Tough No.14 The Big Mac Factor

Philippians chapter 3 at verse 7. But whatever was to my prophet I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death and so somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.

Amen. May God bless his word to us this evening. ...national scene and we've had pictures of President Gorbachev.

The rumour was at the beginning of the week that he was going to resign. That went up like a lead balloon on New York Stock Exchange and wiped millions of dollars off until he denied the allegation. We've had our Welsh weightlifting team brought in disgrace by a couple of folk who decided to pump their muscles up, not just through exercise but with the help of drugs.

We've had Mr de Klerk in South Africa bringing about one of the most extraordinary situations there, not completely causing apartheid to collapse but maybe to start something rolling that will not be stopped even by the backlash of the right wing, so it's been quite a week. But of course, the most important thing is that McDonald's have opened in Moscow. Must be important because no less a newspaper than the London Times gives you a blow-by-blow description of the opening and the whole of the seventh page or thereabouts, no it's page nine, apologies to the Times, is given over to anyone who happens to be able to speak Russian and you're directed that should you find yourself in Moscow, that Pushkin Square off Gorky Street is where you will be fortified with Big Mac and all that McDonald's has to offer.

The London Daily Mail said that the achievements of President Gorbachev had really come to their pinnacle. As Muscovites munched their hamburger, we have been introduced into glasnosh and it's quite incredible really just what has happened in terms of American capitalism stretching out one of its hands and finding itself welcomed by thousands of people in Moscow. The Daily Telegraph actually made reference to the Mac Factor and it was that that sort of hit me when I was reading a copy of that paper which I don't buy, it just happened to be on the train that somebody had left when I was travelling up to London on Thursday.

And the concept of Mac Factor and all that the Mail and the Times have been extolling the McDonald's company for started the cogs in the back of my brain whirling as I thought, well, our Lord taught somewhere in the Scriptures about the children of light learning from the children of darkness. Half of the population of the United States of America live only three minutes from a McDonald's. It's something like 150 or 160 hamburgers per second that are sold around the world under the label of McDonald's.

And I was trying to work out in my mind as I was musing on this, what is it that causes an enterprise like McDonald's to flourish to such a degree that it's become almost a commercial marvel in the last decade and a half? And is there not something that maybe we as so-called children of the light who trust the Lord Jesus can learn from a business enterprise in terms of wanting to communicate what we believe ought to be within three minutes hearing aids, so to speak, of everyone in this country and indeed around the world? So that's why I take my address, which will be quite a brief one this evening, under the heading of the Mac Factor. You see, it seemed to me as I was musing on that train that there were a couple of statements, particularly in Scripture, that isolated all that you might think at the business level the Mac Factor stands for. Because just continuing the business level for a moment, it seems to me that McDonald's at least is speaking to us of enterprise.

As far as planting a shop, a restaurant in Moscow is concerned, it's speaking about people who refuse to give up because three times Soviet presidents said, Nyet, when McDonald's asked. Against incredible odds, they've planted their particular branch, the largest they've got in the world, and one of the main thoroughfares of Moscow. Now that idea of sheer determination is a principle that you find in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, but particularly the latter for our purposes this—particularly the former for our purposes this evening.

Because in Isaiah chapter fifty, reference is made to our Lord Jesus, and in a moment or two we're going to be speaking not only of our Lord Jesus, but singing hymns about what He has done for us and remembering His death on the cross of Calvary. In the sixth verse of Isaiah fifty, speaking of the Savior, the psalmist has this to say, I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard. I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting, because the sovereign Lord helps me.

I will not be disgraced, therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame. The Mac Factor, I have set my face like a flint. Here's the apostle Paul in the reading that Hugh brought to you, speaking about his own determination having confessed Jesus as Savior, this one thing I do, the Mac Factor.

Now, on a grade of one to ten, do you have the Mac Factor as a sort of goal for you to achieve? I mean, what's your rating in terms of pure determination? Is it number five? Is it number ten? Is it eight or two? One thing you've got to admit about all these commercial enterprises, be they birthed in the United States of America or in Europe, that they are go-getting people, who want to ensure that their product gets the greatest publicity and is purchased by the largest number of people. Now, the reason is not philanthropic. They want to make money.

Whether it's rubles or whether it's dollars or sterling, it doesn't really matter. But there is this tremendous incentive to be successful as a business enterprise. Now, here I reckon our Lord Jesus, predicted in the Old Testament, it stands as an even greater illustration of someone who is utterly determined to achieve the reason why He came on earth.

And it's far more important than our—that our minds concentrate finally on Him than on my illustration. So if you want to get a high rating in the Mac Factor, the first thing that I want to suggest to you is that there will be advice that you'll have to spurn. Did you hear that? There will be advice that you'll have to spurn.

Jesus says, I have set my face like a flint. Now you can flesh that out in terms of His New Testament experience. He's going to Jerusalem.

You remember the incident in Mark's Gospel, recorded also in the other synoptic Gospels, that means Matthew and Luke? Our Lord has just told His disciples that when He goes to Jerusalem, there He will be crucified. And Peter doesn't like it. And so he takes Jesus on one side and he says, not so Lord, not for you.

Now this is one of the greatest difficulties in terms of achieving what the Lord may have for you in life. You have the difficulty of your pressure group. Peter says, not so Lord.

His mother and his brothers came up to him some months before that. They'd obviously got very embarrassed because of his preaching and his testimonies in Galilee. And so they'd come just to give a little bit of advice, which had to be spurned.

Because he had to achieve what was his purpose in coming into this world, and that was to go to Jerusalem and there to be crucified. He has set his face as a flint. The flint is a very hard stone.

And the metaphor stands for something that is invulnerable. And when advice is given to our Lord Jesus not to achieve His life's objective, He spurns it. He puts it on one side.

George Cohen, Canadian director of McDonald's, was brought face to face with enormous problems when first he revealed what was his goal in terms of getting McDonald's into Moscow. Economic problems were manifold. To say nothing of the difficulty of getting good quality meat in the Soviet Union.

And French fries in McDonald's are a legend, so I'm told. I'm not into French fries, but it's a special potato. I bet you didn't know that, did you? You thought it was any old potato, it's not.

I'm really clued up on McDonald's this evening. It's grown in Holland. And so they had to get the little seedlings of whatever they call those small spuds and send them out to Moscow, where they've got four farms now, not only for the cattle to graze, but also for the right quality potatoes to be grown.

Innumerable problems, because they wanted McDonald's in Moscow to be equivalent to McDonald's in Los Angeles, or any other place in the world, because McDonald's is the same wherever you go. Fantastic quality, you get a great meal, if you like that sort of thing. Incredible problems would confront Paul the Apostle if he was going to achieve his life's objective given to him by God on the Damascus road.

But you can hear his contemporaries, can't you? If you do that, you'll ruin yourself. Professionally, there's no possibility at all of further advancement. If you go on in the mad way that you're continuing at this moment, then your life will be an absolute failure compared with the earlier years when you seem to be such a potential success in the whole area of Judaism.

Jesus had to spurn advice in order to achieve his life's goal. That's why perhaps he uttered that very stern word when he said, if a man is going to be my disciple, he's got, relatively speaking, to hate the ties that his family might have upon him if those ties deflect him from achieving my goal. His relationship to the family compared to his love to me.

Our Lord was speaking in a hyperbole, exaggerated language to secure the point. The ties of home ought to be second to the goal of doing what God wants you to do. And sometimes the home ties will bring the advice that's got to be spurned in order to secure what God wants for you.

Not only is there advice to spurn, but it seems to me from the context of this particular verse in Isaiah speaking about our Lord Jesus, there's inspiration to stimulate. You see, here he is as just a Galilean, an unofficial rabbi, and the task that he has got to do as the Savior of the Jews and the Savior of the world is really quite beyond his ability at the human level. But he's not operating at the human level, is he? Why? Well, because he's the Son of God.

God the Father is on his side. Verse seven of Isaiah 50, because the sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore I set my face like flint.

I know I will not be put to shame. You've trusted Jesus as your Savior, congratulations. God doesn't now leave you on your own.

He's got something for you to achieve. And there's the inspiration for you to draw of the promises from the Word of God, which tell you that the Lord will never leave you, he'll never forsake you. When George Cohen planted that McDonald's in Moscow, he had got, if you please, the inspiration of all that had been achieved in Canada behind him.

He drew from the success of this mega organization around the world, and there was no stopping the man. It didn't matter what the economists said, what the business people in the West said. He had a goal.

And he went for it. And here you get a picture of our Lord Jesus in the Gospel of Mark and the tenth chapter. His disciples are utterly amazed with the fortitude and the determination that the Lord Jesus shows as he sets off towards Jerusalem.

They can't understand that he should be so convinced that this was the way for him to go. Verse 32 of Mark 10. They were on their way up to Jerusalem with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished.

Astonished at what? That you couldn't shift him. It's pure madness to go there, but the Lord has such a resilience, such a strength. You can't really dissuade him.

It's like talking to a brick wall, because he's made up his mind. There are times, Christian brothers and sisters, are you listening, when you need to be stubborn. But the problem is that we're often stubborn on occasions when we shouldn't be.

And are like a jellied eel on occasions when we should be strong. But here is our Lord taking measure of what's in front of him and realizing that the Lord, his Father, is with him. And so he sets off and he goes to Jerusalem despite what his friends have to say.

The Anglicans have got some beautiful prayers in their book of prayer. And on one occasion, you speak of the Lord Jesus as you're praying, and you reflect on these words, by thy consuming passion, and that was it. A consuming passion, do you have that? You need it to be successful at the business level.

But a fig for the business level at the moment, I'm not bothered about that. I am concerned that you have passion to achieve the goals that God wants you to achieve in your life, which bring honor and glory to the Lord Jesus, who is the chief goal setter. Not only the goal setter, but one who secured all the purposes of God in him.

The most glorious words that our Lord Jesus ever spoke were the words that left his lips just before he gave up his spirit, because he didn't die, not in the sense of being crushed to death. Death had no power over Jesus, that's a very difficult thing for us to understand. You and I are mortal.

One day we will die unless the Lord returns before that event, and we'll be utterly powerless. But death didn't have a hold on Jesus. He surrendered his life voluntarily, and before he surrendered his spirit, he let loose from his lips one word in the Aramaic language, it's translated into the Greek, I don't know the Aramaic, so I'll give you the Greek, τετελετσταί, finished, not I'm finished.

This isn't Seb Cole having to come back from the Commonwealth Games, because the poor man is sickly, nor is it the Welsh weightlifters returning in disgrace. Here is Jesus in utter triumph, finished, I've planted it on this world, the means whereby salvation shall come to men and women, and the inspiration he got from the Father, having often had to spurn the advice of his contemporaries, be they his kith and kin of the family, or his disciples, advice to spurn, inspiration to stimulate. But the third and final thing in consideration of my text, under the topical heading of the Mac Factor, is that there was a need to meet, a need to meet.

That's why he set his face towards Jerusalem as a flint. George Cohen said this in regard to McDonald's in Moscow, speaking of the queues, which I understand are almost like a disease in the Soviet Union, wherever you go, I gather you have to queue, I don't know whether that's accurate, I've not been, but friends of mine who have tell me that this is the situation, and he says this, at least when they get to the end of the queue, they know there will be food. Well, you see, he's got his farms, doesn't he? He's got his cattle, he's got those Dutch potatoes, five sixteenths of an inch thin, each one.

The amount of information I'm giving you free of charge this evening, it's incredible. Do you know that here in England, McDonald's have got their own college? It's well positioned in East Finchley, some of you can work out why I say it's well positioned, capital of private enterprise in that area. In the United States of America, you can get a bachelor's degree in Hamburgology, imagine putting B. Ham after your name, in England they'd probably think it was short for Birmingham.

Why all the concerns of the Canadian director for Moscow? Because he knows, and I say it's not a philanthropic move, but he knows there's a need. There's a market out there. So McDonald's comes, and all the fanfare of the world's press, they've saved a fortune on free publicity.

I mean, I wouldn't be giving this sermon this evening, I'm part of the people who've been conned by all this, but I'm exploiting it because I want to sharpen the point, especially for young people. There's a need, you see, there's a market. Why does Jesus set his face to Jerusalem as a flint? Why does Paul say, this one thing I do? Because there are goals that Paul, and more importantly, Jesus, wants to achieve.

Our Lord didn't see the queues in Moscow, but he saw men and women on earth, a sheep without a shepherd. He saw fields white to harvest. And even before the beginning of time, as he imagined the situation in the world, he said to his father, look, for the redemption of mankind after the fall, and after those who've been made in our image have made a mess of things, I'll go.

I'll set up a rescue shop. I'll move in. And so he comes to this world almost as a man possessed.

You can't deflect him from achieving what he's doing. The disciples are utterly astonished because he has that look in his eyes of sheer determination which causes them no longer to try to argue with him as they accept the inevitable. Alright, let's go to Jerusalem and die with him.

You remember Thomas's comment. And at the end of the day, well, George Cohen said in Moscow, it's been a long, long road. It's also been worth every drop of sweat.

This has been the most exciting day in my life. The greatest day that ever there was in the world was when our Lord Jesus was raised from the dead in the power of an endless life and he demonstrated once and for all that his death on the cross was effective to meet the needs of Russians and British and Chinese and especially Jews. Our Lord Jesus anticipates in the spiritual sense the Mac factor.

He spurned bad advice. He had inspiration from the father that he drew and he realized there was a need to meet. And we this evening remember him and we offer once again our lives to him and say take us and use us and give us the same determination that gripped you to achieve something positive in the life that we have before we're taken into your immediate presence.

Let's sing a hymn, shall we? It's a lovely old hymn that speaks of people who are possessed or at least want to be possessed by a vision that God alone can give. Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart. Not be all else to me save that thou art.

Thou my best thought by day or by night. Waking or sleeping thy presence in my light. 420, this lovely Irish hymn.

Don't sing the second verse, it's going to be sung for us. And then during the final verse start to, perhaps we'll take the whole of the hymn, remain standing and then Margaret's going to lead us in some scripture songs and praise and worship. And during that time if some of you are upstairs and you're going to have communion with us we'll fill these seats down below.

It'll make it very convenient as we bring bread and wine to you. Inviting you to partake of the emblems if you know the Lord Jesus is your saviour. 420.

Let's stand. Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart. Not be all else to me save that thou art.

Thou my best thought by day or by night. Be thou my wisdom, thou my true word. I ever with thee, thou with me, Lord.

Thou my great father, I thy true son. Thou in me dwelling and I with thee one. Be thou my shepherd, O Lord.

Be thou my keeper, O Lord. The lady's singing. Let us worship under the tree of life.