[AI Generated Transcript]
You want to take your Bible and turn to Mark chapter 3.
Normally I break and do something different on Easter, but I want to keep going to Mark today.
I think it's applicable.
So that's what we're going to do.
We're going to look at Mark.
He is risen.
He is risen indeed.
Let's try it again.
He is risen.
He is risen indeed.
Amen.
That's not a meaningless platitude.
That's not just something that Christians say.
That is the basis of our faith.
Paul makes that clear in 1 Corinthians 15, that apart from the resurrection, we have no hope.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the basis of the Christian faith.
It is the central, is the grounding of our central confession, namely that Jesus is Lord.
Philippians chapter 2, I've referenced it a couple of times already in prayer this morning, but Philippians chapter 2,
Beginning in verse 8, the Apostle Paul writes this, speaking of Jesus and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.
Now we hear that and we often think that he's saying the name Jesus is above every name, but as we get
Later on, he's actually saying that the name that's above every name is Lord.
At the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Because of what Jesus has done in his work on the cross and his being raised from the dead, God has given him the title of Lord over all of heaven and earth, over all of humanity.
Now Jesus has that, in a sense, like, by right of being God.
I mean, as creator, he already is the ruler over everything.
But he's given that title in a special way.
As he is in Daniel chapter 7, it talks about the Ancient of Days handing to the Son of Man rule over all peoples and nations.
And Jesus, as he is risen from the dead, takes that.
He'd already called himself the Son of Man throughout his ministry, but then
At the Great Commission in Matthew 28, he takes that language from Daniel 7 and says, God has given all of that authority in heaven and earth to me, not just as God, but as Savior.
He is our Lord who purchased us and paid for us.
He is our Lord who died for us.
Jesus is not just a Savior.
He's also now our King.
And this is tied intimately to the fact of his resurrection, Romans chapter 1.
As Paul is there in the very introduction of that letter, speaking about the gospel, giving a summary of the gospel.
He's speaking of Jesus who the gospel is concerning his son, verse 3 of Romans 1, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead.
Jesus Christ, our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship, to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of His name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong
to Jesus Christ.
Paul, as he's introducing himself in Romans, says the whole purpose of what I'm doing is to proclaim Jesus is Lord.
He's the promised Messiah from the Old Testament.
He reigns as Lord now, and he calls everyone in all the nations of the earth to bow the knee to him, to submit to him, and to practice the obedience of faith.
Some people
throughout the last couple hundred years especially, have tried to claim that that gospel, that Jesus died for sinners and he now calls everyone to submit to him as the Lord, that that is something that the apostles added after Jesus.
That that's something that people who became followers of Christ after Christ's death decided, well, let's come up with a message to kind of cohere our religion together.
And they would say that the gospel was the invention, not of Jesus, but of the apostles.
But, Jesus' own claim to lordship is what got him to the cross to start with.
This all started with Jesus claiming to be Lord.
We saw that last week in Mark chapter 2, verse 28, where Jesus claims to be Lord of the Sabbath.
And then he demonstrates that in verses 1-6 of Mark chapter 3 as he heals the man in the synagogue whose hand was shriveled up.
The Pharisees are watching to see, will he heal?
Will he break our Sabbath rules?
And Jesus, demonstrating his lordship over the Sabbath, demonstrating that he is the one who brings true Sabbath rest, brings true peace to the people of God.
He heals the man.
And then in verse 6,
It says the Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
So these two groups that would have hated each other would have been dire enemies, the Pharisees and the Herodians.
They unite around this fact.
We have to get rid of the one who claims to be Lord.
We have to get rid of Jesus.
And that brings us to verse 7.
Verses 7-12 essentially summarize
what's already happened in Mark's gospel.
They kind of give you an overview of Jesus' ministry in those early months in Galilee.
Verse 7 says he withdrew, so he pulls out of the synagogue and goes back down by the sea where he's been calling disciples to himself.
And it says, a great crowd followed him from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Edomia and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon.
When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him.
And it's interesting here.
We know that there's been a crowd following him from Capernaum.
We know that there's a crowd that's been following him from the region of Galilee.
But it's not just people from Galilee who are gathering to him here.
These towns that are listed aren't random.
So Jerusalem would have been down in the far south part of Israel.
Edomia would have been a region south of
further south than Israel.
It would have been in the Old Testament, a region called Edom.
And then he says from those beyond the Jordan, so people who are out east of Israel, and then Tyre and Sidon are towns that are north.
So Jesus is pulling people from hundreds of miles apart, and they're all coalescing around him here at Capernaum.
And the crowd is so thick, so heavy, like pressing into him,
that he has to have the disciples, in verse 9, get a boat for him so that he doesn't get crushed.
The people are pressing in on Jesus.
And in verses 7-12, I think we see three important points to note.
Number one is what the crowds wanted.
And again, this is kind of a summary of what's already happened in Mark, but primarily what the crowds want out of Jesus is access to his power.
access to his healing power, his power to perform exorcisms and the removal of demons.
Verse 10 says that he had healed many so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him.
They weren't even waiting for him to speak to them.
They just thought, like we read later on,
in Jesus' ministry of the woman who had the flow of blood and she knew if I just touch the hem of his garment, I'll be healed.
Well, she wasn't the first one to think that way.
They're all thinking, if we can get close enough to touch him, then we will have access to that power and we will be healed.
And it seems like their belief is well-founded, that that's what's happening.
As people get close to him, they touch him, they're healed, and they're able to go on their way.
And the news of that gets out, and that's why these great crowds swell to Jesus.
And they also want to be freed from demons.
And again, that's an understandable desire.
If you're oppressed by a demon, you should want to be freed, and your friends and your family would want you to be freed.
But it seems that the crowds are largely uninterested in Jesus' teaching.
If you look back at chapter 1 of Mark,
This is exactly why Jesus had left Capernaum to start with after he had cast the demon out of a man in the synagogue and then he healed Peter's mother-in-law.
He had gone to Peter and Andrew's house and the crowds pressed into him wanting him to keep healing.
And then it says in verse
38 as Peter comes to Jesus and says, everyone's looking for you.
You've got more healings to do.
Verse 38 Jesus says, let us go on to the next towns that I may preach there also for that is why I came out.
The crowds aren't interested in listening to what Jesus has to say.
They're caring about what Jesus can do for them.
What can they get out of Jesus?
And I wonder this morning, like, is that how we relate to Jesus?
Do we just come to Jesus for what he can give us in this life?
Are we just looking for temporary benefits from him?
It's not wrong when we have a need to go to God.
That's exactly what he wants us to do.
First Peter 5 says, cast all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.
If we have needs, the first place we should go with them is to Christ.
But how do we see our needs?
Do we see our needs primarily as those
tangible things, the food and the shelter that Jesus says in Matthew 6 are the exact same things that the pagans worry about, that the people who don't believe in Christ worry about.
Or are we worried about spiritual things growing in our relationship with Him, having boldness as we share Him.
That doesn't seem to be what the crowds are worried about.
And as I look at my life, so often that's not what I'm worried about.
I'm worried about, and again, we're told to pray.
give us this day our daily bread.
But I'm worried about, can I have today's bread and tomorrow's bread and the day after that's bread?
And I forget, will you help me to share the true bread, the bread who is Christ with those around me?
The second thing we see here is what the demons knew about Jesus.
Verse 11 says, Whenever the unclean spirit saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, You are the Son of God.
Never once in any of the Gospels does a demon misidentify Jesus.
They always know who he is.
It's just like it says in the book of James, you know, you believe there's one God, you do well.
The demons believe and they tremble.
Here the demons are trembling before Jesus.
They fall down before him.
They recognize his authority and they know, even though they are not willingly submissive to him, they have no choice but to bow before Christ and to proclaim who he is.
But Jesus silences them.
Jesus won't accept the worship of demons.
That's interesting.
Why would he silence their message?
The first reason, we've talked about this some before, but the first reason is that
He doesn't want the kind of confusion in people's minds that would come.
In verse 22 of chapter 3, kind of the next story on, the Pharisees are going to accuse Jesus of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons.
So they're saying, you are possessed by Satan.
That's how you're able to cast out demons.
Jesus proves that that's nonsensical.
Like a house divided against itself doesn't stand.
If Satan was casting out Satan, that wouldn't be so good for Satan.
That wouldn't make any sense.
But if he were to just say, yeah, you know what?
Demon possessed man, you're right.
That's exactly who I am.
That could create confusion in people's minds.
And so he doesn't want that confusion.
But I think the second and maybe even more important reason that Jesus is silencing these demons and not allowing them to speak about who he is.
is that he is not announcing himself yet as the Son of God.
He's taking on the title of Son of Man.
He's taking on the title of Lord and letting people start to take the information about who he is and fill those words with the meaning he wants.
But the idea of Son of God would be misinterpreted by the crowds at this point.
And so he doesn't want them using that term.
Never in Mark's gospel does Jesus call himself the Son of God.
And never is it again that explicitly stated until Mark 15-39 where Jesus is hanging on the cross and the Roman centurion standing there says, Surely this was the Son of God.
That's the next time we see that phrase specifically used.
It's hinted at at other times, but that's the next time it's used explicitly.
Third thing we see here is what Jesus wanted.
And this is, again, just kind of hinted at.
But at this stage, Jesus wants to keep preaching.
He's willing to heal.
He's merciful.
Again, as we think about the leper who came to Jesus after he had left.
He left Capernaum not wanting to keep doing healing.
He wanted to go on so he could preach and a leper comes in his way and he has pity on the man.
He has mercy on him.
He heals him.
It's the same thing here.
Jesus keeps
performing these miracles, healing people.
But his main focus is preaching the good news of the kingdom, preaching the gospel that he had come to save sinners and that people ought to submit to him.
That's why he came.
And in that mission, he did not want to be alone.
He called 12 men to himself.
And that's what we see in verses 13 through 19.
And he went up on the mountain.
And he called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him.
And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, so that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons.
He appointed the twelve, Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, the brother of James, to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder.
Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
So Jesus, after he's been down by the seaside, he withdraws to the mountainside.
And we learn from Luke chapter 6 and verse 12 that Jesus withdrew to the mountainside to spend all night in prayer.
Before he calls these twelve to himself, he's going to spend all night praying
depending on the Father for the wisdom to pick the right twelve.
Mark doesn't point that part out to us specifically, but he does say he went up the mountain and called to him those who many desired.
I just want to make three observations about verses 13-19.
The first is that Jesus is the one who does the calling.
Jesus is not waiting around, praying, hoping that maybe somebody will come to follow him.
Jesus calls them to himself.
He's got this massive crowd down by the seaside, and when he goes up on the mountain, it seems he's actually going to call more than the twelve.
He's going to appoint twelve apostles, but he's called, it seems there's a distinction between those called in verse 13 and those appointed in verse 14.
so that he's calling a great number of disciples.
We read elsewhere of him sending out 72.
So there's a bigger group of people that are following Jesus.
There's like these concentric circles.
There's the inner three of Peter, James, and John, and then there's the 12, and then there's the 72, and out beyond that, there's even more followers of Jesus.
But he calls to himself those whom he desired.
He's not, again, not waiting to see who shows up.
He's not pleading.
He calls and they respond.
And this, as I thought about that this week, it just brought to my mind John chapter 10 and verse 27.
Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.
My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.
It's not, it's not a hope of Jesus.
It's not something he's waiting to happen.
He Knows It Will Happen in Romans 8, 29, and 30.
I wish I was as happy as Jeannie most of the time.
Romans 8, 29, and 30 says, For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
For new, and that language of for new isn't just like that he had knowledge of it in the future.
That knowing is like an intimate knowledge.
He knew them before the foundation of the world.
And he predestined them to be conformed to the image of his son.
And those whom he predestined, verse 30, he also called.
And those whom he called, he also justified.
And those whom he justified, he also glorified.
Just like the disciples were called to Jesus, if we come to know Jesus, it is because he has called us to himself.
There's nothing in you that's so smart that you chose it on your own.
It is the calling of God that is the basis of our salvation, where he draws us to himself inexorably by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The second thing we see is not only that Jesus calls, but that he calls all sorts of people.
And in the first three listed, the inner three, there's Peter, who most scholars think that Mark's gospel is kind of like Mark
getting Peter's account.
And Peter, in all of the Gospels, but in Mark especially, is shown to be kind of a loud mouth, act first, think later, speak first, think later kind of guy.
He's always got his foot in his mouth.
He's always doing the bold thing, the brave thing, or the dumb thing.
You know, like he's that guy.
And then the next two closest to Jesus, James and John, he nicknames them the sons of thunder.
and if you read through the gospels like they're doing things when somebody's trying to cast out demons and they're using Jesus name but he's not part of our group should we call thunder and lightning down on him should we should we have God zap him and just no guys pump the brakes pump the brakes
You're getting a little eager.
And we're not told specifically why they're called Sons of Thunder, but we kind of get the impression that they're pretty overeager.
Or maybe, maybe their father Zebedee is a thunderous man.
And those two things are probably not mutually exclusive.
If they've got a dad like that, that's probably why they are like that.
Some families just are thundering sorts of families, and that's who James and John are.
But then there's also these odd
Contrasts.
There's Andrew, who is the eager evangelist.
You know, it's interesting.
He's not listed in the inner three, but he's the one who introduced Peter to Jesus.
His brother, Andrew, is an evangelist naturally.
He's always bringing people to Jesus, especially as you read John's gospel.
Andrew brings people to Jesus.
But on the other hand, you have Thomas, who is the skeptic.
Jesus is alive and he's not sure about it.
Well, I wasn't in the room when he showed up to you guys.
You have Matthew.
the sellout to the state.
He works for Herod and for the Roman government, collecting taxes, abusing the people, right?
That's what Jesus called him out of, was that tax collector's booth.
And on the other hand, you have Simon the Zealot, the one who's passionate to overthrow the Romans.
We're going to get them out of here.
We're going to restart this national Israel, and we're going to have power.
These guys would have been polar opposites on the political spectrum.
And Jesus says, hey, both of you follow me.
We're going to get along.
We're going to get along around Jesus.
And then he also calls to himself Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
I thought about that last night.
We read this passage with the kids and just thinking about Jesus spends three years with the man he knows is going to betray him.
And he treats him just like everybody else.
He entrusts him with the money bag for the group, which we know he was skimming off of.
Jesus knows this all along.
And in the upper room, before Jesus sends Judas away, before he sends Judas away, he strips of his outer garment and he takes the water and he washes Judas's feet before Judas takes those feet out to betray him.
Jesus calls this man to himself.
And it is, it's a sobering warning to us that we can be real Jesus adjacent without actually knowing Jesus and being transformed by Jesus.
Jesus calls all sorts of people to himself.
Most likely, these disciples are in like their late teens and early twenties.
I mean, Peter's old enough.
He's got a mother-in-law, so he's married.
But these guys are probably not very old.
And Jesus calls a group of 12.
Can you think of a group of 12 teenage or 20-something men that you would trust to do much of anything?
And this is who Jesus calls to himself.
And he calls them to himself.
Third point here.
to carry his kingdom, news, and power.
He appointed twelve whom he also named apostles so that they might be with him.
That's the first thing, to be with him.
And that he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons.
There are, as we look at that, unique things that are given just to the twelve.
Again, I think there's a distinction between the group that he calls to himself in verse 13 and the twelve that he appoints in verse 14.
They're called out of a broader group.
They are to carry Jesus' mantle in a unique way.
When the apostles write things, we call it scripture.
We get the New Testament as these guys write things down, writing letters to young churches, writing down records of Jesus' life, the authority that they had over sickness and demons we don't see replicated anywhere else in the New Testament.
They are the 12 who formed the foundation of the church.
When you look at the picture of the new Jerusalem, the bride of Christ, the church descending from heaven in Revelation 21 verse 14, the foundation of that city, the 12 foundation stones have written on them the names of the 12 apostles.
They are the foundation of God's new covenant people.
So they add powers that we don't have.
They add authority that we don't have.
But they had the same mission that we have.
Disciples today have the same mission as the original 12 apostles.
How do we carry that legacy forward?
Not through a line of apostolic succession as some churches teach, but through faithfulness to the same word that they taught, the same word of Christ, word concerning Christ, the gospel, the good news of Jesus.
As we spread that gospel, we have the same authority then, in that sense, as the apostles.
because the gospel itself is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.
The message that Jesus is alive, that he has conquered sin and death, and that he commands everyone to believe in him and to follow him, to repent of their sins and to trust in him.
That message is the power of God and so as we proclaim it, we are exercising Jesus' lordship over the world.
That's an amazing responsibility and privilege
And it's also really encouraging to me that Jesus calls these 12 men to himself.
And if you were to walk up to that group, you would think, what a mess.
These guys, after three years with Jesus, right before we're getting to the crucifixion, they're arguing about, well, when the kingdom comes in power, who's going to sit at the right hand?
Who's going to be like really up close to power?
Who's going to be really like Jesus' favorite?
That's still what they're arguing about after three years with him.
They are not like the primo people that Jesus could have picked.
And yet through those 12 men, carrying the message of Jesus forward, sans Judas, Judas gets replaced.
Jesus has transformed the world.
It's not done being transformed yet.
But if you look at the difference between the world 2000 years ago and now, the difference is Christ.
The advances, even with things we think of as secular today, technology, education, all come from people who originally were trying to understand how God has set up the world to work, trying to bring knowledge under the lordship of Jesus Christ.
As human beings full of sin, we distort these things in all sorts of ways.
But the advances that have been made have been because of Christ.
And more importantly than that, like the darkness is being driven back.
In the Old Testament, you have one little tiny piece of ground where people have knowledge of Yahweh, of the true God of Scripture.
And now that knowledge is all over the world.
There is not, there's not a country in the world where Jesus is not known and worshipped.
And though there is still work to be done, there are still people groups that don't, languages that don't have the scriptures, that don't have churches.
That darkness is being driven back and we pray with confidence that he will drive it all the way back.
We don't pray your kingdom come expecting that he's going to fail.
He's going to do it.
What might he be pleased to do with a group of more than 12 sitting here who trust in him and faithfully carry that message forward in this place?
Jesus does not need a list of rock stars and all stars and superstars to get his work done.
He's the one who already did the work and we're just taking the message forward.
So Jesus is alive and Jesus reigns over this world and our job is to tell the world.
Let's pray.
Father God, we thank you for what you have already done in Christ.
The heavy lifting is done.
Help us to be faithful messengers
of Jesus' work.
We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
