Being A Disciple

Context

Series: the Life of Faith. Part 1: Faith Awakened.

Last week: Jesus worked miracles on the Sabbath, showing how God’s life giving power moves through him, but at the same time putting him in the crosshairs of the religious leadership who viewed him a breaking religious custom.

This week, our theme is becoming a disciple.

Our reading comes from the Gospel of Mark.

On an itinerant preaching mission in the Galilee area Jesus has been working miracles, driving out demons, and healing people.

A great crowd from all over the region - Jews, perhaps some gentiles, sinners and fringy types, men, women, - have been massing around him.

The religious leadership has become increasingly hostile. From their vantage point, everywhere Jesus goes crowds and chaos seem to spring up.

To take a recess, Jesus returns to his home base of operations in Capernaum.

Mark 3:20–35 ESV

Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” And he called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house. “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.” And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”

Introduction

I am a Christian. But what does that mean. I go to church? I pray? I do good in the world? I have outlandish beliefs? I have a private faith? I have a category to select on a demographic form.

Being Christian should be more than that.

Characterized by connection with Jesus and his power…and how that is shaping one’s life today.

unnerving claim, but what we want.

Following Jesus has put us on a new kind of life.

Ancient Problem - Saved from Jesus

Jesus left home as a single man. He has come back home as a 1st century prophetic rock star.

With him have come his new band of apostles, the 12. A mass of people from all over the region, who have recieved healing and exorcism.

And scribes from Jerusalem. The elite religious leaders. The local rabbis awestruck and rolling out the red carpets.

Topic of conversation: Jesus. Who is he. What is he doing. How is he doing it.

Disciples may have been at wits end: there was not even time to eat (Mark may have heard this from Peter)

Family.

Concerned. Maybe he has gone off the deep end. v.21 they were saying he is out of his mind.

They wanted to seize him. Maybe he needs to be sequestered. For his own good.

Scribes.

However he is performing miracles…The fact that he is doing them on the Sabbath, breaking of God’s law (and god would not break his own law)….means he must be using the power from some source other than God:

He is possessed by Beelzebul

“Master of the house” a Caananite false deity, generally associated with Satan in Jesus’ context.

By the power of the prince of demons — Satan — that he casts out demons.

Demons have to take orders from the Devil, he is above them on the chain of command.

Common thread: People need to be saved from Jesus. Jesus needs to be saved from Jesus. Unnerved. Power.

Fear: He’s too extreme. He’s crazy. He’s evil. He’s too powerful, to independent.

Current Problem: Saved from Jesus

I’ve grown up in the church. Many of you have, not all.

By and large, good experiences with Jesus, with his church, with his people.

Often calm. Presbyterians like to call themselves God’s frozen chosen.

Description from Mark Twain: I do not take any credit to my better-balanced head because I never went crazy on Presbyterianism. We go too slow for that. You never see us ranting and shouting and tearing up the ground, You never heard of a Presbyterian going crazy on religion. Notice us, and you will see how we do. We get up of a Sunday morning and put on the best harness we have got and trip cheerfully down town; we subside into solemnity and enter the church; we stand up and duck our heads and bear down on a hymn book propped on the pew in front when the minister prays; we stand up again while our hired choir are singing, and look in the hymn book and check off the verses to see that they don't shirk any of the stanzas; we sit silent and grave while the minister is preaching, and count the waterfalls and bonnets furtively, and catch flies; we grab our hats and bonnets when the benediction is begun; when it is finished, we shove, so to speak. No frenzy, no fanaticism --no skirmishing; everything perfectly serene. You never see any of us Presbyterians getting in a sweat about religion and trying to massacre the neighbors. Let us all be content with the tried and safe old regular religions, and take no chances on wildcat. - "The New Wildcat Religion"

In Contrast: I’ve been to some pentecostal services. Hands up. Speaking in tongues. People coming forward to be healed. I felt uneasy. Unsure.

I get nervous around the power I can’t control.

Not here in church to go through the motions…not even at a Presbyterian Church. Neither are you.

If that is all being a Christian was, I would not be here today.

Presbyterian hymn sing, prayer meeting, youth camp conversions.

There is something more going on.

I don’t want to be protected from Jesus. I want to encounter Jesus, and that is what Jesus also wants.

He wants to invite us into a new way of life.

Hinge

It’s not that people need to be saved from him, but that he has come to save people.

Take them out of the safe, old regular, into something new.

Ancient solution - Jesus saves people

Jesus takes the initiative. Calmly. Calls the scribes to himself. How lordly.

How can Satan cast out Satan?

A divided kingdom, that kingdom cannot stand. A house divided against itself. Abraham Lincoln.

Just so, Satan against Satan would be divided and coming to an end. That is not what is happening.

Rather. parable

Strong man. House. Burglar. Goods.

no one can enter the house of a strong man and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then he may plunder his house.

Strong man — Satan. The House — the world. The one who is stronger and binds the strong man — Jesus. The goods — people.

Jesus like a burglar? The son of man will come as a thief in the night?

An ancient prophecy. Genesis 3. Through disobedience. Adam and Eve placed themselves under the dominion of Satan. In his house. He is strong lord. Genesis, I will put enmity. It will not last forever. He will bruise your head.

Jesus says you see me driving out demons, silencing them…I am binding the strong man. You see me healing and proclaiming, I am plundering his house and bringing people out.

I am the new master of the house. Son of God.

Strong warning.

All kinds of blasphemies can and will be forgiven, but be careful of this one— blaspheming the Holy Spirit. never has forgiveness, that is an eternal sin.

Jesus liberates people by the power of the HS, if you label that as evil, how can you be helped?

As for his family, seeking to collect him. He is told they are outside. But he looks at those gathered around him — these are my mother and brothers.

Those who do the will of God.

What had they done? come to jesus for healing, forgiveness, new way of life.

Can’t help but think that stung Mary and the others.

Just as it must of stung when he said, Why were you searching for me, I had to be in my fathers house?

Not a disrespect so much as the primacy of relationship in the kingdom of God.

His brothers and sisters are not established by flesh and blood but by the spirit. The spirit through whom he has rescued them from the house of the strong man.

He came to his own, but his own — family, religious elite, jews in general, did not receive him. But to those who did, he gave them power to become children of God.

New way of life, not religion as usual but a participation in the kingdom of God.

Current Solution

When it comes to being a disciple of Jesus

Stand in awe that Jesus has plundered us away, stolen us back

Colossians 1:13 “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,”

Ephesians 2:2“in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—”

We are no longer under the domain of evil. No longer a child of this world. No longer a child of the darkness, but of the light. no longer obeying the laws of the flesh or the prince of this world, but Jesus.

We have a new Lord. One to obey. To be a disciple of Jesus is to be on a road of obedience to him and his leadership in life.

Adam and Eve — couldn’t keep the garden, disobedience.

Children of Israel — couldn’t go into the promised land, disobedience.

Jesus leading us into heaven, obey me. Trust me.

Jesus binding the strong man, now you are free to be obedient To new rules

Ephesians 2:10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

1 John 5:2 “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.”

What Christ has accomplished, we want to experience. We do it the way the ancient crowd did. Gathered around Jesus.

I have a need, I have a question, I have an evil spirit, Set me free for a new life.

I don’t have to understand it or label it or control it, I trust you.

Conclusion

Being a disciple is realizing that we are being brought from one kind of reality to another. One in which God and Jesus and the Spirit don’t fit into the same old regular, but are seeking to change us.