But I think it goes deeper than that. In that, he's not looking to be numbed by any stretch of the imagination because he himself needed to be fully immersed in what was going on as he was taking for humanity the very thing that he took. I got rebuked not recently.

I probably got It was probably about a year and a half ago, 2 years ago, by a one of these pain management doctors that the the health insurance companies make you to go visit. Isn't this wild, right? If your health insurance company is going to allow you to continue to utilize a tool that assists you with being able to without using drugs, just continue on, right? Whether it be a walking cane or whether it be a mobility scooter or whether it be something for your compressions you know, compression stockings or whatever, they will make you go to a pain specialist to assess you before they give you the go ahead to buy you whatever it is, which by the way, giving you whatever you need for help is a lot less expensive than the cost that is associated with them giving you narcotics.

So I see the pain specialist and I always gear myself up for the conversation that I experience every single time when I see the pain specialist. They go to me and they say it's very obvious, you know, you're dealing with some pain issues. And by the way, I just want to bit I want to point this out. I'm sharing this for purposes of illustration for what I'm teaching right now. So all of you amazing, wonderful, God-fearing people that are listening to me online, don't send me your pills, don't send me your your medical solutions, don't tell me you want to see me for free.

Like like I I love you. God bless you, right? But I promise you I have put in a just an immense amount of time trying to figure out alternatives to having to deal with some of the things that I face on a regular basis, okay? And And And mind you, it's it's not like it's not obvious to most people. I you know, you realize I had somebody the other day tell me that I was actually crazy and and actually insulted me because they don't know what's wrong with me, the fact that I have to constantly you know, I'm constantly blinking like squinting my eyes like that.

You know, not realizing that it's part of an autonomous nervous response based on pain that you go through all the time, right? So I'm not saying that to for everybody look at me and go, what was me? There's a 100 that with Look, in this church, there are people in this church that are going through it way worse than I'll ever go through it, okay? So I'm not saying this for everybody to say, hey, look at me, but I'm pointing this out because I think it's interesting. You go to the doctor and this happens to me all the time.

They go to me and they they want to rebuke me. And they do in essence. They say, you are foolish. Your cortisol levels are going to go up. All this stuff, you know, first they give you the hole, you got to take care of your weight and blah blah blah. Okay, check. Uh, you know, most of the time they say you got to take care of your weight and I say, can you do me one favor? Go look at the medical record from 4 years ago and look at what my weight was in the medical record.

Oh man, I feel so embarrassed. I chose I didn't read your chart. I'm so sorry. They realize, okay, check. You know, you it's a safe thing to say that a guy's making a distinct effort to lose weight if he's 350 lbs lighter than the last time that, you know, he was noted on the chart. Okay, fair enough. So he gets past all that and then he says, look, you just should take narcotics. It's really simple. I'll write the prescription to you. You don't have to go through the pain anymore. You'll probably stop blinking the way you so many things will probably change right away.

No. Don't want it. Why? You know, he's screaming basically. It's really simple. The very moment I take that garbage And don't get me wrong. I mean, there are other medication that you can take that are non-narcotic that will help you with this stuff that I I do rely on. But here's the thing. The moment I begin to take those narcotics, this oxy content and all this other stuff that you want to give me, let me tell you what will happen. I lose my ability to think. If I lose my ability to think, I lose my ability to communicate.

If I lose my ability to communicate, I'm no longer doing what God wants me to do. Well, that's just ridiculous. Then I'm going home and I'm thinking maybe that is ridiculous, you know. Maybe I just take it over the weekend. The doctors are telling me it's ridiculous. I get yelled at all the time. They're telling me, you know, you're nuts. Why are you not doing this? You get these letters and say you're not advising the council of your doctors, you know, blah blah just just blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah and then I get reminded of this passage where they go to offer Christ literally a narcotic and he says, no, I'm not I'm not taking it now.

I'm not Christ and I'm certainly not being crucified on the cross and I'm not suffering like that. I'm not living a perfect and holy and and a life that has no flaws, but I am being reminded of the fact that I'm living after the model that God has given me. And that model is for the benefit of all of the people that are around me in an attempt to with intentionality obey the word of God in walking in the example that he's asked me to and to serve the people that he's asked me to serve.

I have to say no to the narcotic agent that I might be able to experience the fullness, not for the sake of being rough and tough because I have pain. If you're being told to take medication that will help with your pain and it's not going to take away from all of those things, you're kind of dumb for not doing it. So it's not to say that you're a hero if you don't take medication. Take the medication if it works and it doesn't hurt you. Of course. But the thing is this, I would much rather experience the fullness of the difficulty associated with the condition in which I'm in as a result of the failure of certain components of my nervous system and be able to do effectively what God has called me to do, especially for my family, especially for my children, than to simply say, okay, yeah, give me a little hit of that.

It just doesn't make sense.

Guest (Male): This is Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis. And we're currently going through the Gospel of Mark. Listen to this study and more at lightonthehillradio.com. Pastor James's teachings are also available through the Light on the Hill app and at oneplace.com. You can listen to us wherever you get your podcasts as well. When you have a moment sometime today, send us an email. We'd love it. It's encouraging to hear what the Lord is doing in our listeners' lives and it's an opportunity to thank the Lord for what he's doing. There's a place to contact us at our website, lightonthehillradio.com.

We've been blessed by the feedback we've received thus far regarding Pastor James's new book, The Last Book. If you haven't ordered a copy yet, we'd encourage you to do so. This Guide to Revelation covers the first half of the book, giving you what you need to know about the rapture and the end times in a clear and concise manner. Request your copy today at lightonthehillradio.com or through Amazon. If God is leading you to support this radio outreach, there's also a place to make a donation at lightonthehillradio.com. Pastor James is back with us. The majority of people just follow the crowd in life.

As we learned today, the crowd can be deadly. Do you have any final thoughts on that as we close?

James Kaddis: Yeah, really simple. Never follow the crowd. If the crowd is telling you to do something that is unbiblical, we don't believe in group think. We believe in God think. So stay

Guest (Male): Thanks, Pastor James. We look forward to hearing the rest of this message, The Crowd is Deadly, next time on Light on the Hill, a presentation of Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.