Made for Mission: Bring Someone With You

A Few Opening Questions...

How many of you know the first and middle names of your grandparents? Great-grandparents?

How do you know their names?

Here’s the key to this line of questioning…and it is not to make you feel bad, but if you think about it, unless you have done a study of your genealogy, you are unlikely to know the first and middle names of your great-grandparents let alone their parents’ first names…which also means that each one of us here is only two generations away from being extinct and unknown. That’s a pretty stark fact but it is just that, a fact. Unless you are someone whose name is synonymous with psychology or someone in the public eye, your existence is not going to be noticed much beyond your grandchildren.

With that being said, that wraps up our time on speaking about mission over the last 5 weeks. If we do nothing more with what we have been talking about, this is where things come to a close…

The Good and Bad News...

That, my friends is the bad news…if we do nothing else, we will become extinct in probably two generations because no one will remember me much beyond my stepdaughter and her stepdaughter. Not unlike many in today’s society, I made a conscious decision not to carry my family name further. Unfortunately, that means that unless I do something spectacular, no one is going to remember my first or middle name either. And that is really bad news…because it would mean that I have not done something about advancing the mission of Christ in this world.

The flip side of this is the good news and there is some in today’s message…that good news is that God is calling us to change lives. Whether or not we ever know that we have done so does not matter as much as doing something, anything to make a difference in the world matters. And it does matter, trust me, it matters...

The Biblical Story for Today...

Today, we learn a teeny, tiny little bit about a man whose daughter has become extremely ill, to the point of death, ill. But before I get ahead of myself, let’s place ourselves in a timeline of sorts...

According to Mark’s Gospel, Jesus and his disciples have just crossed from the area of the Gerasenes back to the Nazareth area of the Galilee. Because of what he has been doing around the Sea (on the Gentile side as well as on the Jewish side), Jesus has garnered a lot of attention and large crowds press in on him.

First part...

For today, we hear of two healings that Jesus performs. In the first part of the story, Mark tells us about Jairus. Now, Jairus was a Jewish synagogue leader which was a big deal. To put his position in perspective, think of him in terms of someone who might sit on the town council or maybe even a small town mayor.

For Jesus, this person had a great deal of influence around the Sea of Galilee. To have this man come to Jesus for anything was a big deal and a huge opportunity for Jesus to show those who had that level of influence what was possible, if they would just follow him rather than the Roman government or the influences of Jesus’ time. This was actually an extraordinary thing to happen to Jesus and his disciples.

Mark 5:23 NIV

He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.”

Jairus, even though he should not have, believed that Jesus could do something to help him and his daughter. Because of this, he pleads with Jesus to help him.

Here’s the thing I think about at this point in the story…Jairus came to them to ask for their help and let me tell you, if the disciples lived today, they probably would have used Jairus’ influence to influence those in the Galilee. But yet, this was also an opportunity for them to be foolish to believe they could make a difference.

The Second Part...

The interesting thing about the way that Mark tells this story though, is that amid the influx and ebb and flow of people around Jesus at the time, Mark tells us that someone reaches out to just merely touch the hem of his robe to be healed.

Let’s put this in perspective…imagine yourself as someone who has been suffering through an illness for 12 long, hard years. No matter what doctor you see or what treatment that is tried, there just seems to be no relief from what afflicts you. No one seems to be able to provide help…except for this one man you heard about recently. So, you hear he is in the area and will be close by…you go out to see what the hype is all about and to try to just touch a part of him so that you can be healed.

The Final Part...

The third and final act of today’s story involves the healing of Jairus’ daughter and how Jairus responds as a result. Here’s the thing and before we get too far…we need to remember that the minute the woman with the bleeding disease touches Jesus, he realizes that someone touched him and was healed. He stops dead in his tracks and wants to know who it was that touched him. The minute he acknowledges the woman he says,

Mark 5:34 NIV

He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

He acknowledges this woman, recognizes that she has the faith to believe that she could be healed, and because she was, Jesus tells her to go in peace and be freed from your suffering...

Which leads us back to Jairus…I am sure that the disciple recognized that Jairus could influence many people and this little interlude with the woman had to make them anxious. I know I would have lost patience because someone had enough nerve to believe they could be healed by merely touching Jesus’ robe. I mean the audacity of someone to believe that Jesus could do something like that for them?!?!?!

Sounds pretty ridiculous when you think about it that way, doesn’t it? Yet, here’s the thing…don’t we do the same thing today? I mean don’t we want to use people’s influence to help us here from time to time? Don’t we rely on others to bring people in to be with us? Don’t we wait and wait for someone else to help us rather than helping ourselves?

Ok, enough of beating everyone up here…let’s get back to what our story holds for us as Christians in the 21st Century.

So, the disciples are probably quite anxious at this point because of needing to find the silly woman who touched Jesus and drained his power and in comes one of Jairus’ servants…and he/she has the worst news for Jairus...

Mark 5:35–36 NIV

While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?” Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

In response to the servant’s comment, Jesus tells them to have faith and not despair, but just believe. So, Jesus takes the parents, James, John, and Peter up to the room where the little girl was laid to rest and tells her to get up and walk. Which is just what she does.

Belief and Faith...

Belief and faith are both huge words when you think about it…you cannot have one without the other and they are so hard to share. Yet, these two stories, although they seem unrelated, are interconnected because they both speak of faith and trusting in what we believe to be true.

You know, I’ve read these two stories many times before but to be honest I think I missed the most influential part. While Jesus healing the bleeding woman and raising the pre teen from the dead were huge, I don’t think they were the most influential. Here it is…

Mark 5:40 NIV

But they laughed at him. After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was.

Why Peter? He had just questioned Jesus in public a minute and a half ago. Shouldn’t he by this point have learned to stop talking back to Jesus? Then Jesus brings him along to Jairus’ house and he laughs when Jesus remarks that the girl is sleeping.

God’s calling on your life is bigger than your lifetime. That’s not true automatically but if you join God in his mission it will be. So, how do I do that? That’s kind of been the whole point of this series but I want to end with one more huge truth.

Bring Someone With You...

As you go live the mission you were made for, don’t go alone. Bring someone along for the ride. This may be the single greatest leadership lesson we learn from the life of Jesus. You could make a strong case that Jesus is the greatest leader of all time. But, he never wrote any books; he never held a public office; he never went outside one small area of the world; and he was only on the public scene for a little over three years and then died at age 33. Yet, here we are 2,000 years later and there are over 2 billion people following him from all corners of the earth in hundreds of different languages. The movement he started is growing faster now worldwide than ever before. That’s some pretty good leadership.

Challenge...Bring someone with you. You know how many times it says Jesus took his disciples and they went somewhere? Me neither. I started counting through the Gospels and lost track because just about every time he went somewhere he intentionally brought people with him. There are examples when he got alone, but the evidence is abundantly clear that with incredible intentionality Jesus brought people with him. Listen to the last words of Jesus before he ascended into heaven...

Matthew 28:19–20 NIV

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

In the Greek the literal translation is “As you go” make disciples. Think about the different applications to this command. One is definitely that as you go through your life intentionally sharing Jesus with the people you meet and then disciple them in their faith. The other application I’ve never heard someone say but it’s obvious from watching Jesus’ life is don’t just disciple the people you meet along the way but also bring people along with you and disciple them while you go through your day to day responsibilities.

Jesus ends with promising that he will be with us always, to the very end of the age. If he’s truly in the driver’s seat of your life than it’s not so much you bringing him with you but instead he’s bringing you with him. What he did for the disciples 2000 years ago, Jesus still wants to do in our lives today. As he disciples us now He invites us to do the same with others. So let’s start bringing folks with us on our mission so that they can see how Jesus helps us and them along the way...

Prayer

Let us pray…God, when we go out on the mission to which you are calling us, guide our hearts, our minds, and our spirits to hear your voice and to listen so that we can bring others with us so that they too will get to know you as we have, Amen.