Day 4: From a Fan to a Follower

Welcome back to our study of Mark. We're in Mark chapter 3, beginning at verse 7 through the end of the chapter. But as we start, I, I want to, uh, just start with a little, little illustration. Um, it's something I had in my notes and I studied years and years ago. So, his name is not important. He is a very, very famous Christian who, uh, held multiple offices. I think at one point, he was even sort of like chaplain at the Senate, was the pastor of one of the, just a wonderful, wonderful church. And he was being interviewed and they asked him, what's the greatest miracle you've ever seen?

And he said, the greatest miracle I've ever seen, and I've seen it over and over and over. It's a changed life. When you watch the transformation of a life - that people's lives really do change. And he goes, that's the biggest miracle.

And what we're going to see, as our study today, is that Jesus is going to walk them through learning that's the biggest miracle and how to experience it. So, we pick it up in verse 7, Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the lake, and a large crowd from Galilee followed Him. When they heard all that He was doing, many people came to Him from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan, and around Tyre and Sidon. Now, you get a map out, and what you realize is this East, West, North, South, everyone wants a piece of Jesus right now, and He's trying to get away.

And the reason why they're coming, For He had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch Him. Whenever the evil spirits saw Him, they fell down before Him, and they cried out, You are the Son of God. But He gave them strict orders not to tell who He was.

And so, you have this moment of withdrawal. And what you're going to find is Jesus has a very, very clear strategy and His strategy is to take people from the crowd and He wants to turn them into devoted followers who become, and don't take this word in a bad way, but He's creating an army.

And by army, what I mean is people who are willing to do spiritual battle. He's going to create an elite force of men and, and we learn later there'll be women will become a part of this group, but His formal group, He's going to choose 12 and He's going to appoint them. And the word apostle means assent one.

In other words, there's an agenda up to now they've been learning, they've been watching, they haven't done anything. Uh, I mean, they haven't healed anybody, they haven't gone out preaching.

What they've done is watch Him. And now they've become convinced that He is in fact the Messiah. The Son of God, fully man, fully God. He's the answer to all those prophecies. Now they're human, so you know, some days they believe that more on a Wednesday than they do on Friday, like, like all of us. And so, He's now going to appoint them because He's now going to start a training program. And He wants to take them from the crowd, or in our words, from a fan to a follower. And I didn't make that up. It's a great phrase. I have a friend who's a pastor in Kentucky, Kyle Idleman, and he wrote a book called “Not a Fan.”

And the whole book was really about this. It's how do we go from, Oh, I agree with Jesus. I think Jesus is wonderful. Um, when He helps me out, life is wonderful. But how do we go from, you know, like a fan. Like, I'm a baseball fan, or I'm a fan of, you know, this musical artist, or I follow so and so on Instagram. You know, I'm a fan.

But how do we go from that to a follower, an intimate relationship of I'm going to embrace Your values, and where You go, I go, and what You want me to do, I'm going to do, and I'm going to be prepared to become like You so much that when You leave, I will continue what You are doing. I mean, that's what Jesus is doing here.

But here's the principle I want you to get, Meeting the felt needs of people is the key to meeting their real needs. I mean, here He withdraws and people follow Him. And He just keeps loving them. He keeps healing them. He teaches them. We'll, we'll going to learn a little bit later, when necessary, He will feed them. Supernaturally, thousands. And so, you know, you have neighbors, I have neighbors. You have friends, I have friends. You have co-workers. And I just want to remind you that sometimes some of you that are most zealous, everything's about when can I talk about Jesus? When can I talk about Jesus?

And some of you in your early days maybe did that and people were a bit turned off. For others, you're so afraid that people are getting turned off, you never get around to talking about Jesus. But here's what Jesus modeled for us. He modeled for us that people have very genuine needs, physical needs, emotional needs, spiritual needs. And so much of His early ministry was meeting people's needs where they were. You need healing? Healing. You, you, you're oppressed by demonic powers? Deliverance.

But that wasn't the end. Now all these people, they're crowding and crowding and crowding because we're all human. You know, fix me Jesus, fix me. But unfortunately, so much of the Christianity today is we never get past the, will You fix me? Jesus’ goal in meeting felt needs was to help us see our real need, our spiritual need. And our deepest need is to have a deep, personal, intimate relationship with our Creator. And Jesus is the way and the truth and the life.

And that means that we need to repent of our sin, turn to Him in faith, and receive Jesus Christ as our Savior. And then get into His Word and find fellow people that are in His Word and following Him and learn how to follow Him. And in that we will discover our purpose in life. And all the things, money, fame, that right person, all those things that we thought would bring it, that never do even when you get it. You'll discover that you'll receive. And so that's His strategy. He just wants to take groups and then move them into personal, deeper relationships, where they really understand who He is. And His purpose for their life.

I am made uniquely. You are made uniquely. You came from a family background. You have certain gifts. I have certain gifts. You have hurts. You have needs. You have pains. You have struggles. Jesus wants to take all of that and align it and bring about forgiveness and healing. And then give you and me purpose and impact. And so, we're going to learn in the next section, appointing of the twelve beginning in verse 13.

What's He do? Jesus went up into the hills and He called those He wanted, and they came to Him. He appointed twelve, designating them as apostles, sent ones. That they might be, number one with Him and that He might, two, send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons. These are the twelve He appointed. Simon, to whom He gave the name Peter. James, the son of Zebedee. And his brother John. Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, the son of Alphaeus, Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him.

And so, He goes up, we learn from the other Gospels, He prayed all night. See, sometimes we forget, Jesus really understands you and He understands me because He was fully human. And in His humanness, depending on the Holy Spirit, He's modeling for us how life with the Father works. And being fully human, it wasn't just like, I know all things. He set aside some of His attributes in a way to be as dependent humanly as we are. So, He knows, I need to choose from all these people, Father, who are the right ones? Father, show Me. Jesus says that He grew in intellect and in wisdom. And so, He prays all night and He chooses these twelve. And then notice, to be with Him. More is caught than taught. If you really want to grow, find someone that walks closely with Jesus and figure out how to hang out with them.

See, what Jesus wanted with these disciples, He wanted them to be with Him. He wanted them to understand who He really was, how He really felt, what He did, how He spoke, His body language, eye contact.

Jesus wasn't looking for Zoom relationships. He didn't just want, here's the program guys, here's the list, I'm going to leave, you do the list. He wasn't looking for people that were religious. He was looking for a group of men that could understand how deeply He loved them, that He had a plan for them, that it would require tremendous cost and sacrifice, but it would be worth it and there'd be great reward.

And He wanted them to know that He understood them and where they were coming from. And He also wanted them to understand that, um, you're going to have to learn to love people that are very different than you. If you look at this list, okay, you've got some good Jewish boys who have been good boys, right? Uh, man, they know the law, they've grown up.

You have some personality issues. You don't, you don't name people Sons of Thunder, because they're easy to get along with. Then you've got a revolutionary here, you know, an Al Qaeda operative. That's what a zealot was. It was a person who was trying to overthrow the government. And zealots were trained to assassinate people that they were trying to get out of the way. So, you've got kind of good boys that were Jewish. You know, oh, by the way, you got a crook. You got a tax collector.

You got two guys with really anger management issues. And, and He's got them together, and He's formed a team. And He's formed a team that what they have in common is Him. And what they will have in common is a mission. They are following Him. They don't always understand it. Uh, the price gets higher and higher. And He'll withdraw at different times and do some teaching. The principle here is you can impress people from a distance, but can only impact them up close.

If you want to impact your kids, you need to spend time with them. You need to eat together. If they're small, you need to tuck them in and tell them stories. If you want to disciple people and help people once they come to know Jesus, your schedule has to be changed so that they hang out with you.

I remember one of my professors, Prof Hendricks, would say, never go anywhere alone. You know, if you're going to go to the grocery store, or you got a day away you need to do something, take one of your kids, or ask a friend that you're discipling to go with you, and spend time with people. There's something about connecting, just physically with people, where we catch things.

Theresa and I have just made it a habit of opening up our home. Uh, we've had people live with us at different times. We've, I've always liked to have Bible studies in my house or in someone's house. There's something about walking into a house and it's a picture here. There's a vibe, right? And, you know, our vibe is imperfect.

But people need to learn that too. But there's a, there's something about getting close to people where it's not like, Oh, Bible study. Read verses. Answer discussion questions. Great. We've got that done. Eat snack, leave, no life change. It's gotta be Bible study, deep questions. How's it really going? What did you do with what we talked about last week? Where are the struggles? How do we do this together? That's what Jesus is doing with His disciples. Now, next section they're gonna learn that it can be very unpopular to be a follower of Jesus.

The cost. Accusations are going to be, this is the worst accusation in all of scripture of Jesus. Basically, the popularity is crazy. The religious leaders are jealous. Everyone now, I mean, you, you do the miracles that He's doing, people that, hey, hey, hey, hey, have you heard of the prophet? Is He a prophet? I don't know, is He a prophet? Religious leaders, they don't think He's a prophet, well how can He not be a prophet? You know, my Uncle Bob got healed, and did you hear about Jerry, you know, that weird guy, you know, demon-possessed, well he's free now, and I mean, the crowds are mushrooming. I mean, there's a movement, there's a huge movement happening, and now He's selected some guys and He's going to take them into sort of the deep part of the pool where the opposition happens.

Ok we’re going to pick it up at verse 20. Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that He and His disciples were not even able to eat. When His family heard about this, they went to take charge of Him for they said He's out of his mind.

You know, sometimes we read the Bible really fast. How would you, how would you like that one? Okay. Jesus has brothers. And at this point His family, He's nuts. He's insane. He thinks He's the Messiah. He thinks He's God. I mean, He, His schedule is crazy, the demand of people, He's not even eating, you know what, we need to help Him out, right?

We're going to do an intervention, right? We're going to do a counseling intervention, and we're going to get Jesus so we can get Him away from these people, and these crazy crowds, and, and then it's not just opposition of His family. Think how that would feel. Some of you have been rejected by your family for your faith. Think of how Jesus personally would feel. His emotions.

And then, not only does He get it like where it hurts the most, His family. Verse 22, And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, He is possessed by Beelzebub. That was another name for Satan. By the prince of demons, He's driving out demons.

So, Jesus called them and spoke to them in this parable. How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand. His end has come. In fact, no one can enter a strong man's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can rob his house. I tell you the truth, or if you have an older version, verily, verily. It's Jesus when He repeats words twice, verily, verily, or truly, truly. It's like we would say, underline, underline, get this, get this, get this.

I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. He is guilty of an eternal sin, and He said this because they were saying He has an evil spirit.

Now. There's been a lot of debate about what's the unforgivable sin, and a lot of theologians talking in a lot of different ways. It's really not all that complicated. Jesus is bringing the truth of God, and the religious leaders are saying it's by the power of Satan. He gives this parable to understand that that's completely illogical. And then He tells them this warning about believing. The unpardonable sin is unbelief. When He says, when you are saying that the devil is making me do this, you are rejecting Me completely. You refuse to believe in Me.

The Spirit of God, we'll learn later from John, comes to, to convict of sin and righteousness and judgment. He speaks to us, He lets us know, you know what, that relationship isn't right. That pride in your life, what you're doing, boy, that is so ugly. We get convicted of our sin. We get convicted about righteousness, how we're living or not living. And then we get convicted of judgment, and judgment is, Jesus is returning.

Every single person is going to give an account. Everyone's going to die. So, Jesus is saying that if you reject the Spirit's work in your life, you can't believe. You can't believe because you choose not to. And that's the unpardonable sin.

And then, we get this picture. Then Jesus’ mothers and brothers arrived, and they’re standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around and they told him, your mother and your brothers are outside looking for you. And then Jesus says this, Who are My mother and My brothers, He asked. Then He looked at those who were sitting in a circle around Him and said, Here is My mother and My brothers. Whoever does God's will is My brother and sister and mother.

Jesus is redefining what family means. He's chosen these twelve. They now have entered this arena where their master, their rabbi, the one they're following, is being accused of number one, being insane, He's out of His mind, and number two, all of His power comes from Satan.

Jesus talks about all that, and then finally the story shifts where this good Jewish mother, Mary, is concerned about her son, right? And in this culture, if your mom is outside, I don't care what you're doing, you stop, you honor your parents, especially your mother, and Jesus doesn't. Jesus is doing something for those disciples and for us to say, our primary loyalty is not blood loyalty. Our primary loyalty is to Jesus and to do the will of God.

This is so countercultural. And so, what's interesting in all of this is that He gives us truth and then principles. The principle here is there is a cost. There's a physical cost, an emotional cost, and a spiritual cost. The physical cost of following Jesus is time demands. Your life is not your own. The emotional cost is relational demands. There will be people even in your family that will never understand who you are, what you're doing as you follow Jesus. And it's painful.

And finally, there's spiritual demands. There's opposition. There's evil coming at you. It's interesting. This always happens when we do a major project, but, uh, last night in the middle of the night as we were preparing to film all of this, we have in our house, occasionally, used to happen all the time when I was in Santa Cruz, there's a lot of satanic issues going on there. But in the middle of the night, we had a satanic attack, and my wife's screaming, and I shake her, and get her awake, and I speak powerfully and clearly, quoting God's Word, and then everything was peaceful.

Well, so Chip, do you really want to help people get engaged instead of have a nice little Easter? Do you really want them to know God's Word? Do you want them to discover who the real Jesus is, not the one that we kind of make up in our mind, or the convenient one, or the meek one, or the nice one, but the real Jesus with all of His love and all of His compassion and all of the cost and all the direction and all the power and all the sacrifice? And the answer is yes. And when that happens, there's going to be a challenge. There's going to be opposition. But greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world.