This transcript has been automatically generated, and therefore may not be 100% accurate.

It's great to be with you this morning. You are genuinely a very friendly church. It is really. I love it, and it's not always the case between you and me. So thank you very much for your warm welcome.

What I will try and do this morning is we will look at this wonderful passage at the start of Mark's gospel, and I will also try and share with you some stories of our work in Ukraine to illustrate the truth that we're going to look at.

Let me see if this works. Yes. Yes. Thank you. So, as I said earlier, our work is all about equipping christian leaders to make a difference in really difficult contexts.

We look for the difficult context because that's where leaders both need the most help and where resources typically are fewest. So it makes sense for us to be in those kind of places. So places like Moldova and Ukraine. We've been in Ukraine for 17 years, and that really illustrates our commitment to walk with leaders over time. Leaders are not grown in an instant.

It takes time. And our work is based on investing over the long haul to grow up generations of leaders for God's mission. And we've been privileged to be in Ukraine for 17 years, which means, of course, that when the full scale invasion happens, we had a network of trusted leaders all across the country that we could get extra resources to very, very quickly so that they could start serving their communities in a time of terrible, terrible crisis. Let me share with you one example of so many. I could literally be here all day telling these stories.

This lady, when the full scale invasion started, she simply asked the question, what should I do? I follow Jesus. What should I do? And of course, there was opportunity for people to leave and get out of the country. She decided to stay with her husband and their large family.

And she looked around and asked, what do I have that I can use? And she looked at her car, which is big because she has so many children. And she turned her car into a mobile evacuation bus, and she evacuated hundreds of people from locations in eastern Ukraine, which were under direct fire. The gentleman in the picture on the right at this point had COVID, and he was very sick. You can see he has an oxygen pillow in front of him, and the doctors said, you need to get him to a hospital within about an hour.

Otherwise he runs out of oxygen. And what you can't see is on the steering wheel. She has strapped a gps navigation system because the russian military were targeting the main roads. So she had to take all these back roads, which, of course, take longer. This particular journey took 2 hours and the gentleman survived.

And she has moved hundreds and hundreds of people. And she does this first and foremost because she's a follower of Jesus. This is her response to the call to be good news in Ukraine right now. And this is what Mark chapter one is all about. It is Mark's account of the good news that is all about Jesus.

See how he starts his gospel, the beginning of the gospel, the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the son of God. And the big idea here is that this gospel is the kind of news that is not just information, but that changes your life.

In this context. In the time of Mark, Gospel was used, for example, to bring good news of a new emperor, or good news of a battle that's been won. And Mark is taking this common word and giving it brand new transformational meaning. This is good news that will change your life, that can change anyone's life. And it is all about Jesus.

Jesus the messiah, Jesus the anointed one who will bring God's reign to the world, God's reign of peace and justice. Shalom, as we heard in our prayers, to a world that is broken and in trouble. And I don't know about you, but I think today, maybe more than certainly I can remember for a long time. I've obviously been. Not been around quite as long as some of you, but certainly as far back as I can remember, I don't remember a time where people have been so conscious of the brokenness of the world.

There is a lot of despairing people in our communities, despairing because of the wars and the wars that feel so much closer because of Ukraine and Israel, Gaza. Despair because of the climate crisis and our increasing sense that we're not doing enough and we don't have a lot of power.

Despair about the mental health crisis in young people especially, and meet a lot of grandparents who are so concerned for the young people in their lives. Maybe it's the ongoing challenges of health, but there is despair often just under the surface of our nice life, but it is there.

We have an opportunity in our time to bring this good news of Jesus that changes your life. We haven't got time to go through all the passage in detail, but if you jump forward to verse nine, verse nine to eleven, is Mark saying that life and mission come from community. Jesus is baptised, and there's this amazing description of what Jesus saw and heard. Jesus sees the Holy Spirit descending like a dove and hears a voice saying, you are my son, who I love. This is the words of a father.

Now, this is going to be the technical theological bit. Okay. I've been told you're very clever. So are you ready for this? Yeah.

Okay. So this little phrase, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove. Very rare in scripture. In fact, it occurs once in the bible, and it is all the way back at the beginning, Genesis one, two, where the spirit of God hovered or fluttered over the water like a dove. So Jesus hearers would have known this because it was so unusual.

And here's what's going on. Mark is saying, at the beginning, creation was the work of God. Not God as an impersonal force, but this God of love, God in relationship with himself, what we now call the Trinity. This relationship of mutual, self giving love, father, son, and Holy Spirit, created the world. When it all started, God in relationship was there, doing the work of creation.

And now, at the launch of Jesus public ministry, God again in relationship with himself is there as it starts, God the Father, speaking these words of love to his son, Jesus. As the spirit descends like a dove, mission starts and comes out of community. It happened here. And as we go about the mission of God, we image this God as we do. Mission, community.

A mission comes from and is motivated by love.

Love that is unconditional, no strings, no requirements to change, no performance needed. You are just loved by the God of the universe.

The same God that spoke to Jesus loves you. Isn't that amazing?

You are loved so you can put your name in this verse. You are my beloved son Frank, whom I love. You are my beloved daughter Jenny, who I love. This is for us, too. And, of course, when we encounter this love, it changes us.

And it. It calls us and pulls us out beyond ourselves to serve a world that is in need of this love, too.

This is one of my colleagues in Ukraine. Her name is Ira. She is washing up a daily task in the dark. And this is life in Ukraine.

Power stations obliterated, the basics that we take for granted, not there. And Anira has to wash up and do so much more in the dark. I met her in Ukraine earlier in the year, and one of the things I took in for her was more power for her computer so she could run when there's no electricity. But one of the things that's so striking about spending time with my colleagues and the leaders we serve is that despite the horror of what they are experiencing, despite the utter exhaustion of more than two years of. Of relentless pressure, there is also joy.

Now, that's different to happiness, right? It's not this sort of superficial. Everything's fine because it's absolutely not fine.

But somehow with the struggle and the trauma, there is joy because they know also that they are loved and that God is still with them, that God has not abandoned them, despite the awful situation in which they find themselves. This is the city of Izium. This is in the east of Ukraine. It was taken over, occupied by russian forces, and then liberated by ukrainian forces last year. And I was there very soon after that had happened.

The gap behind us was apartment building just obliterated by a missile. And you can get a sense of the sort of scale of destruction. I'm not sure if you can see. So directly above Tulik, next to me, is our national director in Ukraine. Just above Tolic's head, there's a piano teetering on the edge of one of the floors, which is a reminder of how one moment, normal life can be going on, and then the next moment, it's completely, completely different.

I saw Tolic last week. He was in Moldova with our team. And he is another example of someone who is exhausted, traumatised in some ways, and yet still knows the joy of knowing Jesus because he knows he's loved. So this love changes us and pushes us out into the world to serve God's mission. And we do it together, don't we?

Because part of imaging God, the God who was at work in creation and the God who is commissioning Jesus, we image God as we serve God's mission together in community. One of the beauties of the church is that we demonstrate at our best. We demonstrate to a watching world that God not only transforms our relationship with him as he forgives our sin and reconciles us to himself, but he also wants to transform our relationships with each other. Changes the gospel, changes everything. And the local church should model these transformed relationships to those around us and invite others in, see the difference that Jesus makes.

And very often people are not convinced first by words, they're convinced by changed relationships, by a distinctive, better, more loving, grace filled community that the local church is supposed to be, a community that transcends generations, that transcends all the things that normally divide race, gender, all of it gone because of the gospel. And we image God together as we serve together, which, of course, means that when some of us struggle, there are others around to bring courage to end, courage where we get, and we're going to talk about this this evening, where we get to use the different gifts that God gives each of us together in service of what he's doing in the world better together. Should describe, does describe the church.

Verses 1213 bit surprising. So Jesus has just had this extraordinary baptism. He's heard the words of his father, and you'd kind of expect that he'd sort of launch into something a bit spectacular, you know, preach to a huge crowd or something. But what happens is he's moved into the desert, into the wilderness, to a place of temptation and struggle. And this is really important because what Mark is showing us here is that mission always happens in the context of struggle.

It's hard.

Taking the good news of Jesus into dark places is tough. There will be opposition. There will be difficulty. There was for Jesus, there will be for us.

So we shouldn't be surprised. You know, our culture tries to avoid suffering and struggle, or if we experience it, the message from culture is get through it, over it as quickly as possible, distract yourself, medicate, do whatever. But suffering and struggle are just always bad and should always be avoided. And scripture's teaching is a little different to that.

And when it comes to mission, whether that's local or global, there will always be struggles. So we shouldn't be surprised. And that's why we need each other. That's why mission in community is the only way, because it's hard.

So this is not suffering because we've done something stupid or unwise. This is suffering that Jesus said in the sermon on the Mount, we are blessed to experience because it comes as a result of following him into the world that he came to save.

So we shouldn't be surprised. And I want to say something to you slightly older people, slightly older. I want to say this, that you have a really important part in God's mission.

Sometimes it can look as if it's for the youngsters.

It's not. You have a really, really crucial part to play here in this community, amongst your extended family, who need to know the wisdom that some of you have gained because you followed Jesus for a long time. And you can talk about that in ways that people like me can't because we've not had the experience that you have. So don't believe it. If anyone gives you the message, subtly or otherwise, that it's time to retire from God's mission.

We never retire from God's mission. You have so much to give, and this church is blessed because you are part of it. And invest. Let me say this as well. This is not in my notes, but invest in the youngsters.

They need your wisdom. They need your experience. They need your perspective.

It really, really matters.

Okay, so last little section of. Of Mark, one that we're going to look at. Jump to verse 16, Jesus calls people to follow him. Now, this is in complete contrast to the normal way this worked in Jesus time. Normally, what happened is you, the disciples, the apprentices, would choose your rabbi, you would decide who you wanted to learn from.

So maybe you liked the look of them, maybe you liked how they sounded, you like their latest book, but you do the choosing. And Jesus flips that on its head and does the calling because he has unique authority.

So he calls Simon and Andrew as they fish and they leave their fishing, their source of security, a multi generational family business. This was a huge deal then, and they left it for a while to follow Jesus. Jesus calls, they follow James and John, leave their family. And in this culture, your identity came not from your career, or not from your possessions, but from your family. And their identity is now first as followers of Jesus.

Following Jesus is the priority.

Every other relationship is put into perspective as we follow Jesus. And it isn't that Jesus or anywhere in scripture says those relationships are not important. It's just about getting God at the centre puts all of those relationships in their right place and everything can flourish as a result.

So I wonder what God is calling you to.

It's mission Sunday. Mission is not just out there, it is local. It is here in this community. Wonder what God's calling you to. Let me tell you one more story.

This is a guy. This is a guy called Slavic. He lives in Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine. I was with him in December. We got to within 20 kilometres of the russian border, where Slavic and his team are running one of a number of community centres.

This guy could have left. He stayed with his team because he follows Jesus, because he is first a follower of Jesus. When we arrived in Kharkiv, we took an overnight train, arrived in Kharkiv about six in the morning. It was still dark and we got bundled into this car and kind of driven fairly quickly around the city, air raid sirens going off. And he said, we want to show you something.

Come and see this. And we arrived at an apartment block, standard ukrainian apartment block, went through the doors, down into a basement. This basement opened up full of kids laughing, the kind of energetic chatting that kids just filled the room and they were doing all kinds of things. Slavic and his team, teams, actually, because he's got different teams in different places. They educate kids because a lot of the schools are shut, so they're helping to educate kids.

They do provide psychological care for adults and children, all kinds of creative projects. One I want to quickly tell you about, it's called the Wise Carpenters Club. So what they've done is they've created these groups where young boys get a male mentor, so an older male guy, which is really important, because for many of these boys, their dads are gone, in some cases dead. So male mentor, and they're given the skills of carpentry, which gives them the experience of producing something, and because they're using their hands, reduces stress. I mean, it's brilliant.

It's brilliant. And this guy and his teams are doing this in multiple locations in the east of Ukraine. I had a message from him a couple of days ago, and he just said, the bombs are falling every day. Please pray for us. When I was there, I met senior leaders from around Ukraine, and they all said the same thing.

Please, please tell people at home, meaning here, that we need their support, we need their prayers. Don't forget us. So that really matters. We stand. These are our brothers and sisters also serving God's mission in the world.

And we are in partnership with them in some way because we all follow Jesus. So as we close, I wonder what God is saying to you this morning. Is there someone that he's putting on your heart to serve in some way, to talk to in some way? Is there a situation that he's calling you into?

Maybe he's asking you to make a radical gesture of generosity or to try and catalyse some reconciliation between people where a relationship is broken down. So, as we finish, I invite you to consider what God is asking you to do, your part in his mission. If you'd like to also take part in what God is doing in Ukraine and other places through our work there. Are these on your on or close to your seat, including with a pen? You can give us your details.

We'd love to share with you stories like the stories I've told. There are so many more that will fuel your prayers and help you take part in God's mission. In places like Ukraine, even though you can't go, you can still take part. So if you'd like to do that, please fill these in. And you can leave it either on your seat or come and find me at the end.

So I'll take that from you. So, as we finish, let's pray.

God of the world, Father, son, and Holy Spirit, thank you that you are at work making everything new. And thank you that you invite us into your mission here and beyond.

Show us what you would have us do.

Continue to motivate us with your love. Strengthen us by your spirit. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.