A Paradigm Shift / Mark 16 / John 21:15-22

It is good to see you all, and good to be seen! To the folks joining us this weekend at our Fig Garden campus, welcome to you. Welcome to Southeast, and even to the rowdies here at the North Campus in the PM—welcome to you as well. Keep your shirts on, this is a church, all right?

It is so good to be back with you. I have been on sabbatical, as some of you know, and to be candid with you, I am just beyond grateful for the opportunity to pull away. When you get out of the grind of what you do, you are able to make rich deposits into things that you normally wouldn’t be able to. My marriage is better because I had time with my wife. My relationship with my kids is better because they had a dad who was around—probably more than they wanted! My friendships are better. My relationship with the Lord is better, and to be honest, in a strange way, my relationship with myself is better. Not that I have dual personalities, but there came a deep sense of awareness of who I am and who God wants me to become as a man.

The Danger of Doing the Work of God

Being on sabbatical made me realize I had grossly underestimated how tired I was and how fatigued I was emotionally. I was frayed. Some of you felt it—short and shallow in conversations, with not much to offer. If you were in crisis, I was practically trying to run because I was just trying to manage my own life. In some ways, I felt like I was swimming in the deep end carrying weights, and when you came with your issue, it was just another weight. To be honest with you, I was fearful for my own survival.

Emotionally, I was frayed. Physically, I had big bags under my eyes. I looked back at the video we shot announcing my sabbatical and thought, Oh, take a nap! That’s not right. And spiritually, something was starting to happen in me that was not good. Unfortunately, a lot of folks either don’t have the freedom or don’t take the risk to pull away. Spiritually, I realized I was paying a high price. In the process, I came to the awful realization that doing the work of God was beginning to kill the work of God in me.

As a pastor, you cannot let that happen. This is not just a career; this is a calling. You cannot allow it to become mechanized. You cannot allow your faith to end up in the trash heap and yet stand up on stage as if you have something of worth to offer. If you are in the trash heap in private, then you are just a faker in public, and I didn’t want to be that guy.

We have a highly intense ministry here at The Well. This is not your typical, simple one-service church. We do eight services a week locally. I found myself stuck in the rut of prepping for midweek, and then here comes Sunday: 9:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 5:00 PM, 7:00 PM. Hurry, get ready for midweek. 9:00, 11:00, 5:00, 7:00. Study, teach, study, teach, study, teach. What happens is, if you are in too much of a rhythm of studying merely to teach, God isn’t doing something fresh in you. We have said for a hundred years here: if God is not doing something in you—if it ain’t working at home—don’t export it.

I was feeling those stress fractures, and I developed terrible defense mechanisms. What some of you don’t know is that I would finish a message, pour my guts out, cry in a sermon, and then sneak into the back room, grab my keys, and try to hide on the way to my car. That is not healthy, especially for a pastor. You’re supposed to enter in, but I just couldn’t do it. I had learned terrible survival tactics.

I am thankful that the sin list is short, and that God protected me from what could have been catastrophic. I am thankful for elders who cared enough about me to say, “You’re getting sent packing—not because you have to, but because we want you to. We want another ten or fifteen-year run to be as healthy as the first.” I am grateful beyond words for that, for a church that let me go, and for a teaching team that taught so well during those four months that you could argue we missed nothing. I would watch those messages and think, These guys are fantastic. That’s a church I would go to!

Learning to Be a Guest Again

I actually did visit other churches, which was a fascinating experience. I don’t remember the last time I felt like a guest in a church. The Well is home; this is family. But walking into another church, I felt underdressed—I haven’t felt underdressed in years! I showed up trying to get my kids there on time, which is hard to do. Then I’m wondering, Where do I take them? Where are the signs? It was an eye-opening experience just to be a guest.

For the first time in almost twenty years, I read my Bible without a view of what I was going to teach, but instead with a view of what God wanted to teach me. That was so much fun. I spent time enjoying things that filled me up, learning about myself—both the good and the bad, what I call the gold and the shadow. I spent some intense time in counseling, which was terrifying yet awesome. If you have ever done that, you know there is an integration that happens when you become aware of past wounds, what they did to you, and how the gospel speaks into that.

I am very excited to be back, but to be candid with you, I don’t want to lead the same way. I want to lead differently. I want to live differently, teach differently, and disciple differently. In a sense, I need a paradigm shift.

A paradigm is an example, model, or expected pattern. While I was gone for four months—no emails, no phone calls, not connecting with the team, visiting only once on Father’s Day with elder permission—God was laying on my heart the need to rethink my life and what faith in Christ really looks like.

When I returned, our church was finishing the Follow the Servant series in the Gospel of Mark. It was a lights-out series on pursuing Jesus our King and Servant. But as you look at the Gospel of Mark, you discover that even the disciples desperately needed a paradigm shift.

The Epidemic of Information Without Transformation

I want to push a little bit on a common paradigm: the idea that being a Christian is simply about knowing the right information, having the right data, hanging out with the right people, and rolling in the right circles. I just don’t believe that’s what being a Christian is. Yet we live in a church culture where that mindset is an epidemic. It’s all about knowledge and social circles, rather than what Jesus is actively doing on the inside.

There are clues to this all the way through the Gospel of Mark. Last week, we ended the series with a seemingly bizarre conclusion.

Mark 16:8 (NASB)

They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

The women who saw the empty tomb left trembling and astonished and said nothing to anyone. That is not quite the triumphant ending you expect. Nobody rolls the credits with a big crescendo theme song on that note! But we shouldn’t be surprised. Just like a movie with a plot twist at the end, when you re-watch it, you see the clues coming all along.

Let’s trace this theme. Look at Mark chapter 3, verse 5. Jesus is in the synagogue, there is a man with a withered hand, and the religious leaders are watching to trap Him.

Mark 3:5 (NASB)

After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

Notice that phrase: “hardness of heart.” Write that down. That is our first clue. Both the religious leaders and the disciples shared a common issue throughout the entire narrative.

Flip over to Mark chapter 7. The Pharisees gather around Jesus, deeply concerned that the disciples didn’t wash their hands with antibacterial soap before eating their Happy Meal. Look at how Jesus responds.

Mark 7:6-7 (NASB)

And He said to them, ’Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ’THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME. ‘BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.’

These religious leaders understood God intellectually. They could argue textual nuances all day long, but it was purely an intellectual faith.

Look at Mark chapter 10, verse 5. In the Law of Moses, Deuteronomy allowed a certificate of divorce if a husband found something “indecent” in his wife. The Pharisees stretched that definition to mean that if you didn’t like the way your wife laughed, or how she chewed gum, or how she folded laundry, you could divorce her. Look at what Jesus tells them.

Mark 10:5 (NASB)

But Jesus said to them, ’Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.

Jesus keeps pointing to the heart. When they asked Him in Mark 12 what the greatest commandment was, Jesus didn’t point to ritual or intellect; He said to love the Lord your God with all your heart.

Yet the religious leaders were obsessed with what was happening in the head rather than the heart. Jesus was saying, “You don’t have an information problem; you have a transformation problem.” You can quote the Bible, but without a transformed heart, you are just a smarter sinner—a biblically impressive moral mess.

The Disciples’ Hard Hearts

It is easy to create an “us versus them” mentality where the religious leaders are the villains and the disciples are our heroes. But look at Mark chapter 6. Jesus has just fed the 5,000, walked on water, climbed into the boat, and calmed the storm.

Mark 6:51-52 (NASB)

Then He got into the boat with them, and the wind stopped; and they were utterly astonished, for they had not gained any insight from the [incident of] the loaves, but their heart was hardened.

These are not the Pharisees; these are the disciples! Our team. The heroes. Yet their hearts were hardened.

Look at Mark chapter 8. The Pharisees ask for a sign, and Jesus takes the disciples across the lake. The disciples realize they forgot to make a Costco run and have no bread.

Mark 8:17-21 (NASB)

And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, ’Why do you discuss [the fact] that you have no bread? Do you not yet see or understand? Do you have a hardened heart? ‘HAVING EYES, DO YOU NOT SEE? AND HAVING EARS, DO YOU NOT HEAR? And do you not remember, when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces you picked up?’ They said to Him, ‘Twelve.’ ‘When [I broke] the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of broken pieces did you pick up?’ And they said to Him, ‘Seven.’ And He was saying to them, ‘Do you not yet understand?’

Both groups had the information, but neither had transformation. The disciples were in a small group with Jesus for three years. They heard His theology, served the poor with Him, and watched His miracles. Yet they completely missed the point because their hearts were hard.

Even after witnessing the resurrected Christ, look at what happens in Mark 16.

Mark 16:14-15 (NASB)

Afterward He appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining [at the table]; and He reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen Him after He had risen. And He said to them, ’Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.

They are literally looking into the face of the risen Lord, and He has to reproach them for their unbelief and hardness of heart.

Is it possible to be around the things of God, to know the right theology, to wear the Christian jersey, and still have a hard heart? Absolutely. The disciples did, and before my sabbatical, that was the exact trajectory I was on.

Going Below the Line

I was going through the motions. If I came over to your house for dinner, I was the “professional” who prayed. I read my Bible looking for sermon nuggets to give away, rather than letting the Word marinate in my own soul. I was slipping into treating preaching as a career rather than a calling, driven by the platform and the stage.

Here is the irony: real transformation does not happen from a stage or a podium. Transformation happens life-on-life. But if I am honest with you, I had become too busy, too fried, and too empty for that.

Have you ever felt like that? Has your relationship with God become stale? What does your daily time with the Lord look like? Is it just rushing through a devotion, praying, “God, bless these Cheetos and don’t let them go straight to my hips”? What does your discipleship look like? Who are you actually pouring your life into?

You don’t need another curriculum, another blog, another DVD series, or another podcast. You don’t have an information problem; you have a transformation problem. It is an issue of the heart.

The Restoration of Peter

How do we get our hearts back? In John chapter 21, we see a beautiful picture of how Jesus restores a hardened, broken heart. Peter had denied Jesus three times and had essentially given up. But Jesus meets him on the shore of the Sea of Galilee over a charcoal fire with breakfast.

John 21:15-22 (NASB)

So when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon, [son] of John, do you love Me more than these?’ He said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.’ He said to him, ‘Tend My lambs.’ He said to him again a second time, ‘Simon, [son] of John, do you love Me?’ He said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.’ He said to him, ‘Shepherd My sheep.’ He said to him the third time, ‘Simon, [son] of John, do you love Me?’ Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, ‘Do you love Me?’ And he said to Him, ‘Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.’ Jesus said to him, ’Tend My sheep. ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to [go].’ Now this He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, ‘Follow Me!’ Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following [them]; the one who also had leaned back on His bosom at the supper and said, ‘Lord, who is the one who betrays You?’ So Peter seeing him said to Jesus, ‘Lord, and what about this man?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If I want him to remain until I come, what [is that] to you? You follow Me!’

Three times Jesus asks him, “Do you love Me?” And three times Jesus gives him a mission: “Feed My lambs. Shepherd My sheep. Tend My sheep.”

Jesus does two profound things here. First, He takes Peter back to where it all began—by the sea, over fish, reminding him of when He first said, “Follow Me, and I will make you a fisher of men.” To experience heart transformation, you have to go back to the sweetness of when you first believed, when you had undistracted devotion to Jesus.

Life happens. You get married, buy a minivan, download a couple of kids, climb the career ladder, buy a dog, and settle into the suburban dream. Along the way, hearts grow cold. We have to go back to the simplicity of loving Jesus.

Second, Jesus calls Peter back to people. “Feed My sheep.” Transformation does not happen in isolation or purely through intellectual study. Our hearts are warmed when we are in the mess of life with people—caring, praying, weeping, and discipling.

A Call to a Paradigm Shift

When the disciples finally experienced this heart transformation, the Book of Acts shows us that they turned the world upside down. They moved the gospel through intense adversity to the ends of the earth because they had a passion driven by transformed hearts.

I want a paradigm shift. I don’t want to keep doing what I was doing, because doing the same thing will only yield the same exhausted results. I want to live differently, lead differently, and pastor from the heart. I don’t want to stay safely above the line in intellectual debates about what Calvin or Chrysostom said. I want to go below the line into messy, authentic transformation.

My question for you is: are you willing to come with me?

It is going to be messy. You won’t be able to hide behind Christian knowledge. Both your gold and your shadow will be exposed. But if we enter in together, our church can experience a genuine paradigm shift—moving away from mere information and returning to true transformation.

Let’s pray together.

Father in heaven, I am so grateful for the brokenness of the examples in Scripture. If every disciple had been an unfaltering spiritual giant, none of us could relate. Thank You for preserving the stories of men and women who struggled with hardness of heart.

Father, help us make the longest journey—moving truth from our heads down into our hearts. Shift our paradigm. Forgive us for running on empty, relying on intellect, and settling for cold routines. Take our woundedness, our brokenness, and our shadows, and use us for Your glory. Soften our callused hearts and transform us from the inside out. We confess our desperate need for You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.