Hello and welcome to the John Markoma Teachings podcast. My name is Yinka Darsen and I'm your host.

Each week we feature teachings by John Mark or other voices in the formation space and it's great

to have you with us. We're continuing our Garden City series this week with a teaching from John Mark on the importance of say no.

If we're going to say our deepest yes to the calling that God has given us,

it means we need to practice say no to other things so that we can live with focus,

avoid the trap of business and embrace a life that is truly life. Here's John Mark.

Turning your Bibles to the Gospel of Mark chapter one. Mark chapter one, if you're new or you're

visiting and first off welcome. Really happy you're here. My name is John Mark. I'm one of the

leaders at Bridgetown.

Secondly, we're in the middle of this series that we are calling Garden City. And to recap the series, here's what we have been learning as a community. First off, that we are made in the

image of God, meaning we were made as human beings to rule over the world, to gather up the

raw materials of planet Earth, and to carve

out a garden-like city, that the Bible opens with a command to make culture.

Like, that's actually a command that you and I walk with every single day.

And from the beginning of the story, what God had in mind was civilization, a large, healthy, thriving,

garden-like city. It's what we see at the end of the scriptures. And with civilization comes

specialization, meaning each one of us has a special and unique role to play in humanity. And

usually the word used for this is vocation. Now, our working definition for

vocation over the last couple of weeks was this, our God-given identity and calling. Identity,

meaning there is somebody that God made you to be, and calling, there is something that God

made you to do. And the hope for this series, at least for a lot of you, is to unlock that

part of you and unleash it out into the world. Now, last week, we left off on this idea that all

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