Crowds and Disciples (Mark 3:7-19)
If you could be famous, would you? If someone gave you the opportunity to be a famous actor, commentator, comedian, or celebrity who was just famous for being famous, would you take it?
For many people in our culture, to be famous seems like a marker of success and vindication. Yet for Jesus, fame wasn't his goal or even a help in his mission.
This week at Grace, we're continuing through the gospel of Mark, looking at the contrasting picture of the crowds and the apostles. Mark 3 says that people came from 100 miles away to push in on Jesus, seeking to get something out of him.
For his part, Jesus withdrew. His desire was not to be pushed around by crowds but to create his own ministry legacy through his disciples.
We'll look at these two competing pictures of a successful life and posture toward Jesus this Sunday at Grace. I hope you'll be there.
In Christ,
Pastor Bob
7 Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea 8 and Jerusalem and Idumea 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. 9 And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, 10 for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. 11 And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” 12 And he strictly ordered them not to make him known.
13 And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. 14 And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach 15 and have authority to cast out demons. 16 He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); 17 James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); 18 Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot, 19 and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
- Mark 3:7-19