So we are in a series in the Gospel of Mark… (slide on where we are…)
- Which is Mark’s biography of Jesus, written around 70AD… and it is his attempt at capturing the story of Jesus life…
- And the purpose of this biography is persuading us all that this Jesus is the Messiah.
- Central question… Mark 8:29 where Jesus asks his disciples “who do you say I am?”
- Now I like crowd participation about as much as a kick in the face… but how are you starting to answer that?
- Throw it out there… (OK we are starting again…)
So we are mid chapter 3…
- Almost to the explosive parables Jesus tells to explain the inbreaking Kingdom of heaven
- But we have been noting… that the ministry of Jesus is amongst ordinary people, bumping up against Jesus and being amazed!
- What do you do with someone who can heal the sick?
- What do you do with someone who can drive out impure spirits?
- What do you do with someone who has authority when they teach and claims to have the ability to forgive sins? That is what they have to work out in Mark…
- So, so much of what Jesus is doing is pointing towards that opening line of Mark’s Gospel.
- “This is Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.”
So we read on… Mark 3:7-19
Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lake, and a large crowd from Galilee followed. 8 When they heard about all he was doing, many people came to him from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon. 9 Because of the crowd he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him, to keep the people from crowding him. 10 For he had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him.11 Whenever the impure spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” 12 But he gave them strict orders not to tell others about him.
13 Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. 14 He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach 15 and to have authority to drive out demons. 16 These are the twelve he appointed: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter), 17 James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means “sons of thunder”), 18 Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot 19 and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
Well who is the most famous person you have met? Someone who crowds want to see?
- Don’t worry, I am not about to tell my “meeting Bono” story again… (how did that get up there?)
- I always feel a bit cringe when I see the latest pop star or boy band in town and see crowds of adoring fans camping outside the hotel.
- Fortunately my eleven year old daughter is immune to all things pop culture so we avoided the Tay Tay fever that swept Australia last year.
- But there are still people out there who crowds will throng to see, to touch, to just be near!
- I was trying to think if there is anyone I would get out of bed to go and see if I heard they were down in Manly…
- The only person I could think of was… the Pope… and I guess that is on hold for a while…
- What about you?
Well we come to a really interesting place in Mark’s gospel today where there seems to be a clear difference drawn…
- Between the crowds who flock to Jesus and those who become real disciples.
- So it’s not really surprising… but with Jesus healing and setting people free and causing a stir wherever he goes…
- The crowds are coming from all over the place to see this Jesus…
- And there is a sense that the crowds are not exactly behaving themselves….
It says in verse 9 that Jesus needed a small boat nearby, with the implication, he might need to escape…
- The reason being, they are crowding him, the Greek word here thil-I-bosin which connotes a mobbing, a pressing, a not nice way of harassing him…
- And the reason for the boat, and the reason for the crowding…
- Verse 10 “for he had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him.”
- I can’t imagine this was pleasant… In other words… they want something from this miracle working teacher.
Now to be fair to the crowd, I get it… these desperate people live in a primitive medical world.
- This is not 21st Century Australia where if you are sick you can go to emergency and get treated.
- Things that we would think of as entirely manageable are life threatening or seriously life diminishing in epidemic proportions…
- Now of course, many of us have our own serious health challenges…
- But all I am saying is that news of Jesus, doing miracles and healing the sick leads to a serious crushing, mobbing of Jesus!
- And maybe it is reading between the lines, but I think this passage is contrasting people who just want something from Jesus with those he calls, to be with him.
Now I do note from this passage that it says he healed many… so even with mixed motives for coming to Jesus, he is still gracious and powerful to heal
- But when it comes to Jesus, you don’t want to end up in a transactional relationship with him where you follow him, only because you hope to get something from him…
- OK? He is not after fans… he is after followers.
- Maybe for us, we like coming to church because of the community, (right? Nice people) but we aren’t doing it because we want him to be Lord of our lives…
- Or maybe you are just starting your journey to following Jesus, but at this stage you are still a bit unclear on who he is… you’re in the crowd…
And I think there is a bit of an implicit warning within this passage about just being in the crowds…
- Afterall it is the crowds who greet Jesus on Palm Sunday hailing him as King
- And it is the crowds who a week later are calling for him to be crucified as a common criminal…
- What we are about to see is Jesus wants something deeper… people who will be with him, be changed by him and be used by him for great purposes…
- The risk of being a crowd follower of Jesus is that when the going gets tough… we can slip away… or even turn on him.
- Or when our needs are not immediately met… we drift off to the next thing that promises hope… OK?
So the next part of Mark 3 is titled Jesus appoints the twelve….
- And that is where I want to spend our time today…
- With a response to this idea that he calls us to be with him, to be changed by him and to be used by him for his Kingdom sake!
So firstly, we are called out of the crowd to be with Jesus and be with him.
So Jesus goes up on a mountainside and calls to him these twelve disciples (verse 14) “that they might be with him.”
- Now for bible nerds, there is something obviously going on with him calling 12…
- There are echoes here of the 12 tribes of Israel in the Old Testament that God chose to be his people…
- That obviously doesn’t work out, with 10 of those tribes disappearing around 700 years before Jesus with the Assyrian exile.
- But this is clearly prophetic, clearly significant that Jesus chooses 12 to in one sense start again…
- This whole Jesus thing is clearly about the restoration of God’s people and him doing something new!
But I think the more important thing for us, is what does it mean to be called by Jesus?
- And fundamentally this is answered by the phrase “that they might be with him”
- The primary role of a disciple is to be with Jesus… not just to be part of a crowd wanting something from Jesus… but to spend time with him.
- To know him in a way that we truly follow him.
- To become a disciple…
We did a great series last year here at Manly Life called Practicing the Way…
- And I don’t want to rehash that series…
- But what we kept reinforcing was that Jesus is interested in your formation and this can only happen by apprenticing to him as your master!
- We are so shaped by our social media scrolling and upbringings and addictions to shopping and appearances… and just sin!
- And Jesus calls us out of the world and into apprenticing to himself.
- We get counter formed by spending time with him, learning from him, becoming like him, and doing the things he did!
- And in that series we looked at a whole series of practices that help us be formed!
But we have already seen this idea of being called by Jesus in Mark, and in one sense this passage just reinforces that Jesus had a special 12 who he called to follow him.
- Right?
- We’ve seen Peter and Andrew drop their fishing nets and follow him
- We have seen Levi leave his tax collecting booth and follow him.
- There is a deep sense that this Jesus who teaches with authority, heals, casts out evil, forgives sins and dines with outcasts…
- This Jesus is interested in starting a movement of people who will come and follow him.
- And just to say it again…
- This will primarily be marked by spending time with him, becoming like him and doing the things that he did!
So I want to say this clearly today – Jesus is calling you to follow him. God is calling you into relationship.
- But you have to commit to prioritizing him and spending time with him.
- Out of the crowd and into a relationship!
- Maybe you need an RDT today… a relationship defining talk… is that still a thing?
- You know… when you are single and hanging out with someone and it becomes a bit more than that… and you have the relationship defining talk?
I am now 14 or 15 years the other side of dating… so I don’t know how it works these days… but in my day you needed at some stage to have an RDT…
- You know I turned 30 and didn’t have a girlfriend. Like not even close. And then by my 31stbirthday I was married to Victoria….
- You got to love the church! Helping men like me marry up since 30AD…
- Actually our first date I kind of conned Victoria into spending time with me. I was going to this charity dinner and I said I wanted to hear about her time in Africa.
- The way she tells it, half way through the night she realized she was on a date.
- Anyhow, it wasn’t a total disaster and we saw each other a few more times and I just figured we were dating…
- And then I found out she was still going on dates with this other guy.
- Devo.
- So anyhow…. Date 5 we had the RDT… and she agreed to exclusively see her favourite bald, chubby, low income potential Pastor…
- And I for one think it was a great decision… haha!
Anyhow, maybe you need to have an RDT with God today…
- Jesus calls the twelve to be with him.
- To disciple to him. To apprentice to him… to exclusively follow him and be with him and become like him!
- But you have to respond to that invitation… out of being a fan and into being a follower.
So when we come to Jesus we are called, but we are also changed.
Now jumping forward a bit, we get the list of the twelve who become his first disciples…
- Simon to whom he gave the name Peter, James and John and so on…
- And it is a fascinating list of names many of us will be familiar with… but what strikes me is how Jesus changes them.
- Because if you were to start a movement to change the world, this is probably not who you would start with…
- Fishermen, tax collectors, guys with reputations for outbursts of anger
- But Jesus takes these 12 and changes them into the group who would help establish his kingdom.
Think about it… now I don’t want to be too harsh on Peter… mainly because I see some similarities in him, but in Mark he is a sparkling example of a moron.
- I mean in Mark’s gospel alone he rebukes Jesus (bold), he falls asleep when he is meant to be on watch, he cuts off a dude’s ear with a sword and he denies ever knowing Jesus….
- And this is the one Jesus changes names from Simon to Peter, which means rock… specifically the rock upon which he will build his church.
- And yet he is restored by Jesus and loved by Jesus and becomes the very thing Jesus said he would become… the rock upon which the early church is built.
You know a few weeks ago we looked at Matthew who gets mentioned here in the 12. Again his name is changed by Jesus from Levi the tax collector.
- Matthew goes from a despised, compromised traitor to author of the most famous of Jesus biographies that bears his name…
- Or what about Thomas who gets a mention in the twelve… imagine being most famous for doubting Jesus resurrection.
- Doubting Thomas… imagine that is your name in the history books…
- Well the tradition in the early church is that he goes on to travel extensively spreading the gospel and not denying Jesus to the point of martyrdom somewhere near India.
Or John who is one of the ones who gets called “sons of thunder” for his reputation for explosive outbursts.
- This is the guy who asks Jesus if he can call down destruction on a town because they don’t get a good welcome…
- Jesus is like… um… no…
- And this guy becomes the apostle of love whose most famous letters have shaped our view of how to love the poor and one another.
- Or finally Simon the zealot… Now the zealots were a Jewish sect who aimed to overthrow the Roman rulers by bloody rebellion…
- And Jesus chooses this guy into his kingdom that is marked by love of enemies!
- Jesus changes you!
That is why that Shane Taylor video on Alpha is so powerful… who but Jesus can change a life?
- He takes the improbable and makes us his beloved…
- Here is a cracking verse…
- In 1 Corinthains 1:26-27. This is Paul who goes from having murderous thoughts to leading God’s mission to the gentiles… he says;
- “Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”
I mean that is literally my story… the foolish things of the world, chosen and called by God.
- I remember in High School getting sent to the Head Master by a substitute teacher and I stood up and said “no, you go to the headmaster, because you’re fired!”
- I mean the rest of the class found that very funny…
- But I was the foolish things of this world.
- But Jesus called me and he has given me this beautiful life that I am so grateful for. I am so far from perfect, but I get to lead this church, and have a wonderful wife and family…
- Never underestimate Jesus ability to call you, and change you… just like the disciples…
OK, and then finally today, he uses us for his purposes.
So out of the crowds with their mixed motives for following Jesus…
- He will call you into being his disciple and spending time with him
- He will change you… maybe so radically that you need a new name.
- And then he will use you to do the things he has been doing in order to bring the kingdom of heaven and grow the church!
- Verse 14 “he appointed the twelve, that they might be with him, and that he might send them out to preach.”
Now note, Jesus is more interested in being with you and changing you, than he is in using you…
- And even your doing for him will only come with authority and power from being with him.
- But in his graciousness, God wants to take your life and make you an ambassador of reconciliation in this deeply broken world.
- That is 2 Corinthians 5:20…
- It says; “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.”
- We get to join him in his mission of extending the kingdom of heaven in the world… and inviting people to be reconciled to God. So cool…
Now Jesus in calling the twelve speaks here about them preaching and casting out demons.
- We did a whole sermon on casting out demons and what that means today, so if you missed that, go back and listen on the website…
- But what does it mean to preach?
- Now I don’t think Jesus had in mind what I am doing here as a preacher on a stage at church… and trust me… it ain’t all that exciting!
- But what he means is that all of us will be used to tell and demonstrate to people the good news.
- And you don’t need a microphone for that. In fact you will probably be much more effective without one.
What you need to do is to make Jesus attractive to people through your life and to take the opportunities when they arise to share good news about Jesus.
- I heard one church historian say the gospel got gossiped through the ancient world.
- I mean yes we have examples of Peter and Paul publicly preaching and people responding
- But the main way that it spread was through ordinary people telling their neighbours about what God had done, and was now doing in their lives.
Through the marketplaces, homes and villages, Jesus was gossiped, until the entire world had been turned upside down!
- And from recent research, particularly in the UK, it seems like God is on the move again.
- Church attendance has quadrupled amongst young men in the UK in the last 5 years!
- I think we are seeing signs of that here too…
- Now you can be used to play your part in that… and trust me, there is nothing more special than being involved in someone become a follower of Jesus and being reconciled to God!
And again, we did a whole message on that just before Easter, on how Jesus mainly ministered to people over meals and hospitality.
- And you can do that in your homes with friends…
- But also, that is really what an invitation to Alpha is all about…
- Come and eat with some Christians… hear the good news and be listened to and ask your questions.
- I mean it is brilliant. And it kicks off again this Thursday with our introductory night here at church.
- Who are you bringing?
Well I need to come into land. What a brilliant passage…
“call on the name of the Lord and be saved.”
Come out of the crowds… come to Jesus and start a disciple relationship with him.
He will call you, change you and use…
But we have to respond… do you want to do that today?