Let the Shepherd Lead

Originally Proclaimed: 04/07/19

Intro:

• Born to immigrant German parents, in 1844 a young boy named Henry began to sell vegetables from the family garden to neighbors.
• The oldest of eight in this devout Lutheran family, Henry was educated at a Lutheran school.
  • That said the most important lessons he learned were at home.
  • His mother insisted that they live according to their faith teaching them this motto, “Do all the good you can. Do not live for yourself”.
• By the age of ten, Henry had his own garden and was selling his produce to local grocers.
  • In a day when certain types of produce were sold in glass jars, many chose to sell them in colored glass because it obscured the true contents.
  • Remembering his mother’s words “do all the good you can. Do not live for yourself,” Henry deliberately broke common practice and sold his horseradish sauce in a clear glass jar so people could see the contents.
• At 44 in 1888 Henry had his own food manufacturing business which expanded to sell sixty products by 1896 and 200 by the turn of the century.
  • A master promoter, Henry took his Christian upbringing and applied it to his business.
  •  For promotions to succeed, the product had to be good and the manufacturer trustworthy.
  • So he allowed public tours of his Pittsburg factory, made sure the facility was always clean and treated his workers well.
  • He build greenhouses and laboratories to find new recipes that would get his product to market and help it to last longer.
  • He continued to used clear glass jars, even designing an eight sided jar for his ketchup so that customers could see it from many angles.
  • Henry never forgot his mother’s words, “do all the good you can. Do not live for yourself.”
• During this boom time for his company Henry began to use a popular, cheap, tasteless preservative in his ketchup and other products named sodium benzoate.
  • Harvey Washington Wiley, a U.S. Department of Agriculture, responsible for discovering formaldehyde and borax being used in some company’s food products, began to be concerned about sodium benzoate.
  • Most U.S. corporations immediately began to oppose Wiley’s efforts to ban the preservative.
  • But Henry’s company decided upon a different route.
    • He again chose his mother’s Christian priniciple, “do all the good you can. Do not live for yourself,” rather than what would have been easiest and best for his company.
    • He offered a money back guarantee on his products so tinkering with recipes could be a disaster.
    • Henry made it his company’s goal to develop condiments and products that would need no chemical additives.
    • For years the laboratories experimented with recipes for different sauces, particularly ketchup.
    • They found that with a thicker, tomatoes rich recipe for ketchup, the vinegar and acid content of the tomatoes stabilized the sauce for a much longer time.
• Meanwhile Wiley, the Agriculture inspector, continued to study and report on the effects of the preservatives.
  • IN 1902 he began publishing in newspapers, the results of His “Poison Squad”. Fortuitously Upton Sinclair wrote the Jungle during this same time period and the public was in an uproar.
  • And as consumers began to mistrust manufacturers, the federal government created the 1906 Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act, banning all but a tiny amount of the preservatives 1/10 of 1 percent.
  • But by this time Henry Heinz’ new preservative-free ketchup among other products were ready, and promoted as “recognized as the standard by Government pure food authorities.”
  • By following his mother’s Christian principle, “do all the good you can. Do not live for yourself,” Henry Heinz became the standard for ketchup and other food based products.
• https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/02/how-henry-heinz-used-ketchup-to-improve-food-safety/

Hook:

• Henry Heinz’ devotion to his principles, learned at his mother’s feet, helped him to make sound decisions that would do good to his customers even if it cost him more initially.
• Selfless decisions are rare and against the grain, but they are exactly what Jesus teaches us in chapter 12 of Mark.
• Today we will hear three warnings about selfish living from Jesus.

Message Points:

• We have now entered into the third day of Jesus’ time in Jerusalem, the Tuesday just days before his crucifixion.
  • This day has already begun in chapter 11 with a challenge from the chief priest and teaches of the law.
  • Jesus answered their question about his authority with a question about their beliefs concerning John the Baptist.
  • When they would not answer Jesus, He said he would not answer them, however, Jesus proceeds in chapter 12 to tell them a parable.
• The parable tells of a man who planted a vineyard with all the right amenities.
  • This setting points towards God’s relationship with Israel and specifically Isaiah’s vineyard song in Isaiah 5.
  • The man rented the vineyard to a group of farmers and moved on with his business.
  • Typically, while he had right to all of the harvest as an owner rent in this day consisted of portion of the harvest.
    • With a new vineyard there would likely have been a four year period of cultivating before anything had to be shared.
    • Though terms would have been likely dictated by this landowner, the tenants had the right to refuse the agreement in the beginning.
    • Instead they chose to refuse the agreement at the first harvest, thinking they would get to keep the crop and eventually the land.
  • The landowner sends three specific servants to collect his rent and two are beaten shamefully, and another killed. The landowner is still said to have sent many others in verse four who shared the same fate.
    • But the landowner chose to send his Son, the only one left, believing they would respect his son.
    • But by this time the tenants had selfishly stumbled into a murderous habit. Read their words with me in verse 7-8.
  • Jesus then asks a question, what will the landowner do? In a righteous rage he will come and repay the tenants murder with their own deaths and their vineyard will be given to another.
    • But Jesus then quotes Psalm 118:22-23 referencing “the stone the builders rejected becoming the cornerstone.”
    • It is the cornerstone of the Lordship of Jesus Christ that people consistently stumble over and fallen into all kinds of sin.
• That is our 1st warning: If we live for self, we will stumble over Christ. (12:1-12)
  • You will hear many say that our biggest problem is that we do not love our self-enough and that we need more self-esteem.
  • What Jesus says to us with this parable is that we have no problem loving ourselves.
    • Look again at the tenants.
    • Even though they agreed to rent the vineyard for a price, they thought themselves important enough to reject that agreement and demand better treatment.
    • That sense of entitlement is a part of our nature after the fall, and when we do not get what we want we stumble.
      • Some of us get very depressed and feel like we cannot do anything to help ourselves or others.
      • Others of us get very angry and begin to lash out at others.
    • Verse twelve confirms that the chief priests, law teachers, and elders recognized this parable challenged them.
    • When they were challenged, it was their love of self that drove them to seek to arrest Him.
  • Authority is the big issue here.
    • If we live for self, we are our own authority.
      • We resent a parent, a teacher, a coach, a pastor, or any number of other authority figures simply when they exercise authority over us.
      • We especially do not like the idea of Jesus who is the ultimate authority and has every right to every part of our lives.
      • So long as we live for our self we will resist all forms of authority, seeking to do things our way, even to our detriment.
    • But what does Jesus make plain in his quote from Psalm 118:22-23? He tells us that we heed his warning by replacing our self-esteem with a proper Savior-esteem.
      • The cornerstone of our faith is the reality that we cannot save ourselves, we need a Savior.
      • And note that the verse Jesus quotes tells us that the Lord does a marvelous work by making the Saving work of Jesus into the cornerstone of our faith.
    • Yesterday was my Mama’s birthday, and I knew that the day would be hard.
      • So I began my day reading a book called Therefore I Have Hope by Cameron Cole.
      • In the words I read yesterday, “When you feel as if you are responsible for climbing out of the pit in your own strength and [be] the author of your own redemption, you become utterly overwhelmed. You cannot conceive of emerging from the darkness. You must understand that in the darkness of your Worst, God – and only God – can redeem you. Faith is not a partnership it is total dependence on the Lord.” (76-77)
      • Friends we cannot save ourselves, even from our own grief. We need not live for our self, but live for our Savior.
• This leads us to consider three major challenges to Jesus by the Jewish leaders.
  • We can sum them up this way:
    • The Pharisees and Herodians challenge Jesus’ politics
    • The Sadducees challenge Jesus’ practicality.
    • And the Law Teachers challenge Jesus’ training.
  • To all of these Jesus gave amazing answers.
    • First to the Pharisees and Herodians, who asked about paying the imperial tax, Jesus asked for a denarius.
      • And asking whose image was on the coin and what the inscription read, Jesus said in verse 17 to “give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s.”
        • The image and inscription were symbols of his authority that should be respected.
        • Even though the Empire’s policies and the emperor’s rule would not always agree with Christian principles, that authority should be respected.
      • The reason for such respect comes as verse 17 continues. Jesus says “and to God what is God’s”.
        • The image of God has been given to all humanity. And His law has been written onto our conscience.
        • The right response for us is not to live for self, but to give ourselves to God.
    • Second then to the Sadducees who seek to entrap Jesus with a legal technicality concerning a woman married seven times and her status at the resurrection.
      • This practice was intended to provide children and heirs to the Promised Land according to the Jewish law quoted in verse 19.
      • In a shocking response in verses 24-27, Jesus asserts that at the resurrection each person will be considered not based upon their relationships to others, to their children or to their land but primarily to their relationship with God in Christ.
        • Marriage which is the most important of human relationships will pale in comparison to our relationship with God.
        • In marriage we reflect the fullness of the image of God in humanity as two distinct and different people become one flesh.
        • But at the resurrection, rather than being in a relationship that reflects the image of God, we will be present and in relationship with God.
        • Jesus asserts that our past is in the past and something new has come at the resurrection.
      • Then Jesus goes on to expound upon the events of the burning bush in which God said “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob”.
        • God uses the present tense, meaning that though these men were bodily dead, in Christ they were alive.
        • God is the God of the living not the dead according to verse 27.
        • Again the right response for us is not to live for self, but to give ourselves to God.
    • Finally Jesus answers the Law teachers, effectively  ending this inquisition.
      • Quoting the Shema of Deuteronomy 6, Jesus asserts in verses 29-31 that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.
      • But Jesus does not conclude there, but asserts that the second most important commandment is tied integrally to the first. Because the image of God is in people we should love our neighbors as ourselves.
      • Again the right response for us is not to live for self, but to give ourselves to God.
• This leads us to our 2nd warning: If we live for self we will split hairs. (12:13-34)
  • These Jewish leaders were seeking any way possible to avoid giving themselves wholly to God, but they are not so different from us.
    • Have we ever asked and thought about why we continue to pay taxes when the government uses our dollars to support activities we do not agree with? We rarely think of the ways that God uses our taxes to defend our liberties and promote the ease with which we can share the gospel.
    • There’s not a one of us who is married who has not been so frustrated with our spouse that we have thrown our energies into raising our children, to our work, or to our home. But we rarely consider how those trials in marriage train us to rely upon and grow closer to the God with whom we will spend eternity.
    • And which of us has not shrunk back from trying to help others and serve in our church because we need to focus more time on our relationship with God? But when we do so, we loose sight of Christianity that teaches us that the best way to know God is to love Him by loving others.
  • We can split hair about how we apply the Scriptures to our lives, but in the end the Scriptures teach us that we should give ourselves wholly to God, loving those whom He has loved.
• Jesus finishes this chapter with three final scenes.
  • First he asks the crowds why the Jewish leaders call the Messiah David’s son.
    • The Law  Teachers were happy to settle for a Messiah who would come to restore and have authority only as a Jewish king would have.
    • Jesus quotes Scripture from Psalm 110:1 and asks why David calls the Messiah Lord if he is his son?
    • David as an OT prophet did not settle for a Messiah that was merely another Jewish King. David recognized the Messiah as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
  • Second, he warns the crowds to watch out for the Law teachers because they lived for self and gave no thought to others, especially widows.
  • Finally Mark relates our focus passage.
    • Jesus witness a poor widow coming to the offering box and giving two small copper coins worth only a little.
      • These offerings were made to make sure that the work of the temple was supported.
      • In essence these offerings were helping to make sure that God’s ministry of fogiving sins through sacrifice continued.
    • So Jesus calls his disciple and tell them that the widow has given more than all the others.
      • Note what he says in verse 44, “they all gave out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty, put in everything – all she had to live on.”
      • This is truly what it means to “Do all the good we can. Do not live for yourself.”
• And this is our 3rd warning: If we live for self we will settle. (12:35-44)
  • The first way we ordinarily settle when we live for self is by deciding to give just our tithe.
  • Describe what Baptist believe about giving.

Conclusion:

• “Do all the good you can. Do not Live for yourself.” These principles helped Henry Heinz build his most famous company.
• But an even more important principle remains for us.
  • Let us not choose to live for self. Let us choose to live for God. And by doing so, let us give ourselves to others.