Discipleship | Mark 3:7-19

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In the first couple chapters of Mark we’ve been seeing Jesus establish His authority as the Son of God. The main three ways He’s been doing this is through healing people, casting out demons, and teaching. And as Jesus has been doing all these great things, He has become more and more popular around Judea.

It’s starting to get to a point where Jesus always has massive crowds of people with Him wherever He goes. Most of them being there so they could be healed or so a demon could be cast out of a family member of theirs.

I want us to put ourselves in Jesus’ shoes for a minute. Jesus has been constantly healing people, teaching people, and casting out demons. Day in and day out. And He has massive amounts of crowds following Him asking Him to do these things more and more. That’s gotta be exhausting. Like I’m sure Jesus dog tired all the time.

And as we talked about a few weeks ago, yes Jesus wants to do these things because they’re good, but He didn’t come to Earth to be a healer of disease. That is just one way He is showing others what He truly came to do: heal hearts by dying on the cross for the sins of the world.

And in our passage tonight we’re gonna see that catering to the crowds was not Jesus’ top priority. Doesn’t mean He’s done with the crowds, they just weren’t His priority. Then we’re gonna see what His true priority was before He would go to the cross.

Mark 3:7–19 NLT

7 Jesus went out to the lake with his disciples, and a large crowd followed him. They came from all over Galilee, Judea, 8 Jerusalem, Idumea, from east of the Jordan River, and even from as far north as Tyre and Sidon. The news about his miracles had spread far and wide, and vast numbers of people came to see him. 9 Jesus instructed his disciples to have a boat ready so the crowd would not crush him. 10 He had healed many people that day, so all the sick people eagerly pushed forward to touch him. 11 And whenever those possessed by evil spirits caught sight of him, the spirits would throw them to the ground in front of him shrieking, “You are the Son of God!” 12 But Jesus sternly commanded the spirits not to reveal who he was. 13 Afterward Jesus went up on a mountain and called out the ones he wanted to go with him. And they came to him. 14 Then he appointed twelve of them and called them his apostles. They were to accompany him, and he would send them out to preach, 15 giving them authority to cast out demons. 16 These are the twelve he chose: Simon (whom he named Peter), 17 James and John (the sons of Zebedee, but Jesus nicknamed them “Sons of Thunder”), 18 Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James (son of Alphaeus), Thaddaeus, Simon (the zealot), 19 Judas Iscariot (who later betrayed him).

So to start out our passage tonight we kinda get to see a day in the life of Jesus. This may be too old of a trend for y’all but do y’all remember that huge trend about ten years ago where YouTubers and influencers would release these day in the life videos where they would basically just film their day? This is basically a day in the life video for Jesus. Crowds following Him all the time and at this point Jesus wants to get away from the crowd cause He’s been doing this constantly and it is leaving less time for His true priority before He would go to the cross.

Then we see Jesus concoct a plan with the disciples to get away from the crowd of people. Jesus tells the disciples, “Have a boat ready so I can dip out.”

This brings us to our first point for tonight…

1. Jesus didn’t try to reach everyone Himself (Mark 3:7-12).

What? You’re telling me Jesus didn’t try to share the gospel with everyone? No He didn’t.

Let me tell you why. Have y’all ever heard of a mega church? It’s basically a church with more than 2,000 people attending. These are the churches with the largest weekly attendance. And these churches reach a ton of people.

And someone might think, “Well why didn’t Jesus just start His own church where everyone could hear Him teach?” And it’s a good question. Why didn’t Jesus just start the Jesus mega church?

Well Jesus didn’t want to just preach to people. He wanted to really invest in them. He wanted to hear about their struggles and help them through those struggles. He wanted to live life with people and watch them make mistakes so He could lovingly guide them to the right way.

Cause the truth is just preaching a sermon is not how you make disciples. People are sinful and it takes time to guide people to a growing relationship with Jesus. Actually doing life with others and investing in people for long periods of time is how you make disciples. And Jesus didn’t have time to do that with everyone.

The great things is, though: Jesus had a better strategy. Which is actually our second point for the night…

2. Jesus had a better strategy (Mark 3:13-19).

Mark 3:13–15 NLT

13 Afterward Jesus went up on a mountain and called out the ones he wanted to go with him. And they came to him. 14 Then he appointed twelve of them and called them his apostles. They were to accompany him, and he would send them out to preach, 15 giving them authority to cast out demons.

Then we see the names of the twelve disciples Jesus called.

And these 12 disciples are Jesus’ better strategy. Jesus didn’t try to reach everyone Himself, He heavily invested in 12 men over His 3 year ministry and then they would go and make more disciples who would make more disciples who would make more disciples.

And we even get to see the strategy Jesus uses in discipling these 12 men in verse 14. It starts by saying these 12 men accompanied Jesus. So these guys followed Jesus to every town He went to. They saw how Jesus approached others. They saw how Jesus loved others. They saw how Jesus shared the gospel. And occasionally Jesus would send them out to preach so they could go and do the things Jesus was doing. And so they could gain experience as a disciple who makes disciples who makes disciples. And we know eventually Jesus would rise up to heaven after the resurrection. And there He gave the Great Commission to send out the disciples to make other disciples. “Go and make disciples of all nations. Baptizing them and teaching them to obey all I have commanded you.”

And this isn’t just a glimpse into the brilliance of Jesus. This is our model for discipleship. This is what we’re called to do as Christians. We model for others what it means to be a Christian, we show them how to share the gospel and how to follow Jesus faithfully, then we send them out to go and make more disciples. That’s why I use that phrase make disciples who make disciples who make disciples. Because making a disciple is shaping someone to be someone who goes and makes other disciples and those disciples then go make more disciples.

One of your Connection Students leaders is modeling this beautifully. I asked permission to call him out so maybe I won’t embarrass him too much, but Nick is currently meeting with a guy and walking him through what it means to be a disciple of Christ. And Nick I’m sure at this point you and him have had a few conversations about who he is going to meet with once y’all are done and I’m sure you’ve had an eye out for who you’re gonna meet with.

And before Nick was meeting with someone, Liam met with Nick and invested in him. And now Liam is meeting with somebody else. And you can see more and more disciples being made because followers of Jesus are being faithful to the Great Commission Jesus has called us to.

Y’all this isn’t just a suggestion. I’m not preaching this sermon to tell you that it’s a good idea to make disciples. I’m preaching this sermon to tell you that God Himself has commissioned you to make disciples. We need to realize how important this is. THIS IS OUR PURPOSE ON EARTH. To make disciples. We need to take it seriously.

3. Multiplication is better than addition.

Lemme just blow yall’s mind for a minute, cause this blew my mind. There are 8.2 billion people on this Earth. Let’s say we start with one person who is a follower of Jesus. And their goal every year is to make one disciple who makes disciples who makes disciples, so on and so forth. So every year we multiply the number of disciples by 2 because every current disciple makes another disciple that year. I want y’all to just give a ballpark answer as to how many years you think it would take to reach everyone on Earth, all 8.2 billion. 33 years. If we started with 1 disciple, it would take that person 33 years to reach all 8.2 billion people on Earth assuming every new Christian made a disciple that year.

Guess how many current Christians there are in the world according to Google. 2.3 billion. You wanna know how many years it would take to reach the entire world if every current Christian made 1 disciple who makes disciples every year? 2… 2 years… and we could reach the entire world.

Let’s say there aren’t actually 2.3 billion Christians and that half of these people who claim to be Christian aren’t actually Christians. We cut that number in half and it would still only take us 3 years to reach the entire world.

Let’s say we’re feeling really cynical and we think there are even less actual Christians in the world. We cut that number in half one more time just for fun and it would still only take us 4 years. And that’s in the cynical scenario.

Making disciples of all nations looks very doable when every Christian is making disciples.

This is what the Connection Network does with churches. If y’all didn’t know Connection Church Athens is part of a network of 8 churches in Georgia and 1 international church in Indonesia. But it all started with Connection Church Statesboro. That was the first Connection Church. And the leaders over at Connection Church Statesboro saw how much more people could be reached if they planted more churches. So they planted a church in Vidalia. And Connection Church Vidalia planted Connection Church Athens. So what started as one church only reaching maybe 1,000 people in Statesboro is now reaching several thousand people across the state of Georgia and will be reaching people in Indonesia once our international church plant gets up and running.

And this idea of multiplication is very important for our church. Jamie Fullington, our college pastor, is planting a church in Oconee County in 2026. So we’re multiplying churches. The reason why is because this was Jesus’ strategy to reach the world, so it’s ours as well.

So my question for y’all tonight is do you want to take this seriously? Do you want to be a disciple who makes disciples who makes disciples? Let me first off just reassure you that Jesus will equip you to accomplish His mission. When Jesus died on the cross as a payment for our sins and rose from the grave three days later, He made it so His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, could now dwell in us. Guiding us in our journey as His disciples. And Jesus has given you His Word. The Bible shows us the blueprint for who God is, how we are to live, and how we make disciples of those around us. You can also talk to God in prayer. And Jesus has given you people in your life to invest in you. Your parents, us, other mentors in your life. And if you want to dive in deeper and be shown what the life of a disciple looks like and how you make other disciples, please let me know or let one of the leaders know and we’d love to get you connected with someone who can walk through this with you.

You are being equipped. You have Christ living in you, you have the Bible, you have prayer, and you have people investing in you and people who are willing to dive in deeper with you to guide you along. The question is, how seriously are you going to take the Great Commission? Do you want to be a disciple who makes disciples? Do you want to serve God?