Faithfulness at the cost of rejection

Introduction

Good morning church! My name is Alex, and I serve as one of the pastors here. This morning, we are jumping back into our series in the gospel of Mark. Here’s a recap of where we have been to help us jump back in to where we are!

Mark was a follower of Jesus who accompanied Paul for half of his first missionary journey. He was closely associated with Peter as they ran at ministry together as well. It was written in the early to mid 60s AD. As Mark wrote the gospel account, his hope was to help gentile, non jewish, people learn about Jesus and understand some of the jewish traditions as Christ fulfilled them, confirming the prophecies about him as the Messiah.

In the first 5 chapters Jesus is proclaimed right away to be the Son of God who is preaching that the Kingdom of God has come near and for people to repent and believe the good news that Jesus, the savior of the world, has come!

Jesus begins to invite people who you would never expect to be his disciples and to follow him like Peter and Andrew who were fisherman. As he traveled and began his ministry of preaching, he also demonstrated his authority with miraculous healings of exorcisms commanding demons to come out of people, touching unclean people with diseases like leprosy which is a visible rash that would vanish from people's skin as he touched them. People with the inability to walk were given the mobility of their legs for the first time in their lives. Jewish religious leaders would question him and he would cause them to be astounded at his teaching and authority as he revealed their own sin to them.

Up until this point, Jesus has had his disciples simply follow him, learn from him, watch him, but chapter 6 takes a turn. He moves to actually call them into something more than just watching and listening. The big picture idea that shapes these 30 verses is that Jesus is demonstrating, teaching, and inviting the disciples and us that we will be rejected by some if we are faithful to the One.

The question we must wrestle with today is, what keeps us from participating in the ministry Jesus has invited us into? What we’ll see as we wrestle with that question is that the gospel is more powerful and conquers those fears.

Point 1: The Gospel is more powerful than your past or your qualifications (v. 1-3)

Explanation of the text

After witnessing one of the most unimaginable miracles of Jesus sitting by the bed side of the dead corpse of a 12 year old girl, grabbing hold of her hand and telling the body to get up and watching her cold, lifeless body be filled the the rush of blood begin to coarse through her veins, her chest beat with the pounding heart giving life, and air fill the lungs as she takes oxygen in for the first time in hours, Peter James and John are instructed to tell no one.

I imagine the walk to be one of the quietest walks they’ve had in a while as they marvel at their teacher, thinking of how and asking unanswered questioned as their heads spun and returned to the rest of the disciples trying to keep their composure to not utter a word to the rest of them as they have been trying to deal with their own wonder of the woman bleeding for years being healed by the touch of the robe of Jesus.

Jesus and the disciples begin to travel from Capernaum where the majority of ministry has been happening to Nazareth, Jesus' home town. They travel for 25 miles trying to wrap their heads around God’s work and teachings.

They’ve seen and experienced nothing but what most would call “successful ministry” as people are healed, more people are starting to believe that Jesus is the Messiah sent from God, and they’re growing by the masses! It’s every church planter’s dream and human measurement of success screams that it’s a huge hit!

I can imagine as they’re heading back to Nazareth, thinking ehh this tiny village of 500 seems maybe like a waste of time, but maybe it’ll be a good pit stop for now.

The people welcome Jesus with joy to see him. They remember how Jesus was the spelling bee champion in 3rd grade but he shared his prize cake with the whole class, they share the stories of how when the kid who was pretty odd and bullied had no one to sit next to Jesus pulled up to make sure he had lunch with him so he wouldn’t be alone. They remembered how he took the time to help the old widow carry her groceries back to her home and how his wood tables and stone work would never cut corners and was the most stable and trustworthy product you’d find in all the region.

But what they remembered most was his devotion to God, how his heart would sing with joy and gladness as they sung their hymns, he would delight to hear and recite the Torah with such passion. And now they have all these rumblings that he’s preaching about the Kingdom of God and how healings have been happening so when the Sabbath comes around, they’re just clamoring to have him teach at synagogue that day waiting to hear his instruction.

But as the pews are packed, He stands up to read and says “our Scripture this morning comes from the prophet Isaiah 61” and the town blacksmith whispers “Oh i love that one”

Jesus recites “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

As they sit their eyes are glued on him waiting for his exposition of the passage and he says something that completely blows them all away. “Today, this is fulfilled” I am the one who is anointed by God, I am the Messiah who has come to set the captives free.

The room fills with chaos. “BLASPHEMER, LIAR, TAKE IT BACK!” The inner thoughts of their memories of Jesus fill them, “Isn’t this Mary’s son? no way he’s the Messiah. God’s anointed would never belong to a family of carpenters. Dude his brother James is a total jerk, no way that guy is part of God’s Messianic family”

Argument

But what Jesus experiences here is ultimately communicated in his response in verse 4 Mark 6:4 ““A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown, among his relatives, and in his household.””

Jesus has been rejected by the very people who know him best. Consider the amount of relational capital that he has with them. If anyone is worthy of trust, honor, respect, it’s this man. But all that is thrown out the window as Jesus calls them to see that he is the Messiah, calling them to repent and believe in him and inviting them to the kingdom of God.

Explanation of text (v. 7-13)

While the majority of the community is offended by Jesus' claims and instruction he doesn’t stop. It doesn’t keep him from teaching. He heals a few who believe and while he’s amazed at their unbelief, he knows he must go on teaching and calling people to repent and believe in the Kingdom of God.

As they move on, the disciples are faithfully with Jesus. I imagine they’re confused as everywhere they’ve gone they have experienced the masses be in awe and begin worship or follow Jesus outside of the religious leaders.

As they maybe sit and take a break he calls the twelve to come as he’s about to teach them another lesson they expect. And he does, but one like they’ve never had before. This time, they have homework.

Jesus has just had them witness everything up until this point, but now he calls them to actually respond and invites them into the ministry. Jesus calls them and instructs them to do the very thing that he has been doing. I imagine their confusion as they are told to take nothing with them, take your hiking stick, leave those power bars behind, don’t bring your new lululemon fanny pack, don’t bring that cool hiking bag with all the pockets you got at the Outlets with the back to school sale, just take your mowing shoes on, grab a buddy and go heal the sick, cast out demons, and preach repentance and demonstrate the Kingdom of God breaking in through their miracles.

Peter turns to John….”does he know we’re fisherman?” Matthew looks at James “I still have tax collector shirt on” Thomas whispers to Judas “bro there is no way this works.”

But Jesus looks at them and tells them, I’m giving you my authority and power. YOU now are able to do this. Trust me that you will be provided for. But also know, there will me some who refuse to listen. There will be some who don’t welcome you and treat you as scum. There will be some who shout at you and call you a blasphemer, a liar, a false teacher, just like my own home town did to me. Kick the dust off your feet, don’t give in to the lie that God is not with you, have confidence that when it’s tough that I will provide, carry boldness and confidence even when you don’t have an answer, but trust me that people will respond to the gospel.”

Argument

This invitation that Jesus gives the 12 would be baffling. They’re just ordinary people. Fishermen, blue collar, zealot, the wild child that is just too aggressive, the ex tax collector who is hated by his own people for taking advantage of them and partnering with their roman oppressors. They aren’t teachers, they aren’t well respected students who were invited to study under well known rabbis. They don’t have the resume or qualifications of the seminary degree with the fancy letters tagged on to their titles. They don’t hold positions of honor where it’s expected to be welcomed and treated like royalty.

But Jesus calls them to actually partner with him in the mission to share with those around them about the Kingdom of God. he invites them to participate in bringing heaven here to earth. He invites them to a life of devotion to him and giving all they have to completely trust him to provide for them.

These were 12 men who were living in another kingdom, a kingdom that was ultimately going to pass way. They were fishing for the sake of family, collecting taxes for the sake of comfort, fighting for the sake of a national resurgence. Maybe none of these are bad in themselves, but Jesus calls them out of investing their lives in the world's passing kingdom, out of those identities and into a Kingdom that truly lasts. AND he, as the King, gives them His authority to go and begin working in that kingdom right away

What we see in these 14 verses is the affirmation that the gospel of Jesus is more powerful than our past or our qualifications.

Church, Jesus doesn’t just save us to live a comfortable christian life of being saved and being a good moral person to those around us. But he invites us to the greater mission of telling people about Jesus, the Messiah, the one who came to set free the captives who are enslaved to a life of sin, who brings freedom those in prisoned forever to be separated from God without him, who opens the eyes of the blind who live without the privilege of seeing that joy is actually much more than what this world has to offer. God has looked at you and when he saved you, he didn’t do it for you to just keep it to yourself, but he saved you with the joy of inviting you to share that same gift with the people around you!

This is why we’re doing the “Go Together” initiative in city groups to help one another build relationships with our neighbors to reach them with the gospel, this is why OUT is one of our core values and why we multiply city groups to saturate neighborhoods with bible believing, Jesus centered disciples, on mission filled with the love of God to live out the power of the Gospel to see lost people come to faith!

Application

This passage highlights two different fears that come up in us that sometimes keep up from sharing though.

More Powerful than your Past

First we see it in Nazareth. The gospel is more powerful than our past.

Our friends and family can often be the most difficult to share with because they know our past. For those of us that grew up in homes with family that don’t know Jesus, it can be so difficult to share the gospel with them. What’s awesome when we come to faith is that God gives us new desires, gives us new hearts and we love people real well. We serve them. And we start to hope that those closest to us will come to faith in Jesus because they see us change as a person.

But maybe if we’re honest, there’s a deeper fear underneath. Maybe you’ve thought, “How could I use my words to share the gospel with them when they know my past? They know the mistakes I’ve made. Why would they ever listen to me?” Or maybe you fear the sting of rejection—that if you opened your mouth about Jesus, they would turn away from you, or worse, from Him. And so instead of speaking, you settle for hoping your character is enough—that somehow the way you live will do all the talking for you.

But even when we look at what happened with Jesus we have to understand that the Son of God who had the best character reputation, his background and relational capital wasn’t enough to actually change the hearts of the people there.

Our character, our service, loving on them- those are things we can and should continue to do even when it’s difficult, but we must be filled with more love for them and their eternal soul MORE than our fear of their rejection and fear of our past. Because while we may have made mistakes, still struggle and lose it because we revert with family sometimes, we still speak and share Jesus with those closest to us because it’s not our character, it’s not convincing them of how different we are not, it’s not our action of loving them that is going to change them. They must know about how they are separated from God, lost in sin. The arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven has come through Jesus and we can enter and live in it through repentance because of the grace that Jesus has brought the kingdom near to us.

Remember that God has made you a new creation. Pray for them and for wisdom in conversations that you get to have with them, love them well, but while some may reject you, remember to remain faithful to Jesus and have confidence that he is using you to invite them to trust in him.

More Powerful than qualifications

Second we see here is the power of the gospel over our qualifications.

When Jesus sends out the 12 they could have been crippled by their fear of not knowing enough or not having all the answers or not being a professional christian. But what we see is them trust and believe what Jesus has told them.

Church, you have been chosen by God. He has anointed you, adopted you, redeemed you, and filled you with his Spirit and invited you to participate in the greatest gift giving experience you could ever participate in.

Illustration: Craig

When I had come to faith, I maybe had been following Jesus for like 5 months at this point there was a freshman, Craig, who would come around to Cru because his brother was coming and he had friends in the ministry but Craig was vocal and open that he wasn’t a Christian. For some reason, I just felt God challenge me to ask craig if he’d meet up weekly with me to read the bible and talk about the christian faith.

All I knew was average reading comprehension skills, love for Jesus, and prayer. I was the worst person to sit with this kid because week 1 of us hanging out we spent 2 hours talking about angles and demons and what that has to do with Jesus. I had no clue what I was doing, but I knew God wanted me to keep meeting with him.

So I bought a theology book, side note I had no clue what that meant back then it was just an honest guess that’s what had some answers, and we kept meeting. Craig still isn’t walking with Jesus, but i think of and pray for him often. While he rejected the message, he knew I loved him.

Church - Your skill, your fancy wording, your tact, your charisma or lack of it won’t be what changes lives. But in utter dependance on the Spirit of God and and faithfulness to share Christ with people, we can be reminded that some of the worst gospel illustrations and invitations have brought dead people to life and some of the cleverest, best communicators have had people reject the gospel and them because of hard hearts.

But the command to share good news, the gift of inviting people to eternal life, the dependance of God to give us boldness and love sustains us to continue to be faithful to Jesus even when we’re rejected by others.

Point 2: The Gospel is more powerful than the consequence (v. 14-29)

Explanation

We’re tossed to a completely random scene as King Herod begins to hear of Jesus. But as Herod and others are wondering about who this Jesus of Nazareth is, he suspects it’s John the Baptist who he murdered, raised from the dead.

We’re drawn in to a wicked memory of why Herod is terrified of John the Baptist. We come to the memory of John approaching King Herod with great boldness telling him to repent of his sin, as the king of the jews was supposed to live with honor, living out the highest example of character following the Torah.

But Herod who’s married to his brothers wife takes issue with John. Actually his wife, Herodias has the more wicked response wanting him dead. But Herod is unsure of what to do. He likes listening to John teach and talk about the kingdom of God. He knows John is a well respected prophet among the jewish people. Rather than kill him as his wife asks, he just keeps him in jail.

But in a weird, disgusting turn of events, Herodias schemes with her daughter to get Herod drunk and please him with a dance so that he would do anything for her. With success they seduce Herod and they ask for John the Baptist to be murdrered and have his head on a platter.

Argument

But how does this fit in? Why is this passage here right after Jesus sends out the 12? While Jesus calls himself a prophet, we’re brought to another prophet in John who also is proclaiming repentance at all cost, even to the point of his death. John’s faith and trust in God was so much so that it filled him with boldness to prepare the way for Jesus and called those in all the region to repent and turn to God because the lamb of God had come.

What we see and read here is John’s boldness and example in his life. John was ruthlessly in pursuit of people to repent of their sin and he did it to the point of costing his life.

Often our personal concern to not be bold with sharing the gospel can be because we’re afraid of the negative consequences that may follow it. But here we have this man who gave his life for preaching repentance, and I doubt that John regretted dying for that message, so that a king named Herod would turn away from his sin and trust in the King to come. Because the personal discomfort that lasted for a moment in time was worth seeing someone walk with God for eternity. And even if Herod never repented, I doubt John regrets being so bold, as he stands with his true King in paradise, knowing that he followed him to the very end.

The challenge that this passage gives is- do we believe that the life-changing truth of the gospel is worth losing our life for? Are we a people willing to rely on the Lord to the point that we are willing to leave with nothing - credentials, qualifications, even our life - to follow Christ and make His name known to others.

John shows us the example that, yes, it is worth losing our life for. But we also see a greater example, because the King that we serve was rejected. And His very rejection is the good news that we now preach- the good news that if it is accepted, will bring life!

Illustration

It makes me think of so many different stories of people in the room. But one more recently has been on of our college students. Logan came to faith just in the last year or so before stepping on Doane’s campus. He has a sister who got saved and would joyfully share her faith with her family and God was kind enough to open Logan’s eyes and save him. But the example Logan had in front of him was someone who ruthlessly shared the gospel with boldness and confidence regardless of the consequences.

So as Logan got to campus as a freshman and began to meet people, God used his Spirit to remind Logan of the example of his sister and a speech from the universities president asking each freshman what they want their legacy to be. Because of that Logan told himself he wanted his legacy at the end of his 4 years at Doane to not be about how many friends do I have, what athletic accolades to a fill up my resume with, how popular am i, do people like me. But a legacy that honors Jesus as moves to see every student he interacts with to hear about Jesus.

I know the story because as I was asking some other freshman how they heard about the college ministry multiple of them named Logan. The told me stories of how everyone he fearlessly shares the gospel with others and invites people to ministries.

College freshman usually step on campus wondering, how am I going to make friends? what club should I be a part of? How will I get the best grades? How can I be the best athlete? But putting all of these things second to actually potentially be rejected by hundreds, be labeled for the rest of your college carrer as the jesus guy, and be outcasted is nothing compared to the joy of seeing people come to know Jesus and their eternity transformed.

The reality is that the Gospel isn’t worth losing our job over- it is worth losing our entire life for.

Pray for boldness and open doors. When God grants them, take them.

Gospel Hook & Conclusion

V. 29 concludes the scene for us. While John has given his life, his disciples take his body to his tomb. They close the tomb and remember him as a man who gave his life proclaiming repentance of sin for the Kingdom of God has come, the lamb who takes away the sin of the world is here.

But even more so, that very lamb, Jesus himself, came teaching and preaching the repentance of sin, the Kingdom of God has come, performing miracles, living completely obedient to the Father living a life without sin, so that as those who opposed and rejected him and his teaching hated him so much that they nailed him to the cross, he gave his life for the gospel. But the good news is, his tomb is empty. His tomb is the one we proclaim. His glory, his honor, his love, his work is what gives us eternal life. And becasue of that, we respond being faithful to His call to share with the entire world even when we’re rejected.