Dr. John A. King argues that Jesus came to save the lost, not primarily to heal or provide social services. The church often becomes a catch-all agency for job help and counseling, losing sight of evangelism. King urges listeners to read Mark 2-3 and promises to expand on these themes in an upcoming service.
How you doing? I gotta tell you, I love this time of day. It's got a mist over the grass, and all the moisture's coming up, and the birds are out, and it's just man, it just tears me up. You know, it's just beautiful. I was reading Mark at the beginning of the week, and I'm going to be speaking on this tomorrow night. And I was struck with just how purposeful our Lord was. He talks about, and he came to do this, and he did the Father's bidding, and he went to so and so, and he did such and such a thing. And then, then he also turns around and says, I've come to do this, but not to do this. So he was fully aware of what his job and his mandate was. I think one of the challenges we have as individuals is that we, we feel pressure all the time to do that thing which we're not supposed to do and we're not passionate about and is not what we're meant to be doing. But I think also the church struggles with that. The church by and large struggles with being pushed into being another answer for Social Security, a job-seeking center, a childminding center, even so far as a marriage counseling center, a center for psychology. It's a range of those different things. Now, all of that— there's none of those things are bad if their aim is to touch lives. To touch them with Christ. But when they become the focus and they take away from what we're truly called to do— Jesus said, I've come to save the lost. Healing was part of that, but healing was never the focus of it. So people got healed, but the aim was always to reconcile the lost with the Father, or the crucifixion would have had a different outcome. So I want to just look at that. That's where we're up to in Mark. So if I can encourage you to read Mark 2 and 3, have a look at that, and we'll use that as the basis for, uh, for Saturday night. Look forward to seeing you again, church. I've missed you. Bye-bye.
