Well, brothers and sisters, if you read your mail that comes from Parks City's Presbyterian Church, you received a letter from me this week which was full of I think incredible news of what the Lord has been doing and is doing and I believe is about to do. In June of this past year I asked Skip Ryan if he would come to my office so that we could discuss some things that roll my heart. Skip and I really for the last nine years since I've been here I've met regularly. You've been after Skip resigned and you just continue to be a part of this body. We still meet regularly. We have lunch, we talk about ministry, we talk about our lives, talk about what God is doing and it's been an incredible friendship all these years. His wife Barbara also is a dear friend, occasionally she will pop up on my porch with scissors and clippers to cut my hair. Right there on the porch for all my neighbors to see most of whom look at her and go, yep it was about time. They're dear to Christina and myself. Many of you, some of you have been in this church but not that long and so you've heard of Skip Ryan but you've never heard him preach. You don't really know he is. When a few moments you're gonna see him but before you do I want to share what the Lord is doing. In June I invited Skip to come to my office and I shared with Skip something that the Lord had laid on my heart for some time but really hadn't said now is the time until then. I asked Skip if he would be interested and ever coming back on the staff of PC PC to serve again as one of our pastors. He looked at me quite surprised, said I didn't know really if that would ever be possible. I said well I'm not sure it is. This is Mark talking. It's not our elders, it's me and I've had conversations with people before about this and I think it's a good thing Skip and so we began to talk about what that might look like. He quickly indicated that he wanted to continue to serve as the chancellor of our Deamer Seminary. The Lord has used him in amazing ways to help develop this new seminary that's been really profound but he said he was experiencing a growing desire to be serving in a church, being a part of a body serving alongside other pastors, exercising the means of grace, overseeing the sacraments, those wonderful things and so we began to talk about a part-time position. Is it something you'd be interested in? The reason I wanted to know from him first was I did not want to take it to our elders unless I knew that he and Barbara really since that God might be calling them to this so after several weeks of praying through the summer and August I met with our elders on our annual summer retreat and there I shared this idea with our elders. There was great enthusiasm for the thought of what might God do and bringing back to our staff, men he called to lead this body and we celebrated with that thought but the instructions were simple pray really that idea stop listen follow and so we did. Skip and I continue to meet during the fall and early parts of winter and invited a few elders to join with us and discussing what this might look like. We landed in a place that was really focused on the idea of a ministry of rescue and a ministry of renewal for people like you and like me who deeply need to be reminded that we're sinners to have that sin exposed but then to also just as we can best earlier be reminded of the depth of God's love which outlasts in as far greater than even the deepest hatred of man. God moves. We talked about what it looked like to have something offer in the future that could be a place for people to come and bring friends where they truly could hear about the gospel through a ministry that really lifted high Christ as the only way the only truth the only life. January just a few weeks ago at our elders winter retreat I brought the idea up again to our session shared within the progress that we had made and then they enthusiastically said it's time now to move forward. So at a session meeting that followed that retreat there was a call presented to the elders who then voted unanimously to extend a call to Skip Ryan to come back to our church and serve as an assistant pastor part time while continuing his role at Redeemer Seminary. That then had to go to Presbyteray. Skip has been in good standing with Presbyteray for a number of years has been preaching in our denomination and outside of our denomination and ministering even the ministers in our own Presbyteray have gone through difficult times. And Presbyteray was unanimous and enthusiastic in its response as well. And so I sent the letter this week to encourage you with that news and told you that I would be sharing this in each of our services so that you might understand what it is that we believe the Lord is doing. Much of what Skip is going to be a part of has to do with really reaching out to our church, our community and the city who desperately need to hear the news of Christ. People are broken. We are broken. We need this hope. God is going to use this church as he has in the past to continue to reach in to people's lives that are deeply shattered, deeply broken. Your life, my life. And I believe it's going to be profound. Much of what Skip will be a part of will be developing a new ministry and in the months starting March 1st on, we'll be developing that. The pilot of that ministry, whatever it is, we don't know fully yet, we'll begin to start in the fall. Much of what Skip will be doing really won't start until the fall. Will he preach? Yes, he will. It will be a joy to see him and listen to his preaching again as he steps into this pulpit sometime early next fall. We rejoice in knowing what that might be like for all of us to be fed again from this shepherd who has been called by God his own. It indeed is a story that's very powerful and a story of rescue. God redeeming his own. I'm going to invite Skip if he would come up here and have a seat here on the stool and we're going to just talk for a little bit. This is not scripted. There are no questions on this bulletin. He has no, you know, screen to look at to say this is my answer. In fact, twice in the last hour at 8 o'clock he said, I didn't know you were going to ask that question and then he went on. My response really is I didn't know either. You might be wondering, well, is there still going to be a sermon today? Yes, yes there is. It will be the shortest sermon perhaps I've ever preached but there will be things to take away I promise. We'll still get out right about on time. But this is family business so to speak. This is an illustration in a sermon. This is a powerful picture of what God has done and is doing. Hi. All right, let's go back to June. I call you and I say, Skip, I want to talk to you about some things on my heart and then I shared with you the thoughts. Tell everyone kind of what was going through your mind that day. I thought I was having an out-of-body experience I think. Well, Mark, I certainly as Barbara knows, somewhere along the line in the last six years, I had wondered whether such a thing could ever happen. But as time went on, it didn't and I just assumed that that was not going to be in the Lord's will. Our minds mentally moved on and we're enjoying very much what I get the chance to do at Redeemer Seminary, helping train young people for ministry. And so when you first brought it up, I have to say I was very surprised. Kind of almost unfounded. But I trust your leadership so much that I certainly couldn't dismiss it immediately and was very glad to enter into the conversations with you about it. One of the things I shared with Skip was that we're not looking at a ministry where you simply come in and give us deep intellectual doctrine, theology, more of a buffet for us to feast on, which is good and needed, but that this would be a ministry of evangelism. And you kind of looked at me like, what do you mean? I said, Skip, we've put evangelism in every pastor's job description. And the reason because if we don't, nobody will care. We'll be so busy managing this large body that we won't actively do the very things God's called us to do. And I said, you will be a part of that. And I believe that there are host of people all over our community and our city that are desperately seeking help. And they'll look in a lot of different places. But there's only one. And that's Christ. Talk to us a little bit about your heart for a ministry of rescue and what that looks like. Well, when you talk about evangelism, what I think of is that in a lot of ways, Mark, as you know, I think, is a preacher that Christian people have the same problems as those who are not believers. And if you address, I mean, there's a sense in which we're grateful that the Lord has saved us and we're going to heaven. But the journey seems to be pretty complicated and sometimes filled with lots of problems and hurts and sin. And you know, as we care for ourselves as a body, trying to get at these deep things that keep our hearts from being free in Jesus, we're actually inviting people into that same conversation. And we discover that the Lord meets us all in those kinds of settings. Whatever shape they're going to take, we don't know yet, as you said. But where I think, based on what you and I have talked about so far, where I think this is going is that in light of the fact that God has rescued me in a way, and I love your theme of rescue. I think it's brilliant. I think it's deeply biblical. I think God has done a great thing for us as a church to give Mark that concept of the rescuing power of the gospel and to want to have stories about rescue going on. And so here I am. And I think that as people start to talk about the ways in which they need to be rescued, it's not necessarily addiction or some terrible outward sin. But it is an inner preoccupation, the patterns of our lives that keep us from knowing and loving Jesus as we want to, the things that block us, the things that keep us from being free in Christ. As we, as some of us talk about those things and say, yeah, I blew it. Yes, I really don't know where to go from here. Yes, I think I've messed up big time. When that happens, it gives permission, I think, for others to begin to talk. And in the right settings, of course. So that's what I think is your vision. And I think it's one that is the session's vision. And it's one that I'm deeply glad to embrace. Tell them a little bit about what you've been doing in that regard. I know that as I said in the letter, just give a barber that involved in a lot of people's lives, I'm that have really truly been broken by the power of sin and in the midst of being rescued, redeemed. Talk about that from there. Yeah. Well, Barbara is, it's really interesting, you know, when our lives fell apart six years ago, I, you know, I was amazed, this is a little bit of a side route, but I was actually got to a point in that period when I didn't know if our marriage was going to make it. I had so deceived Barbara and so hurt her that I wasn't at all sure we were going to stay married. And yet we were married 30 years ago, a couple years ago, and we looked at each other on our 30th anniversary and we said it has never been better. And the reason it's never been better in 30 years is because we learned to be honest with each other. And the brokenness, I think, and this, the pain of falling off this cliff, you know, I'm a person who has always cared about reputation and the way things look and is everything being done right. And this wasn't exactly in keeping with my concern for my own reputation. But the amazing thing about Barbara is that she not only began to rally, but she became, I think, one of the greatest experts I know in addiction, in addiction process, in addiction, the neurobiology of addiction, the addiction, what qualifies as addiction the way the brain works. And she has used this knowledge to care for a lot of people. And together we find ourselves with folks finding their way to us who are hurting in one way. Now that may not be an addiction per se, but it may be a traumatic marriage that's just fallen apart, or it's been, it's something going on in their lives that is out of control, or they just are struggling in some way. And one of the things we learned is that the kind of patterns of addiction are patterns that are really just sin writ large. So all of us have these kinds of things going on in our lives, even if we wouldn't describe them as addictions. And we've been, it's been a great joy to work together on that. We, I think I can say that some of you are in the room. We have a group that meets every other Thursday night in our home. And it's just folks, just like the ones sitting next to you. And we are learning to be really honest with one another. And really talk about our struggles and our own sins. And as that happens, I think Barbara and I would say it's perhaps been the greatest, happiest small group we've been in in our married life with couples. Because you could cut the reality with a knife, we laugh together, we cry together, we pray together. And when God's people begin to open up like that, when that happens, and then it happens in a church, wow, what is the Lord doing in terms of a city? I don't know. I don't presume to know what the Lord is going to do. But I've always believed since for the last 20 years that God had His hand on this church. And I especially believe that now with you is the pastor. And I'm, we're just delighted to find out what that made me. Yeah. Sorry for the rambling answer. That's okay. It's a sign of my preaching. Yeah. Like the Muslims. Yeah. Everybody knows. One of the, one of the reasons this works is because of what Skip expressed is happening in that small group. It happens between us and has during your fall, past your fall, Skip and I've been very close and have enjoyed that kind of honest relationship. One of the questions people have asked me is, well, how's it going to work? He's the Chancellor of Redeemer's Seminary. That's a full time job. And there's no such thing as part time ministry. So are you guys going to kill him? And how's Barbara feel about that? I want to show don't, don't, don't get there. Couple things. People that say there's no such thing as part time ministry usually also have bad boundaries and no accountability. We are not going to call this man to do something that Christ would not want him to do. His role at Redeemer is going to be reduced. Not exactly sure how yet. That's part of what this timetable towards the fall will look like. He'll be transitioning out of some of the things he's been called to do there. Some of the travel that he's been engaged in for the last few years is going to be reduced. And he'll be two-thirds time at Redeemer and a third time here. But there will be accountability in both places. I have the privilege of actually being on the board of Redeemer Seminary. There will be accountability there as well as accountability here. So much so that Skip will begin to have the powerful expression of accountability in true three elders who will actually ask him to ask them before he agrees to speak at different places. I do the same thing. Why? Because you can be seduced into thinking you've got to go everywhere and do everything. And we're going to seek to protect him. And that way just as we all are protected. I think that's important for you to know. He's not going to be opposing at the church. For example, his office will be over there and he'll be called upon to do the things here which are primarily developing this new ministry that will begin in the fall. And then as I said earlier, he will begin to preach some starting this fall which we will delight in. And I can't wait, brother, to be here and have you preaching again from God's holy word there. Skip anything else that you want to share just in terms of the process, especially as it heated up in the last month or so. Yeah, there are a couple things, Mark. I think that I feel like I always want to say whenever I tell my story and I do get a chance to tell it quite a lot now in different ways. As I mentioned before and you know, I am so surprised that I am here. Absolutely so surprised. I'm, you know, they say that addicts are the last to know how much damage they're doing in their families and the people around them. And I believe that that is true. But I'm also, I think I'm the last in a sense to know, I'm certainly the last to really realize that God was doing something here in terms of this and our church. And I could never have gotten here without our elders. From the very first day that things began to crumble and my life began to fall apart, the elders of this church have been like they have been like brothers in a way that I could never imagine. You know usually when ministers in crisis, the church, the elders look at the church and they say this is, you know, several thousand people and they're hurting very, very badly and they're over here. And here's the minister and his family and we'll take care of them but as soon as we can kind of get them out of sight, out of mind, the better. Well, the elders of this church didn't do that. They kept both ends of the rope together at great personal cost to them because I'm sure they had a lot of questions and a lot of things they had to answer from some folks in our church. They kept us here. They said, please stay. Please stay in our church. We want you to heal in the place where things went bad for you. I'm always just struck with the example of grace that these brothers were to me. That continues in you Mark. This is pretty remarkable that this may be happening. It doesn't always happen like this to say the least. I think that my love for you and my respect for you as my senior pastor is something that I cherish and I love your leadership. I love the way you lead and your kingly gifts of leadership, prophet, priest, and king. You care deeply about these people and you are a priest to them. You pray for them and with them, you're also a leader like a king is and that is something I'm very, very glad to be a part of and to follow with you. Let me just say in that light, I feel like I would never tolerate for a split second anyone trying to insinuate or confuse your in my relationship. You are my boss, you are the senior minister of this church and I am grateful, very, very grateful for that and want that to be the pattern going forward. It is important for people to know how much we love each other and not just us but the other pastors as well and our elders. It is real. It's different in so many ways than it once was and we know going forward that movements like this have risks that people could begin to play favorites but that's not a new sin is it. In 1 Corinthians 3 Paul was addressing the people of Corinth and the subtitle in your bible says divisions in the church and he says this sought to bring you solid food but you're acting as infants so you must have food for infants because you're behaving like humans meaning in the flesh. He said some of you favor Paul and some of you favor Paul as you know Paul was simply saying it's about Christ. It is not about skip and it is not about mark and it is not about Patrick or Pete and on goes the list. It is about Christ. If you have that temptation, laugh at yourself. If you know people that have that temptation laugh with them and necessarily add them but with them because Paul rebukes that so do we. Thank you. It is about Christ. You know what Paul says at the beginning of chapter 4 of 1 Corinthians I love this. We kind of discovered this together he says how then should you regard us. This is an unbelievable statement. How then should you regard us, us, all the pastors each other as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. That's what we are. That's what we long to be. Skip do you still find God mysterious? I find him 100 times more wonderfully mysterious than I did six years ago. You know in our tradition even Mark in our wonderful tradition there's a tendency to want to define everything and nail it down and speak of it correctly and accurately. You know that our God is too big for that and he's too wonderful for that and the mystery of what he's done in history especially in his son. The mystery of our being united with Jesus on the cross so that when he died he died for us but we also died with him. We are and union with Jesus our Savior in his death and resurrection. If that's not mystery I don't know what it is but it's real. Being mysterious doesn't mean it's any less real. In fact in the ways of God it's more real and part of what Barbara and I have entered into joyfully together she's been there for many years way ahead of me is just loving some of the some of the mystery of the way God works in our lives and the beauty of the way he brings us to places of brokenness and love and rescue. Well that statement is true for me and my brother but not just the two of us all of our pastors and if they're in here pastors wherever you are I want you to come down real quickly if you might just come down here for a moment. Some of them are teaching other classes, Paul Goebo and Brent Baker who just recently were licensed at the same Presbytery where Skip was approved to come back on our staff. Paul and Jenny just had a baby a few days ago so he's not here slacker.
But I want you to know that as your pastors Jeff Barbara Executive Director and our ministry leaders like Kerry and Kurt and Terry Spike we love each other deeply and it's not just that Skip and I seek to be servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God it's all of our deepest desire that that would be true and that you would see that in a unique way. I know that when I went to seminary I went with the hope that the mystery would be solved but I would know so much more. I left seminary with my favorite word being mystery. Hans Byer my great professor taught me as he just humbly said that my friend we don't know. Mystery leads you into that heavenly awe of worship. Brother you have seen our response to you as our staff heard of this on Wednesday as our Deacon's heard there's been tremendous enthusiasm. We celebrate deeply what the Lord is doing in this body right now and what we believe he's going to continue to do. I'm going to ask that Pete would actually pray just for our body for you for all of us and then we're going to go into a bit of a celebration in singing Peter's a mic right here would you do that brother please Barbara would you come up let's pray together wonderful God we do stand in awe of the mysteries we find ourselves in the mystery of sin we find ourselves struggling in ways we never dreamed we would struggle we find but even greater the mystery of repentance and restoration and we thank you Father that you bring us each one of us through the same journey in different ways and as we acknowledge who we are before you we stand in that greater mystery of grace why you would extend to us what you have extended is beyond our understanding but we thank you Father we don't have to understand it in order to receive it and trust it and stand on it and to see what you can do Lord there is hope for every single person in this room who hides a sin there is there is grace in every life and heart and we thank you Father for what you have done we thank you for what you will do in a way now as we move forward to looking for ways to expand restoration and rescue in our church through skip and Barbara and we ask you Lord that you would give us that great joy of seeing the beauty of truth and grace and love and we thank you for this time in Christ wonderful mysterious loving name or in your Bible Matthew 5 38 to 42 listen carefully you have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth but I say to you do not resist the one who is evil but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek turn to him the other also and if anyone would sue you and take your tunic let him have your cloak as well and if anyone forces you to go one mile go with him two miles give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you this is the word of the Lord thanks be to God you may be seated I encourage you to set your watch stop watch hit go and in just a few minutes I'll be calling you to stand again for our closing him here's why we will be in this passage again next week so what I say now is simply the introduction and the conclusion Jesus is teaching in his sermon on the mount we've been in their since September we come to this place where he gives us this profound profound call to not retaliate when we've been insulted how how can we as Christians do that which he has called us to do when everything in our flesh says to do the opposite and not only that we even sometimes make it sound okay in the context of other Christian truths but it isn't our impulse in the flesh is to respond to insults by giving another insults we do it in our marriages we do it with our children we do it at work we even do it on the road people insult us with the way they drive maybe even a gesture and we retaliate and Christ is saying no once again just as he did in the Beatitudes he gives us a radically different answer to the way in which we are supposed to respond and the radically different answer is what makes Christianity so attractive so beautiful such a draw of light to a world that is in darkness it really does when someone insults you and you don't return the insult but instead you give them the other cheek as well it's powerful let me give you one example from Jesus is teaching as he teaches he says do not resist one who is evil but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek turn to him the other also most commentators believe that Jesus was very intentional about this right cheek and they believe that what Jesus had in mind was someone insulting another by taking the right hand and most people are right handed and actually back handing with the slap across the person's right cheek if they were to punch with the right hook it would land on the left cheek but do you see in that culture the slap with the back of the hand was a far greater insult and the Greek word here I think translated correctly me as V is that of the slap when that insult comes Jesus says turn the other cheek but how how can you do that when you struggle to even resist sending back an email which someone has insulted you how can you do that there is only one way I will end here and pick up here next week it is by entrusting yourself to the one who did that very thing at the end of Matthew in chapter 26 Jesus has just gone through the beginnings of the trials and the beatings that have taken place so listen to what it says in verse 67 they had just shouted he deserves death then they spit in his face and they struck him and some slapped him saying prophesy to us you Christ who is it that struck you that word struck means closed fist in the Greek and their present is also the word slapped meaning that though he had been spit on though he had been punched even with the the stick the closed fist the most insulting thing in that culture was the back of the hand and what did Christ do we're told is he hung on the cross father forgive them for they know not what they do read this passage this week consider how difficult it is to resist retaliation and find encouragement from what Jesus said lastly in 1st Peter chapter 2 listen to this for to this Peter writes you have been called because Christ also suffered for you leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps he committed no sin neither was deceit found in his mouth when he was reviled he did not revile in return when he suffered he did not threaten but continued listen carefully but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly how can we do this by doing the very thing Christ and trusting ourselves to him who judges justly is that easy oh no but it's our call may we entrust ourselves to this one who turned the other cheek to this one who went to the cross and may our religion Christianity look so beautiful to a dark world that doesn't understand how how could you not retaliate that way stop your watches and