Hello and welcome to Trinity Sermons, our sermon podcast from Trinity Church Streetsville.
Today in our sermon, we will be hearing first about a story involving King Herod from Mark
Chapter 6.
It will be learning from Rob about Windows of Opportunity.
This is a great sermon that you don't want to miss.
Enjoy and God bless.
Reading from Gospel of Mark Chapter 6, Verses 17-29.
For Herod himself had given orders to have John arrested, and he had him bound and put
in prison.
He did this because of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, whom he had married.
For John had been saying to Herod, it is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.
So Herodias nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him.
But she was not able to because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be
a righteous and holy man.
When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled, yet he liked to listen to him.
Finally, the opportunity came.
On his birthday, Herod gave a banquet for his high officials and military commanders
and the leading men of Galilee.
When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner
guests.
The king said to the girl, Ask me for anything you want and I'll give it to you.
And he promised her with an oath, Whatever you ask, I will give you up to half my kingdom.
She went out and said to her mother, What shall I ask for?
The head of John the Baptist, she answered.
I once the girl hurried into the king with the request.
I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter.
The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did
not want to refuse her.
So he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John's head.
The men went, beheaded John in the prison and brought back his head on a platter.
He presented it to the girl and she gave it to her mother.
Upon hearing this, John's disciples came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.
The word of the Lord.
I wanted to show you a picture, get started by throwing a picture up here.
This is a picture of a church in a little town called Port Colburn.
And this was where I was the pastor of this church for about 12 years, a while ago.
And Port Colburn was a lovely little town.
It was a quaint and cozy little town with quaint and cozy little people.
And some people might have called it a hick town, but no, we loved it there in Port Colburn.
It was great.
And it was in that church where I really learned so much about being a minister and in that
office.
And actually in my office, there was this window.
And I loved that window.
It was a lovely old window.
Actually, it was an old window.
It wasn't that lovely, as you can see.
But I would look out that window and I would look out on the market square that was right
there beside the church.
And I could see the people of Port Colburn coming and going and going about their business.
So I loved that window.
But another reason why I love that window is because on one occasion, that window saved
my life.
You see, it was a February Sunday morning and I arrived at the church bright and early,
6 a.m.
And it was really, really early.
And it was really cold.
You might not know this, but in Port Colburn, the temperature can really go down.
I think that morning it was about minus 200 degrees Celsius.
And I pulled in and I had a couple of loads of stuff from the van that I needed to take
into my office.
And so I took the first load, I opened the church, I set it on my desk in my office,
and I went back outside to the van.
And I got to the van and I was like, oh, shoot, I left my keys in the office.
And so I went back and I went to open the door and I was like, oh, shoot, I've locked
myself out of the church.
So I had in just a matter of seconds locked myself out of the car and locked myself out
of the church.
And by now, the temperature was like minus 400 degrees outside.
It was getting colder, strangely.
And so I thought, who am I going to call at 6 a.m. in the morning?
And so I said, well, I reached for my phone.
I didn't have my phone either.
I had also left my phone on the desk of my office.
So here I was.
I had no phone.
I had no car.
I had no keys.
I had no warmth.
It was getting very, very, very cold, minus 600 degrees now outside.
And so I didn't know what to do.
And then I looked and I saw it, the window.
And I said, could it be?
Is it possible that I, at some point in the fall, forgot to lock that window?
And that I could actually pry it open and climb in?
And so I don't know if you have ever tried to break into your own house, or if you've
ever tried to break into somebody else's house, which is a bad idea.
That was against the law.
Do not do that.
But I said, this is the only option I have.
And so I looked around and I found a blue box.
And I took the blue box.
I turned it upside down.
And I kind of stepped up onto the box so I could get my hands onto the window sill.
Now the first step was the easiest step.
I just had to pop the screen off the window.
And so that was easy.
And I had that done.
But the next step was going to be the really hard part.
If indeed I had left the window unlocked, I was going to need to get my fingernails kind
of under that bottom part.
They make windows so that you can't break into them.
So it's actually hard.
So I was like, and again, mine is 800 degrees outside.
I'm up there on this blue box with my dress shoes on.
And lo and behold, it might be a surprise to you.
But for other people, it's no surprise.
I had left the window open.
I had left it unlocked.
And it started to go up.
And so I got my hands in it and I pushed it up.
I could feel the warm air come pouring out of my office.
I was like, I think this is going to work.
But really the hard, hard part of the job was going to be getting through that window.
Because God did not make my body to be the kind of body that easily fits through a two
square foot opening.
And so, but I had no choice.
My life depended on it.
So I reached my hands over the threshold and I pulled and clambered and climbed up and
got my belly kind of there.
And then I shimmy to cross.
I remember it hurt so much because I was rubbing my belly on that bottom of a window
with all those grooves and flaps.
And I think I popped a button or two off of my shirt as I was getting in there.
But eventually I got enough of my weight on the other side of the window.
And I just, all I got to do now is just like, grab.
I have it.
You do its thing.
And I just slipped and I flopped and I tumbled the rest of the way into my office.
And so, yes, that day, that window saved my life.
Yay.
And that's why I'm here today.
Thanks to that window.
You probably heard this expression at some point in your life, a window of opportunity.
What do we mean when we hear about a window of opportunity?
What it means is, occasionally, from time to time in our life, there are these momentary
chances we have to move from one place in our life to another place in our life.
There is an opportunity to move from one side, from say, one situation that we are in, to
climb through and get into a different situation.
We call these windows of opportunity.
And you might not know this, but the word opportunity comes from two Latin words, ob and
portis.
Ob means toward and portis means a harbor, like a port, a harbor.
And so, the imagery is this.
Imagine a little boat that's getting blown along the seashore and the wind is blowing
and the waves are pushing it.
At some point, an opportunity opens up where that boat can make a turn and get into the
port safely.
It's a window of opportunity, and it's only last a moment.
If the boat misses that opportunity, it's going to blow on, it might even run into the
rocks or get blown down the seashore for miles and miles and miles.
But that is the thing about opportunities.
They are only there for a moment, and then they are gone.
And if you've missed it, you've missed it, and you're not going to get it back.
That's why we have expressions like this.
We say seize the opportunity.
Or we say jump at the opportunity.
Or we say this is a golden opportunity.
You've got to take advantage of this opportunity.
Or on this Mother's Day, one of the things my mom always used to say was opportunity
only knocks once, Rob.
Happy Mother's Day, mom.
Thank you for that advice.
But you probably already know this, because at some point in your life, or maybe it's
a point in your life like right now, you are aware that there are these windows of opportunities
that come into our lives.
For example, it could be that you have an opportunity in your career, a career opportunity.
You're in a job, and this other job opportunity opens up, and you think, oh, I've got this
chance now.
It's only here now I could take that chance.
Or you've applied for a job, and they've said we'd like to offer you the job.
And now's your chance.
You've got to make a decision.
It's your window of opportunity, your moment of opportunity.
Or it could be perhaps a financial opportunity.
Somebody has said, if you invest right now, I can get you in on this thing.
If you sell right now, or if you buy right now, later it's no good.
Before it's no good, but right now there is a financial opportunity for you.
Maybe it's a relationship opportunity.
There's an opportunity for you to step into a relationship with someone.
Someone has said, hey, would you like to go for coffee?
Hey, would you like to get married over here?
Somebody just got engaged to get married over here.
So there's an opportunity to step into that.
Or on the other time, sometimes we're in a relationship, and we are looking for an opportunity
to step out of that relationship.
And we're waiting and watching, and oh, there's my chance.
Here's my chance to get a relationship opportunity.
Now, sometimes we talk about this in parenting, that in parenting you only have a very small
window of opportunity to really invest in, build into the life of your kids.
They say that by the time your kids are 12 years old, you will have spent 75% of the
time you will ever spend with them.
By the time they're 18, it's like 90% of the time.
So you've only got this small window of opportunity to build relationships with your kids, to build
into the lives of your kids.
One last example I'll give you that I learned is growing up on a farm.
Actually, when we were in Port Colburn, we also lived on a little farm, and we would
bale hay in the summer in order to feed all of our animals.
And if you know anything about baling hay, first you have to cut the hay, and then it
has to sit in the field to dry.
And then you kind of got to rake it so it gets really dry.
And then you can bale it all up, and then you got to get it into the barn.
It's got to be dry.
And so because farmers know, it's got to have really dry conditions for baling hay, they
look at their calendar and they see there's rain, there's rain, there's rain.
Oh, three days of sun, one, two, three, and then it's going to rain again.
That is our moment of opportunity.
We've got to make hay while the sun shines.
So all this to say is I think all of us are familiar that in life sometimes there come
these moments of opportunity, these windows of opportunity.
Because a window of opportunity comes to us as a change of plans.
You thought you had your life all figured out, it was going this way, you knew where
you were going and what you were going to, where life was taking you.
But now some other option has come up, and you now have to wrestle with the idea, am
I willing to change my plans to take this window of opportunity that has come my way?
Sometimes a window of opportunity is a change of plans.
Other times a window of opportunity is a choice of options.
There's a bunch of the young adults and youth in our church right now who are waiting to
hear back from colleges and waiting to hear back from universities.
And maybe you've received an acceptance to one or two or three schools.
Who knows?
Maybe all the schools have said we'd love to have you.
But now you've got to choose.
You've got a window of opportunity.
They're not going to keep that window open for long.
I think you've got until June 3rd and you've got to make choice which school you're going
to go to and as soon as you do all those other windows are going to close.
Or maybe you're on the other side of the spectrum and you're like looking to retire.
And you're like I could retire now.
I could go a little later.
I've got this chance right now.
They're offering me this package.
Do I get out now?
Is this my window of opportunity?
So a window of opportunity can look like a change of plans.
It can look like a choice of options.
But the one I want to talk to you about today most of all is that sometimes a window of
opportunity comes to us as a challenge to our faith.
Right?
Sometimes in life God gives us a chance.
God gives us a chance to step from one place in our spiritual life and to step through
to another place.
To move from one place in our relationship with God and enter into another place, a better
place in our relationship with God.
And I wonder if you've ever thought about it this way.
It could be, I'm not saying I know this, but it could be that even being here this morning,
being at church this morning might be for you a window of opportunity to take a step
deeper in your relationship with God.
Maybe this is your first time at church or your first time in a long time at church.
And you don't even know how you got here or you're watching online.
You're like why am I watching this?
Right?
And you know, somebody invited you to church and you reluctantly said yes.
You always said you weren't a church person, but you ended up at church today.
Or maybe you felt this little nudge inside of you, like God was nudging you, saying,
hey, you should really go to church.
Anyways, you're here now.
You're here in this place.
You're watching online, whatever.
What is that all about?
Is it possible God is opening a window for you, an opportunity that wasn't there before
and won't be there later, but there's a moment, a challenge, a choice for you to make in your
relationship with God even this morning.
Or if you've been at coming to church your whole life, you could still have a window
of opportunity even this morning.
Maybe you've been sensing for a while, you know what?
God is calling me to do something different, to do something a little more, to serve or
to lead or to get involved or to join a group or to give or whatever.
And you've sensed this and now you see, oh, the opportunity is there.
It's there before me now.
It might not be there later.
It wasn't there before.
I wasn't feeling this that way before.
You know, that's the thing.
If you feel this way now, there's no guarantee you're going to feel that way later and you
didn't feel that way before, but there's a window of opportunity for all of us, potentially
even today.
What are you going to do?
Today I want to talk to you about a man who had a window of opportunity, a challenge to
his faith, and unfortunately he completely blew it.
On the surface, the story that we just read is a story of how John the Baptist, who was
Jesus' cousin and a great prophet, how he was executed, how he was put to death at the
hands of King Herod.
That's what the story is on the surface.
But actually, I believe this story has more to do with King Herod than John the Baptist.
And I think that the reason the author, Mark, in this case, has written down the story is
because he wants us all to learn something about missed opportunities.
In fact, I think this is what we're supposed to learn from this story.
Don't make Herod's mistake.
Actually, why don't we say that one together?
Don't make Herod's mistake.
So you're going to say, now, what was Herod's mistake?
What opportunity did he miss?
Well, let's take a look at the story a little bit.
There's a bit to understand in the background.
First to understand is a point in Herod's life.
He had a wide open window to take a step of faith toward God.
Here's the backstory.
Okay, the backstory is kind of important.
Herod himself had given orders to have John the Baptist, as John the Baptist, arrested
and put in prison because of, I say it, Herodias, but because of Herodias.
Now you might be like, what is that?
He did this because of Herodias, his brother, Philip's wife, whom he had married.
What is going on here?
Track with me here.
Okay.
Herod was actually one of three brothers.
There was Herod, and he had another brother, Aristobulus, and another brother, Philip.
Aristobulus had a daughter.
Her name was Herodias.
And for whatever reason, Herodias said, you know who I'd like to marry?
I'd like to marry my uncle Philip.
And so she married her uncle Philip.
So Philip was married to Aristobulus' daughter, Herodias.
And then, I don't know what happened later on, but at some point things kind of went
south with Philip and Herodias, and Herodias said, you know who I maybe should marry now?
Is I now I should marry my other uncle?
And so she ends up going and getting married to Herod.
So just get this.
Herod had married a woman who was both at the same time his niece and his sister-in-law.
I mean, that's crazy.
I mean, we didn't even do that in Port Colbert.
But that's the situation that he had gotten himself into.
And it was wrong.
It was wrong.
And nobody was going to say anything about it.
Nobody was going to say anything about it, except for who?
Except for John the Baptist.
John the Baptist came out and he challenged Herod and said, Herod, this is not right what
you are doing.
It's incestuous.
It's against God's law.
This is not God's plan for marriage.
And so what happened?
John, of course, got arrested by Herod.
But things take a bit of a turn, right?
Whoops.
I didn't want to go that far.
Things take a bit of a turn.
Herod feared John.
What does that mean?
Herod actually feared John and protected him.
And when it says he feared John, it doesn't mean that he was like, uh, get away from me.
It means he had a sense of awe when he was around John.
When he heard John speak, it sounded like the voice of God was speaking to him.
It convicted him, right?
This man is speaking God's words to me somehow.
It was a sense of holy fear.
And so Herod actually protected John, which is crazy, right?
This guy is publicly criticizing your marriage and your protecting him.
But it's because God was speaking through John to Herod.
And Herod knew he was a righteous man.
Herod knew that he was a holy man.
And so from time to time, Herod, I think, would just call John up from the prison and
sit and listen to him.
And John would talk to him.
And John would preach to him.
And Herod would just hear, hear what John was saying.
And as he listened, we read that he was greatly, and see that word there?
Puzzled.
But he liked to listen to him.
Now that word puzzled is a Greek word, which is aporeo.
Now you might say, what does, what does that mean?
If something is po-reo, just po-reo, it means that you will just go ahead and do it.
So if I po-reo, it means I'm going to do something.
I'm going to get on the road.
I'm going to walk down the road.
I'm going to get moving.
I'm going to get going.
But if you're aporeo, it means you get on the road and you don't know what you want
to do.
You don't know which way to go.
You're indecisive.
You're, you're, should I go this way?
It's almost like a fork in the road.
Someone who's aporeo doesn't know whether to go this way or doesn't know whether to
go that way.
You know?
And when Herod heard John talk to him, he was aporeo.
He was puzzled.
He was confused.
He was uncertain because on the one hand, John was, of course, his enemy, you know, publicly
criticizing his marriage.
But on the other hand, he knew this is a holy man and he's speaking to me.
He's speaking God's words through him to me.
And so Herod, in this moment, I hope you understand, he had a window of opportunity.
One of the greatest prophets, in fact, Jesus calls John the Baptist the greatest prophet
ever is speaking to you day by day, preaching to you day by day, calling you to live a certain
way and act a certain way and make decisions in your life.
A major window of opportunity is open before Herod in this very moment.
But will Herod take that step of faith and move through this window?
That window was not there before.
And that window may not be there later.
So what will Herod do?
And again, some of you know this feeling all too well because you find yourself in a situation
where God is calling you to do something.
You know God is calling you to do something.
But you're aporeo.
You're wasp-ling.
You don't know what to do.
Are you going to step through it or are you going to let that opportunity pass?
For Herod, ultimately, a moment of decision arrives.
The Gospel writer Mark actually uses very ironic language.
He says, finally, the opportune time came.
The moment of opportunity, the moment of decision has come.
But wait, whose moment of opportunity is it going to be?
Unfortunately, it's not Herod's.
Herod doesn't seize the opportunity.
He doesn't jump at the opportunity.
It's actually Herodias who's deeply wounded because her character has been called into
question because of this marriage criticism thing.
So while Herod is wasp-ling, not sure whether to take a step of faith toward God, Herodias
saw her window of opportunity to put an end to it all.
And she was far more decisive.
She just took it.
She sees as one day, you know, Herod's throwing a great big birthday party, a big banquet.
And she says, here's my opportunity.
Right?
He's up in front of all his guests.
He's had too much to drink.
Here's my opportunity.
He's making all these lavish promises, promises that he doesn't, he doesn't even know what
he's saying.
Here's my opportunity.
He sees, you know, my daughter Salome dancing.
He really likes it when she dances.
Oh, now he's making promises.
He says he'll give her anything.
Here is my opportunity.
And she whispers in Salome's ear.
She says, hey, ask for the head of John the Baptist on a platter.
She sees her opportunity.
Her window opened.
And at the same time, Herod's window closed.
It's a tragic moment.
It's tragic not so much because John the Baptist ends up dying because he actually dies quite
triumphantly preaching God's word right to the very end.
But what's really tragic is that Herod had this opportunity to take a step toward God
and he waffled and he missed it.
And he didn't want to do it because of the oaths that he had made to his dinner guests.
You can read right here.
He had made these promises.
He had said all these things in front of people.
And now this is really important to know.
Is it how could somebody who had heard God's word spoken to them so clearly still somehow
miss their window of opportunity?
How could a person make a decision like this and miss it?
It's essentially this.
He was worried about what other people were going to say.
He was worried more about what other people said than about what God said.
He was more worried about saving face than saving his soul.
And so he ultimately caves in to the pressure of the crowd.
And I think that's how anybody, that's how you, me, any of us, might clearly hear the
voice of God and say, I'm not going to do it because we're worried about what other
people might think.
It's probably the biggest reason why we don't step through the windows of opportunity that
God puts before us.
We're worried about what it might look like to others.
And so for Herod, the window closes.
And it closes forever.
He never gets another chance to take that step with God.
And you can just tell that Herod is haunted by what he's done because look what happens
a little bit later.
A little bit later when Jesus comes on the scene, Herod is like, oh, who is this Jesus?
Maybe this Jesus is actually John the Baptist who's come back from the dead.
And maybe I can get a chance to talk to him again.
And maybe I can listen to him speak to me again.
And maybe I can make a different decision this time.
Maybe, maybe, maybe, but sorry, Herod, no.
Jesus is not John.
John is dead.
You killed him.
You had your opportunity.
And that opportunity is now gone.
In fact, eventually Herod does have the chance to meet Jesus.
And we're told that when Jesus was arrested, he was initially brought before Herod.
And Herod actually really wanted to talk to Jesus.
He plied Jesus with many questions, we are told.
And this is significant.
Jesus gave him no answer.
This is the only time in all the gospels where Jesus refuses to answer a question that is
put to him.
Why?
The moment has passed.
The window is closed.
And maybe Jesus knows, hey, you had your chance, Herod.
You had a chance to listen to the greatest preacher of all time, John the Baptist.
You had your moment.
And if you wouldn't listen to him, you're not going to listen to me.
I'm not going to say another word to you.
Jesus is sent to his death.
Herod as well goes on, actually, to have a very miserable and gory death.
We're told that God strikes him down.
We're told that something about worms consuming his body.
I'm not sure what all that means, but apparently Herod's time was over.
He missed that window of opportunity.
And by its very nature, a window of opportunity is very, very small.
Things could have gone so differently.
Like Mom said, opportunity only knocks once.
So what is the moral of all this?
Why did Mark put this in his gospel?
I'm not 100% sure, but I think one of the reasons has got to be this.
It's not going to make Herod's mistake.
Or put differently, the moral, the lesson is a window of opportunity, even a small one,
can affect an eternity.
A window of opportunity only lasts a few seconds.
It might only last a few days.
It might only last a week or two in the period of your life.
It doesn't seem like much.
But in that moment, in that moment, that brief opportunity could have eternal implications
for your life.
Now if you're sitting here today, and I'm certain all of us are feeling this, we could
be saying, oh shoot, I've blown it.
I have missed so many opportunities in my life.
And maybe I've even missed opportunities that God has given me.
You haven't blown it.
It's not true.
Because we actually know something that Herod did not know.
We know that Jesus had many opportunities to walk away from us and to walk away from
the cross.
But when the time came, Jesus took His opportunity, not to save Himself, but to save us.
And when He gave His life for us, all of our mistakes and all of our missed opportunities
were wiped away, were wiped clean.
With Jesus, we always can have a new beginning.
See, God's love lasts forever, even if windows of opportunity do not.
But I still say this to you, never assume, oh, I'll just do it later.
I'll talk to her later.
I'll make that decision later.
I'll answer that question later.
I'll take that step of faith later.
I'll pray that prayer later.
Herod shows us later just might not happen.
Later the situation could be different.
Later you could be different.
There are only so many tomorrows in our lives and a missed moment could affect more than
you possibly know.
So don't ignore God's open door.
If the window is open, don't stand out there in the cold.
Climb into God's plan for your life.
Even today, if you feel like God is calling you to take a step, to take a chance, to trust
in Him, this is the opportunity.
I love this piece of Scripture from Deuteronomy 30.
This is a good one to stick to your fridge.
Every day when you walk out the house, if you looked at this, this would be a great one
to remember.
See, I set before you, right?
I set before you right now.
Right now, I set before you today in this moment, life and prosperity, death and destruction.
Choose life.
Window of opportunity can affect our eternity.
So don't ignore God's open door.
Be with God.
Thanks for listening to our sermon today, and we hope that you found the message inspiring.
Join us next week for Pentecost Sunday, where we will begin a brand new sermon series on
the fruit of the Spirit.
Thanks again for listening.
Today's sermon was taken from the May 12, 2024 service at Trinity Church, Streetsville,
in Mississauga, Ontario.