PLEASE NOTE: these are the notes I use to preach from, if you would like to hear them in context, please watch our YouTube video.

-One of Cara’s and my favorite genre of movie to watch is sports movies. Generally leave you inspired, feeling like you can take over the world! One of the best is Remember the Titans. It follows a football team from a recently unsegregated school in Virginia. While tensions are high at the beginning and racial biases are repeatedly brought to the forefront, by the end of the season the guys are all best friends. One of the pivotal scenes in the movie is when one of the white players gets in a pretty serious car accident. His best friend from the team (who happens to be black) comes to visit him. As he walks into the room, the nurse says: “Only kins allowed in here” The player lying on the bed says: “Alice, are you blind? Don’t you see the family resemblance? That’s my brother.”

-In today’s text, we’re going to look at what it means to be family. You may have heard the church referred to as “the family of God,” but what is that? Why would we want to be a part of family that’s as broken and messed up as the church?

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1. Family Opposition, Part 1 (20-21)

-Last week we saw Jesus call the 12 disciples/apostles. He’s constituting a new Israel, a new people of God to represent Him to the world. Remember that they’re represented by: time with, sent by Him, and preaching with authority to fight against the devil. 

-Those are the markers of faithful ministry even down to today. We’re supposed to be marked by time with Jesus, if we’re a disciple we have been sent by Jesus, and our role as being sent is to preach/share the gospel message far and wide! (we’ll look at that idea in more detail next week)

-But what do you think happens if someone misses what it means to follow after God? We’ve seen increasing opposition to Jesus’ ministry throughout the Gospel, but it takes a unique turn in today’s passage, as you should have heard as we read it, because who adds to the opposition today? Let’s look and see:

-Home: back to Capernaum at Peter’s house.

 -Last week Jesus went up to the mountains to get away from the crowds and began his specific ministry to the 12 disciples. Lots of options for where those mountains could have been, Capernaum is basically in the middle of a mountainous region (think more CO than MN)

-I said this a few weeks ago, but keep in mind that Jesus’ early ministry is VERY localized! He hasn’t gone too far outside of Capernaum yet, but the surrounding areas keep flocking to Him, as we see by the return of the character:

-The crowd: once again, getting in Jesus’ way. The crowd keeps showing up again and again and keeps interfering with Jesus’ ministry. A couple notes on this:

-Size does not equal success. Size can be measured a few different ways: ABCs (adults, buildings, cash), today it can by YouTube views (or Insta likes, depending on your social of choice). People I’ve talked to today have tried building a “platform” to expand their following, I talked to some friends at a recent conference who were complaining about someone wanting to plug their book to them (and then someone at the conference told me he wanted to send me his new book!). 

-But there’s also a flip side to this that is just as much a problem in the church: viewing decline as the biggest pursuit because you’re being “persecuted.” Or you see it with someone being antagonistic on the socials actively looking to stir up division. Both of these are over emphasizing numbers and missing what Jesus has actually called us to: faithfulness & fruitfulness (are you a little fruity?) 

-Faithful to the faith once for all delivered to the saints, fruitful in having an eternal impact on those around you. Once again, we have this point of tension that we need to be comfortable in! Speaking the truth in love is hard! 

-This crowd, as we’ve seen multiple times so far want something from Jesus. They’ve seen the miracles, they’ve witnessed the exorcisms, maybe some people are just around for the show! They’ve heard Jesus best the smartest people of the day and they’re hoping for another showdown. But it forces us to ask the question: what do you want from Jesus? Do you just come for the show? Are you expecting Him to magically fix all your problems and you’ll stick around until those are solved? Or do you want Jesus and nothing else? Think of the old spiritual ‘Give Me Jesus’ that said “You can have all this world, but give me Jesus.” And to be honest, Jesus won’t stop pushing at you until He’s all you have left! 

-Fame continues to spread, even those in Nazareth are hearing about what Jesus has been doing, which includes His family.

-“seize him” is overly passive, better translation would be “arrest” or “coerce”, one translation put “restrain him.” This wasn’t a friendly visit! 

-What were they saying about Jesus? Out of his mind! But then Mark moves quickly on, leaving us hanging: 

-Markan sandwich, connects another story to it. Throughout this book, Mark will begin one story, stick a different story in the middle of it that is connected thematically, then return to the original story, so we’ll take a look at a similar idea from a different perspective. Not only was His family opposed to Him:

• Legal Opposition (22-30)

-Scribes from Jerusalem

-Up until this point he would have been a bit of a local nuisance, but as His fame spreads, the news eventually gets to the main office in Jerusalem. This would signify that the highest people would have started seeing it as a legitimate threat to their authority. So not only were regular people coming all the way from Jerusalem, now the authorities are getting involved!

-They’ve seen Jesus’ miracles, the exorcisms, the healings (or at the very least word has reached them) and have come up with a solution: possessed by Beelzebul. No one’s sure where this name came from, could have been a way of referring to the prince of demons (which connects it to the rest of the phrase). A literal translation is the “prince of dung.” Not a kind way of referring to Jesus!

-Once again, Jesus knows exactly what’s going on so He invites them in and welcomes the conversation. 

-I think this is one of those areas we would do well to take note of! Is Jesus too scared to bring up or talk about any issue? Not that I’ve found yet, and I’ve been reading the Bible through for a while at this point! Why do we have a tendency to act like some topics are off limits for the church to talk about? If we believe Jesus is THE way THE truth and THE life, that means that He is the source of all truth, meaning no topic is too taboo, no issue is disconnected, and nothing is too trivial to address and bring it back to the ultimate source of that truth. 

-When I was growing up that issue was sex. As long as it wasn’t brought up kids wouldn’t find out about it, or as long as our kids were sheltered enough they wouldn’t have to deal with certain sins. Hate to break it to you, but I first learned about sex in the church with other kids my age! Whether or not we wanted to admit it, kids were going to be kids and talk about it! Today we’ve got more things we’re not supposed to talk about: race issues (better: ethnic issues), money, and politics. Once again, let me ask: do you think Jesus had any problem talking about any of those issues? In just a couple chapters, Jesus is going to break all sorts of ethnic barriers down and begin ministering to Gentiles. He talks about money more than He talks about heaven, and as I mentioned last week, He intentionally chose 2 of His 12 disciples from the polar opposite ends of the political spectrum (imagine the conversations/debates they had as they walked everywhere!) 

-So if Jesus is willing to engage any and every topic imaginable, what do you think His disciples should be willing to do? Probably engage every issue that comes our way! The reality is: if we’re careful and pay attention to what issue is being address, we’ll find some way it connects to the truth, and use that as a bridge to point someone to Jesus. It’s not hard, it just takes a little bit of intentionality and paying careful attention to what someone is saying! 

-Now, Jesus was a master of this! He knew how to provide the solutions that no one else was anticipating, and how to get to the underlying issues that were actually going on. Which means, the scribes should have brought their A-game to interact with Him! Instead, they just picked 1 dumb argument (as we’ll see) and stuck with it! Made the most sense to them, but didn’t actually make a lick of sense!

-What are parables? We often think of them as connected to the Sermon on the Mount, or short stories that drive home a point, but the original word contains a much wider range of interpretations, from stories, to pithy sayings, to riddles or even illustrations! Almost anything to make a point.

-Jesus basically tells 3 stories, 1 that communicates the absurdity of the logic, the second that communicates what Jesus is ACTUALLY doing, and then lands on what the scribes are doing, which is important to understand what is being said about the unforgivable sin!

-First stories connect to the absurdity of what the scribes are saying. Those who are demon possessed are out of their minds! No control, lashing out at others, and when Jesus comes, He brings compassion, self-control, understanding, and holistic healing. Satan comes to kill, steal, and destroy. He’s the ultimate author or leprosy, of a man having a lame hand, of a cripple being unable to walk! Why in the world would Satan fight against himself? It’s a terrible argument! It’s the same thing with a kingdom divided against itself, and a house, and then again back to Satan. I’ve seen this happen before with sports! Think of the iconic play where Chris Webber is playing for Michigan in the national championship against North Carolina. With seconds left, he called a timeout when the team was out of timeouts, leading to him receiving a technical foul and giving the other team 2 free throws. Or other times where someone completely forgot which basket they were supposed to be shooting at and shoot in the wrong hoop and score for the other team. They’re only hurting themselves, and that’s the exact point Jesus is making in this section! If Jesus is really the “prince of demons” wouldn’t He just be fighting against Himself? It’s a terrible argument! Now I don’t have time to dig into this today, but there are all sorts of examples of this in the world around us today! People using terrible logic to try to argue against Christianity, I’ll be talking about some of them in Sermon Scraps tomorrow, but I’d also be interested in some of the reasons you’ve heard! Email me if you think of some!

-The second story is about a strong man (27). Spent a whole week studying this verse in college! Who is the strong man? Why does he need to be bound up? In context, the strong man is Satan, and Jesus coming to earth has bound Satan for this season. So instead of Satan fighting against Satan, Jesus is the stronger man who came to earth to bind Satan for a season by bringing healings, exorcisms and preaching the good news of the kingdom of heaven. That’s what Jesus is accomplishing through His ministry! He’s not in cahoots with Satan, He’s actively fighting against Him! 

-This brings us to the final story, and a passage that has brought no small amount of debate over the centuries: the unpardonable or unforgiveable sin. Jesus even says every other sin will be forgive EXCEPT this one. And why is it worse to blaspheme the HS than Jesus?

-First time we’ve seen Jesus begin a statement with the word “Truly” (lit. Amen) This word is used all over the OT to give validity to what was said, but it’s always at the end of a statement. Jesus beginning a phrase with it signifies that Jesus is speaking with His own authority, and can almost be thought of as saying “Thus says the Lord” 

-As for the unforgiveable sin, notice that Mark adds a descriptive piece in vs. 30. This tells us that this unforgiveable sin is connected to seeing Jesus’ works (which are done by the HS, remember we saw Jesus submit Himself to the Spirit right after His baptism), and attributing them to the devil. One author summarized it by saying “It is deliberately repudiating the truth about Jesus.” (Andy Naselli) 

-What about someone who is antagonizing over whether that inadvertently said something that they’re convinced was this sin? I’ve talked to multiple people in my time in ministry who have worried about this! Yet here’s the reality: if you are at all worried you have committed this sin, I can almost guarantee you haven’t committed it. Those who have committed this sin don’t care. They remain callous and hard hearted toward the works of the Lord. So instead of living in fear of future condemnation, we need to remember that there is NO condemnation for anyone who is in Christ Jesus. So: do you trust Jesus today? And do you trust Him today more than you did yesterday? Great! You haven’t committed this sin!

Yet at the same time, we would do well to view this as a warning: keep short accounts. Keep living a life of repentance and keep in step with the Spirit. 

-As for why it’s worse to blaspheme the HS and not the Father or the Son, I think John Piper has a helpful summary:

-The Holy Spirit is the one who softens our hearts, who awakens our hearts to the realities of the gospel message, and if we refuse to acknowledge Him, we will be condemned.

-Jesus doesn’t say these scribes have committed it, but He’s warning them of the implications of what they’re saying! Be careful of what you say and who you’re accusing of being in league with the devil!

-All that just served to signify the opposition Jesus faces, because then Mark shifts right back to where we cut in vs. 21:

• Family Opposition, Part 2 (31-35)

-Jesus dealt with the opposition of the scribes, no surprise there, the family tension is much more difficult and acute.

-Notice who’s described here: mother and brothers. Think back to December where we studied Jesus’ birth. How long would it take you to forget the arrival of the angels, the miraculous inception, the crazy shepherds showing up, the Magi from the East? How long does it take you to forget what God has done in your life? 

-Not just Mary, Jesus’ brothers come too! (anti-Catholic idea of perpetual virginity of Mary) Jesus had at least 4 brothers, and an unknown number of sisters (Mark 6:3). Now, I don’t know about you, but I would have struggled with my brother claiming to be God! On top of that, imagine what growing up with Him would have been like!

-Once again, the crowd is playing a role: this time they serve as a buffer between Jesus and His biological family. Just as the crowd wanted something from Him, His family isn’t trying to figure out Jesus’ ultimate aim, they’re trying to save face. Remember, we saw at the beginning of the chapter that Jesus didn’t even have time to eat, the crowd was so thick. So the word would have started in the back, slowly traveled person by person until they reach Jesus, who once again would have been doing what He’d been sent to earth to do: preach! 

-Not completely dismissing of family, but redirects the conversation. This would have been completely unthinkable in the 1^st century context! We’re so individualized here today that we can’t fathom this, but in this time family was EVERYTHING. We saw in chapter 6 that people knew His whole family! The Jews were especially conscientious of family lineage. And Jesus wants to take that good idea, and put a new spin on it.

-Just as He was creating a new Israel with the 12 apostles, now He’s creating a new lineage, a new genealogy defined by a spiritual reality instead of a physical reality. God’s family is no longer comprised of ethnic distinctions, but spiritual distinctions, that’s what God wanted at the beginning anyway! Transformed lives, not just external obedience! 

-I shared at the beginning an illustration from Remember the Titans: Jesus is telling us here that our primary allegiances today need to change! If we’re a part of God’s family, our allegiance is to our brothers and sister in the church. Honestly, I don’t know how people survive without the church! We had people come help us clean our house when we moved in, paint every wall, replace toilets, flooring. Even this past week: our van died and next thing I know, Eric Zaske is offering one of his vehicles for me to use and Chris and Ian Wolfgram came over to help me replace the starter on the van!

-Those are small things, but they mean the world to me! But think about what it means that we’re a part of God’s family:

-What religion would allow you to approach God (creator and sustainer of everything that exists) as a family member? Keller tweet. Do you know that Jesus is your perfect Heavenly Father who cares more about you than you could ever realize? That nothing is too trivial to ask, and nothing is left out of His oversight?

-The reality is: we’re all a part of a family, the question is which family are you a part of? The scribes today demonstrated that they’re a part of the wrong family, and joining the right family is so simply a child can do it. Yet it takes a choice, so the question in front of us all today is: do you want to be a part of God’s family? It’s easy! As we saw in today’s text, it’s whoever does the will of God. So repent of your sin, believe in Jesus and you will be saved! 

The Famous One

Mark 3:7-19

-Think back to your friend group from High School. What kinds of nicknames did you have? I never had anything that stuck with me (apart from “Mike the Spike” from my aunt that stopped when I was about 5)

-I love giving people nicknames! It was an especially helpful gift when I was a youth pastor, and it drove the High School students NUTS! Maddy became Maddy-line, Clay became Clayton, and I stuck with it until they graduated. But something funny happened after they graduated: every student who claimed they hated their nicknames suddenly started using them as their social media handles TO THIS DAY!

-Our friends help provide a sense of identity and purpose to our lives, yet they also have the potential to hurt us in ways we never would have thought we could be! The same was true of Jesus and his friends. 

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-Before we dive into today’s text, I want to take some time to highlight some big picture ideas that we’ve already been seeing in Mark’s Gospel. I’m intentionally going through big sections so we can get through it in a timely manner, but this week’s text gives us a little breathing room and time to contemplate some of the bigger focuses Mark is bringing.

-First, remember how Mark begins, his prologue to the story: The gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

-This was very intentional! Shows his whole hand before anyone else has been dealt. The reason Mark wrote this book was to tell people about Jesus, to spread the gospel message as far as he possibly could! 

-This signifies to us us that everything Mark is telling in this story is to communicate to us that specific reality: Jesus is unique among all human history. He is the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One. He’s the one that all the law and prophets pointed to, and the only person who perfectly obeyed them all. But He didn’t stop there, He also fulfilled every prophecy God had made, He divides human history (and the human heart!). Everyone will bow the knee to Him, either willingly or by force, and He invites us to join with Him in His mission to seek and save the lost.

-As Jesus’ ministry starts, John the Baptist prepares the way for Him, points to Him, and even sends at least 1 disciple over to Jesus! After this preparation has taken place, Jesus is commissioned by the HS to go into the wilderness to be tempted. Not a fair fight! Not equal in power or authority, but as we’ll see in today’s text, Jesus is making a new Israel. Where the first Israel (and our first parents) failed, Jesus survives temptation, time in the wilderness, and then comes back to begin His ministry

-However, His ministry doesn’t look how people expect it to! Remember the tagline I shared from ‘The Chosen’ (kinda cheesy) “Get used to different”

-Changes expectations about rituals, He heals with a word, and people can’t get enough of it!

1. Expanding Fame (7-12)

-After the showdown between the Pharisees and Jesus, He runs away. Remember last week we saw the final of 5 confrontations between Jesus and the Pharisees. First was the forgiving of the paralytic’s sins (who was lowered into Peter’s home from 4 friends), then hanging out with “scum” like Matthew/Levi, then Jesus is confronted for not fasting on the regular, then His disciples are found picking grain as they walked through a field, and the final straw was the healing of a man with a withered hand at the synagogue on the Sabbath.

-Need to admit: this wasn’t a fair fight to begin with, but Jesus still soundly defeated them. Jesus confronts their hard hearts at each step of the discussion. He calls out their sinful thoughts, He engages their sinful questions, and then is angered over their lack of compassion toward the poor and marginalized.

-As we’ve been working through these various stories, I hope you have been thinking through who these people would be today! Part of the point of these stories is to help us be drawn to someone and repulsed by someone else. That’s really the point of every story! They’re trying to make a bigger point than just an entertaining story (at least good stories!). What ideas has Jesus turned upside down in your life? We so often want to tack Jesus onto what we already want to do instead of submitting everything we have and are to His Lordship in our life. Our aim (assuming you have put your faith in Him), is now to do everything we can to bring Him honor and glory. Part of the way we do that is by working to imitate Him. The reason we’re called “Christians” is because we’re supposed to be “little Christs” (within reason, none of us will be called to atone for the sins of the world!) But we are commissioned, sent by Him to go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations. This is the greatest adventure anyone could ever be called into! God wants to use you to accomplish an eternal mission! This isn’t just a Sunday morning affair, this is an entire life encompassing journey where God can use normal ordinary people like you and me.

-Back to the text: we are starting to see a pattern emerging for Jesus: major event happens, He isolates Himself. He’s not trying to create a following or build a big crowd, that’s not why He was sent to Earth. His aim is to accomplish His Father’s will, to seek and save the lost. Or as he said in 1:15 “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Despite regular distractions or shifts from his primary focus, He continues to go back to His primary ministry: preaching. But He can’t do it indefinitely, He needs time to recharge and pray.

-But those crowds once again serve as a foil to Jesus’ plans, He can’t escape them!

-These crowds are coming from all over now. It’s not just Capernaum trying to get to Jesus. Look at all the various places that are listed: Galilee (been there) Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond Jordan, Tyre, and Sidon isn’t even on the map! Jesus thought it was bad after the leper, but it just got worse! Can’t hide, can’t get a moment to Himself (next week we’ll see He doesn’t even have time to eat!), the crowd keeps following Him everywhere He goes.

-What draws them to Jesus? “Heard all that he was doing” (8)

-What does that look like? So desperate to get something from Him that they’re on the verge of crushing Him. This is people who are just using Jesus to achieve their purposes. Not interested in hearing what He has to say, not interested in learning from Him, just want their interests met. 

-The crowd grows so large that He has his disciples create an escape route for Him, but even that may not be enough to get away! People can still swim, at least a little distance. 

-Remember, we’ve already seen that Jesus doesn’t get sidetracked or give into demands, but He still heals many people, such that anyone who was sick is desperate to get to Him.

-Imagine if you had a debilitating disease and had it for years. What would you do to take care of it? How desperate do you think you’d become? Think of the woman who was bleeding for 12 years (we’ll get there in a bit, in Mark 5). The Bible tells us she had been to as many Physicians as she could, to the point that she had spent every penny she had on trying to be healed, but it only got worse. As she hears about the unbelievable number of healings that were taking place because of Jesus how desperate do you think she would have been? How desperate would YOU have been? Imagine if you were struck deaf right now. What would you give to hear again? 

-Every so often there’s a new video that goes viral of something like a child  getting cochlear implantsturned on for the first time. They tug at the heart strings, don’t they? Or maybe you’ve seen similar videos where someone who was colorblind gets special glasses to see color?

-“You guys can see this everyday?” And that’s just with color! Imagine not being able to see, or hear, or walk, and in an instant you’re healed.

-The reason I share a video like that is because it’s easy to leave these stories as text on a page and forget that it’s referring to real people. If you’d been blind your whole life wouldn’t you stop at nothing to get to the healer?

-The difficulty is that everyone needs healing of some sort, but some people are better able to hide it than others. And the spiritual healing everyone needs is often viewed as less important than the physical healing. However, Scripture tells us that the angels in heaven throw a party, get more excited than this guy who saw color for the first time, whenever someone puts their faith in Jesus. 

-But sick people aren’t the only ones taking notice of Jesus. There’s a certain level of irony in vs. 10. Everyone wants something from Jesus EXCEPT the unclean spirits who just want to be left alone.

-Each story we’ve been studying serves to validate Mark’s first verse and is meant to force the reader to answer the question: who is Jesus? The evil spirits already know the answer to that, but they hate it! People have ideas about who Jesus is, but he keeps subverting their expectations, turning them on their head! People are hoping, they’d been anxiously waiting, but is this really Him? The demons don’t question it, but they’re upset about it!

-Why does he continue to silence them? Remember Jesus’ primary mission is to preach, and everything else serves to validate the preaching. It’s not the right time for His glory and identity to be revealed. Not that it’s stopping the news from traveling (once again, a bit of irony here). His fame keeps spreading, there’s nothing He can do to stop it! Which leads Him to this repeated pattern of withdrawing, spending time alone. Well, not always alone, as we see in the next section:

• Shrinking Focus (13-19)

-Mountains have a special place in God’s story.

-Abraham went up to a mountain to offer Isaac (same mountain where Solomon’s temple would eventually be built)

-Moses goes up to a mountain to meet with the Lord and establish the rules for relationship between God and His people (Exodus)

-Mark is signifying that God through Jesus is re-establishing His people here

-It’s important to note how this is taking place. All God’s work, nothing the people did “called to him those whom he desired” and 14 literally states “he made 12” Not great English (and most of this isn’t great Greek writing either) but Mark is making a point that this is Jesus’ doing, not the apostles.

-Where the first Israel failed, this new Israel will not! Where the first Israel was meant to be a light to the nations (Isa. 49:6), this new Israel will go out into all the nations. Where the first Israel was meant to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6), this new Israel are all priests and a holy nation (1 Peter 2:9). 

-Mark makes an additional note about these 12: Jesus calls them apostles. Not used many times in the Bible, but denotes the idea that these are meant to be messengers or representatives. Which makes sense when you look at their mission:

-3 fold mission: be with, sent, preach and have authority (preach with authority like Jesus did)

-Be with: marked by time being close to Jesus. Following His ways, learning His methods, becoming a student of Him. Same call for us today! One author I’ve read states that we are to apprentice ourselves to Jesus.

-Sent. We aren’t meant to live in isolation, Jesus has commissioned us and sent us out to be His ambassadors to the world, representing and pointing to Him. This is why at the end of our service, instead of dismissing, we are sent to go out and represent Jesus to the best of our ability to the world.

-Preach and have authority: we can’t represent Jesus without preaching! “Preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary use words” doesn’t fit with what Jesus sends His disciples to do! The authority comes from all the previous things: being with, sent as his representatives, and preaching. One note – in this context it’s not preaching as referring to what I’m doing now. All of us are called to preach the gospel at all times, and it’s necessary to use words! Brothers and sisters, our words are meant to point people to God. Do yours?

-Same 12 throughout all the Gospels. Not everyone who followed Jesus during his earthly ministry (otherwise there would have been no Matthias to replace Judas)

-Simon first, Peter translation of Cephas “rock” Have you ever been given a nickname? That’s what Jesus apparently does with his friends too! Rock is a bit of a misnomer here, because we all know what happens to Peter during the rest of Jesus’ ministry! Denies Jesus 3 times, tends to be the most outspoken one, hardly tempting to call him a “rock.” But Jesus sees something the world doesn’t see in Peter, and he winds up preaching what is probably the most impactful sermon ever done. Just so happened to be his first sermon too, 3,000 people are saved because of his first sermon! It’s all downhill from there.

-James and John, brothers whose nicknames were “sons of Thunder” Either strong reaction, maybe they were big dudes, did something that when we get to heaven we can find out about that got them referred to as “sons of thunder.”

-Peter’s brother Andrew (not sure why Mark has them split up, but Peter, James, and John serve as Jesus’ “inner 3” so that may be why) 

-Don’t know much about the rest of the disciples with the exception of 3: Matthew/Levi, the second Simon and Judas Iscariot.  

-Remember what Levi/Matthew’s occupation was before Jesus called him? Tax collector. The second Simon is described as what? Zealot, actively working to overthrow the Roman rule. How do you think those 2 guys got along? I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these 2 men were brought together as part of Jesus’ reformation of the people of God. You couldn’t have 2 more politically diverging groups. And they lived and ministered together for 3+ years! 

-The church offers friendship based on alien standards. The world tries to copy the sense of comradery and depth that Christians have, but it’s built on a fault line and won’t endure the realities of the world. We in the church in America have too closely wedded politics and our faith for too long, and we need to reassess our priorities to remain faithful to the Bible. Dear friends, we need to evaluate people according to God’s standards, not political standards (I’m grateful it’s not another election year!). Politics have become many people’s religion and litmus test for orthodoxy, but it provides overly simplistic solutions to a much bigger and deeper problem. That’s why we need the gospel.

-Keller: “The gospel is this: we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared to believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.” 

-Politics only vilifies one side and only commends their side. What happens if you question or doubt? You’re cast aside! Jesus not only welcomes people in, He brings on their questions and draws near when you feel furthest away. Not only that, He doesn’t allow you to continue operating by the worldly standards you used when you first came to Him. All worldly standards fall short in some way, only the gospel is strong enough to endure under the weight of reality. It takes the messiness and brokenness of people and instead of blaming others, it deals with all of it on a cross. And that cross needs to remain true of us today. Jesus says we’re supposed to take up our cross DAILY and follow Him. Do you think it’s supposed to be easy? It’s not easy, but God gives us Himself to help us work through it. But it’s not just Himself, He brings us into a community.

-One of the difficulties in our world today is finding community. The hardest transition point in my life was college to post-college. How do you make friends? And then people add expectations and desires that no group can meet! Enter: the church!

-Tweet from a number of years ago.

-One of the things I’ve learned in ministry is people tend to complain about not being “connected” to a church in August and January. What’s the lead up to those months? And then when you ask: what have you been putting into the church? Oh nothing, people are supposed to pursue me! Yes, up to a point. But if you don’t engage, if you don’t let others in, if you don’t reach out no one is going to engage with you. All relationships are 2 sided (except God towards us, we can’t contribute anything to that)

-And the church is supposed to be a supernatural community that gets along where the world can’t. Where people from different ethnic backgrounds, different generations, different economic realities can gather together because we’re a part of something much bigger than the world we live in. And Jesus has the audacity to use us as his messengers. Isn’t that crazy?

-Friends, even when we get to lists of names in the Bible, they’re important for us to slow and contemplate exactly what’s being said! Jesus intentionally modeled for us what relationships in the church are supposed to look like. They’re not easy, there will be betrayal, we’ll need to get over some of our preferences and ideals, and all of this is good because it’s a reminder that it’s not about us! We’re not supposed to come to church to BE served, we’re supposed to come to church to serve, and everything we do is meant to represent Jesus to those we rub shoulders with.

PLEASE NOTE: these are the notes I use to preach from, if you would like to hear them in context, please watch our YouTube video.

-We’ve covered a lot of ground in this series! Basically, what I’ve tried to do is look at the topic of discipleship from a wide variety of angles.

-Your perspective on things can be deceiving! Remember the gorilla we saw (or maybe missed!) a couple weeks ago? 

-Today I’ve got a different picture to show you to demonstrate just how much your perspective changes things. At first glance it appears that dear Prince William is upset with someone, doesn’t it? What do you think he’s trying to communicate? But wait until your perspective changes, what do you think he’s trying to communicate now?

-Perspective matters! How we view discipleship matters. A good summary has been seen by the 4 Ps we’ve mentioned regularly.

-Summary of the previous weeks:

-Defining Disciple (learner): a redeemed sinner learning Christ by increasing worship of God through every area of your life. 

-The Content of Discipleship: God’s Word spoken in a wide variety of ways and contexts, because God’s Word is always applicable. (the way we move up the arrow is by God’s Word) Need to inwardly digest the Bible more, met people with digestive issues, why do so many Christians today have spiritual digestive issues that go undiagnosed or ignored?

-Imitate Me: God has given us a body of people who all have different strengths and weaknesses, but there will always be someone who is more mature than you in some area that you would do well to spend time with and learn how to imitate them. You become like the people you spend time with. SG a good place to do this! (We look back at people further down the arrow to invite them to imitate us)

-The Assembly: Micah reminded us last week that the gathering is integral to the life of a disciple. God literally baked this idea into the created order, and we need to gather because everything around us disciples us one way, but God’s ways are often the opposite of our worldly training so we need to be retrained and have the compasses of our hearts re-magnetized to true north. Sundays serve as the tuning fork for the rest of our weekly discipleship.

-I was reading an article this week that had a line that stood out to me that I thought was helpful in thinking of what Micah preached on: “The audience for worship is God, not us.” Sunday morning is a beautiful reminder that we exist for someone else, not for ourselves. This is part of the reason I think it’s important that we meet on Christmas Day (debate every time it falls on Sunday)

-This week, we’ll be looking at how we put all these various pieces together and pursuing holistic discipleship in every facet of our lives, or being intentional to disciple others one step closer to Christ informally and formally.

-I think Paul summarizes this idea really well in Phil. 4:8-9. Growing as a disciple (learner) of Jesus is learning how to take every thought captive to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5), which is focusing on this list of truths (even toward other people). The most difficult thing to disciple is your thought life. Think about it: who is your biggest critic? Who lies to you more than anyone else? We’re coming up to the time of year where we all make big bold commitments that we know we won’t follow through (they’re called New Year’s Resolutions). If you’ve ever had a gym membership you know it’s packed full in January, but usually by about mid-February there’s plenty of room again!

-One more thing before we read, remember what we are caught up in. The greatest story ever told!

-“Storytelling has been central to Christianity from the beginning, because the Gospel is not a body of teaching, but an account of something done.” Colin Morris. That’s literally why Christmas is such a big deal! The eternal unchangeable God entered into time and space to redeem the whole creation. That’s an historical fact that should cause us to ask a question Jesus asked His disciples: who do you say that I am?

-EFCA SOF: “God has graciously purposed from eternity to redeem a people for Himself and to make all things new for His own glory.”

READ/PRAY (Deut. 6) 

1. Formally: Right Theology (4-5)

-Notice where Moses’ announcement begins: with a statement of theology.

-Have a tendency today to view this as an academic pursuit instead of the core of discipleship. It’s just talking about God, which everyone does. The centering point that we’re gathering around together is the Bible, God’s inspired and authoritative Word because that’s the measuring stick that we’re commanded to use in our lives. We will only grow more mature as a disciple as we grow in understanding and application of God’s Word in our lives. If God has told us something, we need to obey. 

-This is why we spent a whole Sunday working on the content of discipleship: if we don’t, we won’t be learning the right things.

-There’s 2 ways to interpret this phrase here, hard to translate because there’s no verb. “The Lord our God the Lord one” could be a statement of identity (who God is) or could be basically a catechism statement: The Lord OUR God” 

-All theology is practical or applicable. Theology isn’t just an endeavor for the your minds, remember what I’ve shared before, it’s meant to make the 18” move from your head to your heart.

-Moses knows this: no transition, he goes straight into “love the Lord your God with everything” Because God is one it means something in all our lives, and Moses immediately jumps to the application of God being one! The last word there is an interesting one, literally could translate it as “muchness” or “abundance.” Just a way of saying everything. Then in the NT Jesus doubled down on this statement!

-This is where we see that we’re supposed to worship God with every single thing we do. What’s left out of “muchness”? Nothing! Moses is reminding God’s people that God’s people must represent Him to the world. Church: we have a job to do!

-That’s just the first application!

• Informally: Right Living (6-9)

-How do we know how to obey God? What is the method God uses to help people move up the arrow? We need to soak and saturate our lives with His commands/words. We saw that when we looked at the content of discipleship.

-Did you know that boundaries, fences actually help instill a sense of security and protection in people? A study done in 2006 compared the activity of children who were taken to a playground with fences vs. a playground with no fence. Those children who had a fence used every available square inch to explore. The children without a fence stuck really close to the teacher to ensure they didn’t stray too far away. 

-The Bible (rules, stipulations, commands) are meant to allow us to experience freedom in Christ instead of living in fear. Think of how difficult it is to keep up with the moral relativism around us today! How do you know if something you say today won’t get you cancelled in the next 5 years? Friends, God has given us a spirit not of fear, but of freedom! All our sins past, present, and future have been atoned for, they’ve been dealt with, they’ve been cast as far as the East is from the West. Can you measure that? 

-Look where these verses begin: words. Remember, it’s not enough to just have a head knowledge about God, it needs to trickle itself down into the very center of your being and drive, your heart. The only hope we have of maturing as disciples is by letting the truths of God’s Word permeate into your heart, the very center of your being, “on your heart.”

-What is it that drives you? What we just saw in the previous 2 verses is for those of use who are in Christ, the driving force behind everything we do should be loving God perfectly, with all our “muchness.” That is literally the whole point of discipleship: learning to love God more correctly. 

-These commands, these rules are so important, God’s people are commanded to teach them, but not just teach, there’s an adverb here: diligently. I was listening to a podcast recently from a pastor who said: if anyone talks to me for more than 5 minutes, they’re quickly going to learn 2 things about me: I love Jesus, and I love my wife. We talk about the things that we’re most passionate about! Which is where Moses goes next:

-Describes how you diligently teach: talk. Once again, this is Moses assuming that God’s people know enough about God’s rules and commands that they’re able to talk about them diligently. 

-Church: don’t miss this! I keep saying it, but I want to point it out as we walk through all the places Moses says we’re to talk about God’s words. Everything we’ve looked at over the past 5 weeks is only possible if we ourselves are studying God’s Word and are then able to apply it to every context we find ourselves in. This gathering isn’t sufficient for you to let God’s Word soak into you deeply!

-The other thing I want you to be aware of is Moses’ overall point in what he lists here. He’s not limiting the teaching to these 8 areas, instead he’s using a literary device common to Hebrew known as Merism. Example: I searched high and low, meaning I searched everywhere (yet I’ve discovered that there’s something called “husband eyes” that still miss things!). Moses is using 2 examples to cover every aspect of life, yet I think these examples are still worth looking at, as a way of encouraging us to bring God’s Word to bear in our whole lives. 

–Sit in your house: what things do you talk about when you’re at home? Vikings historic comeback win yesterday? Weather? Stocks? How long would someone need to talk to you before Jesus comes up? How do you create opportunities in your home to talk about what God is doing in your lives? Once again, this assumes that you know enough of God’s Word to talk about it, but when you’re home, inviting others in, how do you love God with your “muchness” in the home? This idea will come up again, so just wait a minute.

–walk by the way: Not enough to talk about God when you’re in the house, there needs to be a PDA: public display of affection that’s geared towards God! Maybe today it should say “drive by the way” How can you drive in a way that shows you love God with your everything? 

-This is one of those areas that I worry we may be neglecting today, our culture has trained us that religion is something private that we leave at home, but for anyone in Christ, we’re supposed to have every area of our lives transformed. Even the act of going for a walk is supposed to be different because Christ is in us. One of the things I try to do when our family goes on walks is look people in the eye and say “hi” it’s an easy way to treat them as another person who carries the image of God. 

-Moses begins with your daily life: home and outside the home, what about with respect to time? 

–lie down. What’s the last thing in your mind as you go off to sleep? “Vikings played an amazing second half today” Or maybe what is your nightly routine as you go to bed? What does it mean to love God with your everything at the end of the day? One of the ways Cara and I have built this idea into our daily lives is asking “what are you thankful for today” as we’re getting into bed. It’s an easy to way to reorient our minds to giving thanks to God even when it’s been a terrible day! I’ll be honest, sometimes the only thing I’m thankful for is the bed!

–rise. Similarly what’s the first thing you think of when you wake up (other than: do I HAVE to get up?)? Maybe you roll over and check Twitter, the news, or the stock market. What would it look like for you to begin your day loving God with your everything? Maybe it’s thanking God that “his mercies are new every morning.” Maybe it’s giving thanks for God’s sustaining you through the night and that even when we need to sleep, God doesn’t ever get tired. Whatever it is, find some way to begin your day with God at the forefront of your mind. 

-But it’s not just you individually or as a family working through these things, because God gives you to other reminders to keep Him first. So, to ensure you don’t forget them:

–Sign on your hand. How often do you use your hand during the day? How do you think your hand could be used to remind you to keep God first? Maybe it’s changing what your hands do on social media. Maybe it’s working harder at your job because it’s a gift from God to be able to work and do what you do.

–Frontlets between your eyes. If any of you (like me) need glasses, you know how hard it is to see without your lenses. What would your life look like if you viewed everything through the lens of the God’s Word? What would it mean to view everything you see as God sees it?

–Doorpost of your house your house should be different than those who aren’t following Christ. Once again, I have to ask, do you think this is true of you and your family? Are you just chasing the same American dream as your neighbors or can people tell something different about you in how you live and operate in your home? 

-Doesn’t necessarily mean putting a Bible verse on your door, but that may not be a bad idea either! Better than anything else you could read as you walk out of your house!

-What does it mean to be a Christian in the home? Training children, walking with the Lord. Living a life of repentance, prioritizing God over other good things. There needs to be something different about us. I think sometimes we’re guilty of slapping a “Christian” label on something and then continuing to pursue whatever we want instead of understanding the God is seeking to transform you from the inside out.

–Gates: We often think about this in terms of our own private houses, but at this time period houses didn’t have gates around them, the gates was referring to the public square, so even in the public square, God’s people were to keep God at the forefront of their minds and act differently than those who didn’t follow the one true God. So for you today: do people at your work, in your interactions at the grocery store, can people see you follow God? What do you think it would look like for you to bring God into all these interactions?

-The summary: nothing is left out! God’s people need to bring God’s commands to fruition in every area of their lives, and we need to encourage each other to love God with our “muchness” and love others as we love ourselves.

-This idea is summarized in a similar way in a NT Epistle, and it’s where I’ve stolen some language when I talk about discipleship:

–1 Tim. 4:16 (NIV) “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.”

-Anyone who has had a failing in ministry has failed in 1 of these 2 areas. Not mutually exclusive, these should be growing together, symmetrically. Think of a train. In order for a train to move forward it needs 2 rails, otherwise disaster strikes! Similarly for our growth as a disciple, we need to grow in both life and doctrine to pursue maturity. 

-How am I hoping we flesh this out in our context? Classes and small groups. Classes are a great environment to learn doctrine, to grow in knowledge of God. Small groups are great environments for living out the truths you’re learning, and accountability to apply those truths on a regular basis. If you ever want a book to read, please come talk to me! I love reading!

• Perseverance, Step by Step (10-25)

-Remember that Israel here on the verge of entering the Promised Land, the place they’d been waiting years to enter. Living in the desert, eating nothing but manna and quail for 40 years, yet what does God remind His people to do as they look forward to that day? Not forget him! Look at all the things God’s going to provide for them: great cities, houses, cisterns, vineyards, olives trees.

-Dear saints, we have been blessed beyond measure! Christmas is a great time to think about this, Paul reminds us in 1 Cor. 4:7 “what do you have that you did not receive?” Everything we have is a gift from God because God sent His Son to Earth to adopt us and make us His children, and then send us on a life of learning (discipleship).

-Moses goes on to say that the reason parents need to know and understand these truths is so that they can answer when your children ask you questions about your faith. How do you answer that question? (20) “Mom, dad: why do we obey God’s rules? Why are we different from my friends? Why do we have to wake up early on the weekend and go to church? Why do we spend our money differently?” 

-First of all, this assumes that you’re living differently. As I’ve said before, I sometimes worry that we’re not!

-I’ve had numerous conversations with some of you here about some of these issues. Why are kids leaving the faith? What hope is there of the church enduring? I listened to a podcast this past week that got my wheels turning on the need for us to live differently. Let me share some thoughts:

-We’re at a unique day in our culture where many of our assumptions are being challenged. One scholar has quipped that the job of apologetics today is not explaining the church to the world, the job of apologetics is explaining the world to the church. Why does it seem like our culture is getting crazier each day? The book of Judges summarizes this well: everyone did what was right in their own eyes. No accountability, no oversight, we live in the day of expressive individualism (def.) Yet the whole point of our faith is to be conformed into someone else’s image, not our own.

-Dear friends, we need each other to help each other grow in life and doctrine. We need each other to make disciples and to help each other mature as disciples. Every single person here is here for a reason and has some area where they can help those around them mature as a disciple. And as parents have questions, they need older people to help encourage them to persevere in their parenting and chasing after God. 

-Defining Disciple (learner): a redeemed sinner learning Christ by increasing worship of God through every area of your life.

-Newbigin quote. The only way of interpreting the gospel. 

-The gospel message isn’t just a mental idea that we check the box with and move on. The gospel leads us to a community of people who will disciple us so that we can in turn disciple others. We need to love each other enough to call out the sins we see in each other, and look for ways to share the gospel in word and in deed until, encouraging people to take one step close to Christ. We’re on an eternal journey of learning Christ more fully, so let’s start today.

-As we wrap up this series, 1 question for you. Where are you at on this arrow? What do you need to do to be or become a better learner? And who do you need to call to imitate you as you’re imitating Christ?