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Evening Fellowship Service
Alright, good evening. I hope you had a good afternoon today. It's a beautiful day today. I hope you're able to get some fresh air, get some vitamin
D from the sun, and just enjoy the afternoon. And had some restful time as well.
Let's begin tonight with number 392. 392 in our hymnals, who is on the
Lord's side? 392. Let's stand, shall we, as we sing?
Who is on the
Lord's side? Who will serve the King? Who will be
His other lives to bring? Who will leave the world's side?
Who will face the foe? Who is on the
Lord's side? Who for Him will go? By Thy call of mercy, by Thy grace divine,
We are on the Lord's side, Savior, we are
Thine. On the third, Jesus, Thou hast bought us, not with gold or gem,
But with Thine own lifeblood for Thy diadem.
With Thy blessing filling each who comes to Thee, Thou hast made us willing,
Thou hast made us free. By Thy grand redemption, by Thy grace divine,
Thine. And the last, fierce may be the conflict, strong may be the foe,
But the King's own army, none can outrun
His standard ranging, Victory is secure, for His truth unchanging makes
His triumph sure. Joyfully enlisting, by Thy grace divine,
We are on the Lord's side,
Savior, we are
Thine. It would be very patriotic.
Psalm 53. So the psalmist writes, this is a contemplation of David.
He says, The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt and have done abominable iniquity.
There is none who does good. God looks down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek
God. Every one of them is turned aside. They have together become corrupt. There is none who does good.
No, not one. Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread?
Do not call upon God. There they are in great fear, where no fear was, for God has scattered the bones of him who encamps against you.
You have put them to shame, because God has despised them. Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion, when
God brings back the captivity of his people, like Jacob rejoice, and Israel be glad.
Lord, I add his blessing to our reading of his word tonight. And let's turn. It's number 114 in our
Psalter. Number 114. This is the one
I was looking at that we didn't know. Okay, all right. So this morning's was good, but this one is like,
I don't think we know this one. So Kelly's going to play it for us. Got to learn some of these tunes from here, so we can sing these different psalms.
So let's hear it. Okay, seems simple enough.
Let's try it together. The fool has said. The fool has said within his heart there is no
God. They are corrupt. Their deeds are vile before the
Lord. For none is righteous. There's not one whose works are good.
From heaven upon the sons of men our God looks down to see if any people here see fear alone.
But there is none who has not strayed, not even one.
Will evil doers still persist and never learn?
God's people they devour like bread, immune, concerned.
They never call on God to him. They never turn.
On those who saw no cause to fear, God's terror came.
And since they persecuted us, he scattered them.
On everyone whom God despised came death and shame.
We long to see salvation come from Zion's king.
Our shattered fortunes to restore our freedom bring.
Let all God's people then rejoice and gladly sing.
Especially that last stanza, we can resonate with that today.
We long to see salvation come from Zion's king. All right, a few things to just mention for next
Sunday. Next Sunday, morning service, Sunday school, normal thing. In the afternoon, just to further clarify, the
Bellows, they bought a house, the closing is on Monday. And so they have a double closing
Monday. They're closing on their house at 1 o 'clock and the house they're buying at 2 o 'clock.
So the deal is they have to be completely out of their house by Sunday night.
Like the last thing they're going to put is a bed in the back of the truck on Monday morning. So we want to help them with that so they can be ready to go.
And then in the evening, we will either have a regular service like this or we will have a corn boil.
Somebody's offered to provide us with like a dozen ears of corn, like 150 ears of corn if it's available.
There's the caveat, right, if it's available. So we'll know that in a few days.
If it is available, then we'll have this corn boil. It'll be roughly around 5, 5 .30. And then have that meal together and have a brief service together.
So whether or not that actually happens, we'll let you know in the course of this week. But just kind of be planning on it for next
Sunday. And then the following weekend, Labor Day weekend, they have got that camping thing at the
Hemmons and all that's in your bulletin, so I don't need to elaborate on that. I wonder if anybody has any word of testimony.
A couple of things I could mention. One is we praise the Lord. Kent was released from the hospital today.
So I got a text from Lori middle of the afternoon, said she was on her way to pick him up.
How did she put it? To spring her husband. Yes, to spring her husband.
So that's an answer to prayer. We weren't even sure this morning when he was going to get out. He got out today.
And I want to pray for Priscilla. She sent me a text this afternoon and said her puppy, dog, that has been sick for a while has died.
That's a sad thing. Your pet has been a part of your family for a number of years.
And so pray for Priscilla and her family. And I guess Tom had to fulfill the role of undertaker today.
So bless his heart. All right. Any testimonies tonight to share?
What the Lord has been doing in your life this week? Yes, Dave.
Yeah. Amen. Yeah.
Very unusual. So thank the Lord for that provision. It's wonderful. It's great.
Somebody else? Yes. Taking care of them in what sense?
Yeah. You heard that thing about chickens running around with their heads cut off. Yeah. Okay. Right.
Yeah. Amen. And the Lord has provided you with many meals to come. No doubt.
Okay. Good. Good. Somebody else? Yes, Carol. Okay. Okay.
Let's pray for Carol in that potential direction. So if you didn't catch that, she's looking to get a
CDL license through SOC, Truck Driver Training School, they would call it.
I get it. Right. Light -duty trucks.
Gotcha. All right. Anybody else? Yes, Priscilla.
It's wonderful how the Psalms are so valuable to us in any circumstance of life, times of great joy, times of sorrow.
Let's take a moment and pray together, shall we? Father, we do pray tonight for people who are in need.
We think of Sue Cherry and ask for your sustaining grace in her life. Thank you and praise you for answers to prayer related to Kent, that he is on his way, if not home already.
I pray for continued strengthening to his body. I pray for Priscilla and her family as they grieve this one that's been a part of their home for quite some time.
I pray that you would give them a measure of comfort in this vacuum that's left in the house.
Father, we would also pray for Carolyn, that you give her direction and that your will would be accomplished regarding this pursuit of a
CDL license. We just pray for clear understanding in that regard.
Father, we continue to pray for Jody and ask for effective therapy this week as her time at the rehab facility winds down here in the next week and a half.
I just pray it would be greatly effective and much would be accomplished in these last few days.
So, Lord, we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's turn to 368 for our message tonight.
368 is a song. We haven't sung this song in a long, long time. The song is
A Tender Heart. It goes well with the theme of discipleship, which is the theme of our text this evening.
But 368, let's sing it together. Take me now,
Lord Jesus, take me. I would give my heart to thee.
Thy devoted servant make me only thine to be.
Savior, while my heart is tender, I would give thee every part.
All my talents I surrender. I am thine,
Lord. Here's my heart. Use me now,
Lord Jesus, use me as I tell of Calvary.
May thy spirit move within me, bringing souls to thee.
Lord. Here's my heart. Send me now,
Lord Jesus, send me in thy perfect way.
Thy command shall always guide me. Gladly I obey.
Lord. All right, very good. Let's turn in our Bibles to Mark chapter 3. Mark 3, and I want to read verses 13 through 21.
Mark chapter 3, follow along. Let's begin reading in verse 13. It says,
In Jesus, he, Jesus, went up on a mountain and called to him those who he himself wanted.
And they came to him. Then he appointed 12 that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons.
Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, the brother of James, to whom he gave the name
Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, the son of Alphaeus, Thaddeus, Simon the
Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. And they went into a house.
Then the multitude came together again so that they could not so much as eat bread. But when his own people heard about this, they went out to lay hold of him, for they said,
He is out of his mind. Let's have a brief prayer. Father, challenge us tonight with the challenge of discipleship, even as you challenge these disciples whom you called to eventually be apostles.
We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Have you noticed how many advertisements there are for online education these days, continuing education?
And it's prolific. Anybody, just about anybody that wants to, can sign up online, take some courses, and eventually get a degree.
There's Phoenix University, I think, and then there's Southern New Hampshire University is another one.
But they're just a couple that you see advertisements on TV. But they're all over the place, all kinds of different things.
And people are doing it. People are doing it. I think perhaps the COVID lockdown has spurred continuing education pursuits in a greater way than before that.
But it was already big business before COVID hit.
Why do people do that? Why do they do that? Well, the obvious answer is they want to get further education.
But for what reason? They want to get further education perhaps to enhance their career, maybe make extra money, maybe to do a different kind of career, go in a different direction with their life.
But they're willing to go through great effort and great difficulty just in order to get that education, that diploma at the end of the process.
So they'll do their regular job. They'll work maybe their 40 or 50 hours a week and get home, or if they're already at home, working from home, shut that work off and then have a bite to eat and fire the thing back up again and listen to lectures for the next two and a half hours or whatever, day in and day out.
A lot of effort, a lot of commitment is required for that kind of pursuit.
And I thought about that in relationship to discipleship. I mean, a disciple is a learner.
We're called to be disciples. We're called to be learners. What if God's people were willing to put themselves through some measure of difficulty to be learners of Jesus, to be disciples, the disciples that Jesus wants us to be?
So Jesus calls us to be his disciples, but are we willing, really, are we willing to accept the challenges that accompany that discipleship?
So here in our text tonight, in Mark 3, we discover that being a disciple of Jesus is not a passive thing.
It's not something we just sit back and all of a sudden discipleship is going to happen and we are going to be the disciples that Jesus wants us to be.
It's an active challenge, discipleship is, and it's an active challenge because it's individualized.
There's an individualized aspect to discipleship where Jesus takes us from where we are and what we are to what he wants us to be, and there's no pat formula for that.
So he takes us in this process of discipleship regardless of our background, regardless of our background.
So you've got this list of the men who became apostles, these 12 disciples whom he called to himself, and think about the backgrounds of these men and what we know about them.
Some we don't really know anything about them, but some we do. Some were fishermen. One was a tax collector.
Certainly some of them were richer than others. Matthew probably had some measure of wealth as a tax collector.
Some were poor. Peter, Andrew, James, John, they probably just had a subsistence existence, some kind of a fishing trade, but certainly they didn't have multiple fleets operating on the
Sea of Galilee bringing in a great wealth of income for them. Some were city dwellers, others rural villagers.
Some had a measure of education. Most were uneducated, and the point is it doesn't matter.
That background doesn't matter. If we're called to be disciples, then we're called to grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ.
We're called to follow Jesus. We're called to become the disciples that he wants us to be, and that background doesn't matter.
I think I mentioned this morning in the morning message this pastor from Virginia in the 1750s,
Samuel Davies. Now that was before the Revolutionary War, and Virginia was a slave state.
It was a slave state 100 years later. Slavery was a common thing in Virginia at the time, and most of the slaveholders, they really didn't care much at all about the spiritual welfare of their slaves.
They looked at them as simply workers, commodities to get things done, but Samuel Davies saw something else.
He saw them as human beings, human beings who could understand the gospel, who could receive
Christ, and he labored among the plantations and the slaveholders and their slaves to win them to Christ, train them in the things of the
Lord, and he did this while at the same time pastoring a church that was largely made up of a mix of other kinds of people, non -slaves.
Some of the people in his congregation were slaveholders, and they were the ones who accommodated him mostly in his efforts, but he reached even beyond that.
The point is that Davies understood this simple truth of the challenge of discipleship, and that is discipleship is for any follower of Jesus, regardless of our background and whatever our abilities might happen to be.
I think here in this list of Peter, Simon, whom he gave the name
Peter, and here was the man who was obviously, as time will tell throughout the course of the
Gospels and on into the book of Acts, who was a natural leader, seems to be a natural leader.
He's the one who became the spokesman for the rest of the disciples apparently, and that was just his ability, natural ability.
But then there's Andrew. Andrew was more of an effective one -on -one kind of persuader.
It was Andrew who came and got his brother and brought him to Jesus, and we read other places where Andrew was effective in that as well.
He wasn't the dynamo like Peter was, but he was effective at what he did nevertheless, effective persuader.
Matthew, as a tax collector, would have been a detail -oriented accountant. He had to keep meticulous records because, after all, the
Roman government was looking over his shoulder the entire time. The point is that these different individuals who were disciples of Jesus not only had different backgrounds, but they had different abilities.
Some Christians seem to have the idea that, well, I'm not really the leader type, so I'm really more of one who can just kind of be around and I don't really need to do much.
I'm not much of a good disciple. No, it doesn't matter what your abilities are.
Jesus calls us to be his disciples and accept that challenge. And that challenge of changing and growing as disciples of Christ is there for us regardless of our personality, whatever your personality might happen to be.
Again, think of Peter. Peter, the impetuous guy, the foot -in -his -mouth guy. He had one kind of personality.
Then there was James and John, and we read in here that Jesus gave them a different name. Just like he gave
Simon the name Peter, he gave James and John, the sons of Zebedee, the name
Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder. We have another occasion in the gospel record where they flew off the handle and that name was most fitting.
That seems to indicate that they had a little bit of a temper that could get out of control, different personality, different personality from Andrew.
Andrew, the effective persuader, seems to be a bit more compassionate, had a more,
I don't want to say softer side like he was, you know, not a man's man, but just more of a compassion as opposed to maybe
James and John. Philip is an interesting character. John chapter 6 gives us the insight that Philip, in John 6 verse 7,
Philip was a man who seemed to have a more pessimistic spirit.
Jesus is in the feeding of the 5 ,000. Jesus says that he wants to feed them and he saw this great multitude coming to him and he said to Philip, where are we going to buy bread that these people may eat?
And he said this, Jesus said this to test him. What's his response going to be? Is his response going to be, well,
Lord, you can do anything. I mean, you've healed people, I've watched you heal people. I mean, you can take care of this problem.
Is that what he's going to do? No, that's not what he does. Instead, Philip answered and said, 200 denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them that every one of them may have a little.
I mean, this is an impossible situation. This may be a totally inappropriate aside, but it kind of reminds me of the little interview that our illustrious president had with George Stephanopoulos the other day.
And Stephanopoulos said, couldn't something have been done a little differently so that we wouldn't have had this chaos?
And he was like, well, we've got to expect chaos. I don't know what else you could expect. I mean, this is the only thing we could expect from this.
I mean, that's the most pessimistic thing I've ever heard from a president ever in my life. But this is
Philip, the pessimist. And then there's Matthew. Matthew, I think, has a very trusting attitude and personality about him.
Jesus walks by the tax booth where Matthew is, and he says, hey, come follow me. And he just walks away from everything.
Thomas, on the other hand, is quite the doubter, quite the doubter. He too has sort of a melancholy, pessimistic spirit about him, doesn't he?
And John 11, when the raising of Lazarus, Lazarus is sick, and Jesus says, let's go there.
And Thomas is well aware that they want to kill Jesus where Lazarus is.
So he says, well, Jesus, our lives are in danger. Does he want to go? He says, yes, we need to go.
We're going to go. All right, he says, let's all go so we can go die with him. And Thomas, lest I see the print of the nails in his hands and so forth.
Thomas, the doubter. There are three disciples here where we really don't know anything about them. Bartholomew, James, the son of Alphaeus, Thaddeus.
What are their personalities? We don't know. They're very obscure. Does that indicate something about them?
Does that indicate that they might be more of an introverted kind of individual?
We don't know. Can't say. But that's OK. They're different. They're the obscure ones.
And then there's Simon the Canaanite. He's also called Simon Zelote, Simon the
Zealot. So he was a man who was a part of that group of zealots.
It was like a resistance group against the Romans who, you know, they tried to sabotage things.
They were like the guerrilla warriors of the Jews at the time. He was a member of that zealot group,
Simon was. What does that tell you about his personality? He was a fighter.
He was one who was committed, a very loyal guy, Simon the
Canaanite. And then, of course, is Judas Iscariot. What can you say of his personality?
One thing you could say is he was a pretty good hypocrite. He was pretty good at pulling the wool over people's eyes and covering what he was really like.
Now, what's the point of all that? The point of that is to help us see that these individuals are all different, even in their personalities, not only their background and their abilities, but their very personality.
And I say that. I want to emphasize that because we can tend to think that, well, you know,
I'm shy or I'm outgoing and I could make a better disciple or I can't be a very good disciple because I have a temper or I'm a very emotional person or, you know,
I'm a melancholy. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
You're a follower of Jesus. He calls you to learn of him, to learn of him.
And so what we could say in summary regarding this challenge of discipleship is that Jesus wants to take you from where you are and who you are to what he wants you to be.
Secondly, let's notice that discipleship is a challenge because it is often opposed.
It's often opposed. So this opposition is indicated in verse 19.
It's not elaborated on until later in the gospel, but simply stating that Judas Iscariot betrayed him, betrayed him.
Right now, as Jesus calls these disciples unto himself and he wants to mold them and shape them and train them for the next couple of years, the opposition that is going to come from this
Judas lies hidden, but eventually it will surface.
Right now, it lies hidden. I think of a couple, this is several years ago, it wasn't here, but I think of a couple that started coming to church where we were serving and the wife professed to be a believer.
However, her husband did not. She wanted her husband to come to church. She wanted him to get religion, if you will, you know what
I'm saying, because she wanted him to change. She wanted him to change. What wife doesn't want her husband to change, right?
My wife raised her hand. She said, I don't. Oh, good. That's good. Yeah, right. At least she doesn't make a big deal out of it, that's for sure.
Thank you, dear. But this wife wanted her husband to change. She wanted him to get saved. She was concerned about his soul.
Well, they came to church and they came for several weeks and the husband eventually trusted
Christ and he got it good, if you will. I mean, the Lord really converted him and changed him.
And that change was evident not only in his demeanor, but it was also evident in the home.
And now he wasn't content to just go to church on Sunday morning just for the
Sunday morning service. He wanted to get up and get to Sunday school. He wanted to get to the evening service.
He wanted to get to the midweek service. He wanted to learn all he could. The wife wasn't quite so eager for all that commitment.
I mean, that was a little bit too much. And so she's the one who put the damper on him.
You see, the opposition that was coming to his discipleship, it was hidden for a while, for a while.
And this opposition that will eventually surface, the opponent may appear to be one of us.
Judas, one of the 12, may appear to be one of us. I think of another previous history experience here.
First pastorate. We had a week of special meetings in this church, and it definitely needed it.
There were some deep problems there. But the Lord was doing some wonderful things in the lives of people. There were quite a few young couples, young families, that started coming to the church, and God was really working in their lives.
For example, there was one guy who was a really rough motorcycle kind of a guy.
You know what I'm saying? And the Lord got a hold of his heart, and he made a 180 turn in his life.
And it was one of these things where it was a week -long meeting. It was like building.
The impact was building every night. It's the only time in 40 years of ministry where we've seen that kind of effect in those kinds of meetings.
And so I talked to the guy who was speaking that week, and I said, you know, are you available to stay even through Sunday?
He said, yeah, I could do that. So I think it was on Thursday night, I announced to the congregation,
I said, Brother Broom, the speaker, has agreed to stay through Sunday and preach on Sunday again.
Well, you know, there were some people who were excited about that. Most people were, except for this one deacon.
I've told you about him before, but except for this one deacon, he just got really ticked. He got really ticked that, you know, he wasn't asked permission for this to happen, for this guy to stay longer.
He was ticked because of what was happening with people in the church. They were changing, and he was feeling threatened by this.
Too much change in people's lives going on. And I thought he was one of us, this guy.
Well, and this Judas Iscariot, this opposition that eventually shows itself, that opposition may attempt great harm.
Not simply satisfied to decide, you know what, this isn't for me, and just move on.
That'd be one thing. That'd be bad enough. But to stay and cause as much trouble as possible, trying to sabotage.
This is Judas. This is Judas. One of us. One of them. And yet, he can't just say, you know,
I just don't buy into his program anymore. I'm out of here. And leave. No.
He's got to betray him. Got to get something out of him. The 30 pieces of silver. So opposition will eventually surface, as it does with Judas Iscariot.
But sometimes opposition just merely misunderstands.
As in verse 21. And in verse 21 it says, his own people, that's the relatives of Jesus, they heard about the fact that Jesus and his disciples were so crowded by a multitude that they didn't have time or opportunity to eat bread.
And so they concluded, he's out of his mind. He's out of his mind. So the zeal of Jesus is misunderstood.
Like, he's some kind of, not that they would have said this, but the modern way of thinking is, our loved one, our relative who's become a
Christian, he's become like a mentally unbalanced religious fanatic because of his zeal to change his life like this.
This is just crazy. How about the condescending attitude that many have nowadays toward Christians with convictions regarding something like baking a cake.
They won't bake a cake for a gay marriage, or they won't be a photographer for a same -sex marriage, or something of that nature.
They cannot understand the zeal. They don't get it.
And so there is opposition. The zeal is misunderstood. The commitment itself is misunderstood.
They're looking at Jesus, at what he's doing, where he used to have this really kind of serene life as a carpenter's apprentice and then a carpenter by trade.
Really kind of a serene life, working this trade, and working with his hands, working in Nazareth, just no big problem in life, no big complication in life.
But now look at what he's done. He's committed himself to this itinerant kind of work where he doesn't even have a place to lay his head at night that he can call home.
He goes into a place and he doesn't even have the opportunity to eat. He's out of his mind. He doesn't understand that kind of commitment.
And the priorities are misunderstood. He couldn't so much as eat bread.
It's not that he couldn't. He could have sent everybody away. He could have said, no,
I'm not going to do this. Why didn't he? Because he had other priorities. Remember what
Jesus said to his disciples in John 4, in the encounter with the
Samaritan woman, the woman at the well. The disciples, they come back from the town with food, and Jesus isn't interested in that.
He said, well, did somebody give you something to eat? He says, no, I have meat to eat.
I have food to eat that you just don't get. In other words, I have a priority here that is greater than having supper tonight.
It is dealing with this multitude that's coming out, this harvest that's about to arrive.
Well, in verse 21, this opposition, they came out to lay hold of him. The opposition for a disciple that wants to follow
Jesus. It can challenge your discipleship because that opposition may forcibly want to withstand you, somehow seeking to restrain you.
It hasn't happened very often in my years of ministry, but I have seen it a couple of times, where a home is religiously mixed.
The husband isn't saved, the wife is a believer, and they have kids. The wife wants to come to church and bring the kids to church.
But the husband doesn't want them to go. Doesn't want them to go.
Sometimes they'll let them go on Sunday morning. Okay, you can take the kids to Sunday school, but then bring them home. That kind of a thing.
This is the kind of opposition I'm talking about, restraining, trying to restrain the growth and the discipleship.
Some may simply try to stop the advance altogether and redirect your attention away from Christ.
I think of Chris's testimony and her family. Grew up in a nominally
Roman Catholic family. Italian, half Italian, half
Polish home. Committed Catholics on both sides. Her parents' family, they were nominally
Catholic. They'd go, you know, the Christmas and Easter thing, and you went to catechism, I think, some, and would go to confessional every once in a while.
But her whole immediate family, her mother, her father, her brother, and she all came to Christ right around the same time.
Chris was in sixth grade. And her parents became very zealous about making sure that their relatives, all their relatives, their
Catholic family, knew about Christ and how to be saved by faith alone, in Christ alone.
And the hostility was palpable. They were told they're going to hell because they've left the church, that is, the
Holy Roman Catholic Church. If they could have, they would have completely restrained them from going any further in discipleship.
Discipleship is challenging because of potential opposition. And then thirdly, notice discipleship is challenging because it is demanding.
It's demanding. Jesus here issues a demanding call to the disciples in verse 13.
He went up on a mountain and he called to him those he himself wanted. This is a demanding call because it is an exclusive call.
It's a call exclusively to him. If you're going to be a disciple, a follower of Jesus, the call to discipleship is an exclusive call.
You cannot say, oh, yeah, you know, I want to hear what Jesus has to say and I want to learn what he has to say, but I'm also wanting to hear what the
Brahmins have to say, and I want to hear what the Mohammedans have to say, and I want to hear what, no, this is an exclusive call.
You will learn all that you need to learn for your spiritual growth and development from Christ, from him, from following him and him alone.
He calls you to himself. Jesus himself said no man can serve two masters.
It's Christ or no one or somebody else. It's not both. Christ alone.
And it's a divine call. This is a call that has come from God himself to you.
Think on that. Jesus called to him those he himself wanted.
This involves his prerogative. This is the prerogative of God to graciously call you.
Don't take that lightly. It's a demanding call. And it calls for a demanding response.
The end of verse 13 says, and they came to him. A demanding response, a response of obedience, of obedience, doing as they were told.
He called them to him. They came to him. It demands a response of following Christ.
They went to him. They went to him to follow him, to learn of him.
But this call also, this call to discipleship also demands a letting go.
To come to Christ, to follow Christ as they did means something was left behind.
He called them up to the mountain to himself to be with him and to go with him wherever he went, which meant they had to leave some things behind.
Again, again now. Remember, Peter, Andrew, James, John, they already left behind family.
They left behind the fishing boats. Matthew left behind the tax office. Now he's calling them to leave behind even more.
And I think of what Peter said in Mark 10, verse 28.
Mark 10, 28, where Jesus was talking about the rich young ruler and how he would not give up everything to follow
Jesus. And Jesus said he needed to do so in order to be a follower of him.
And then Peter said in verse 28, he began to say to Jesus, see, we have left everything.
We have left everything and followed you. Left it all. Yes, discipleship is challenging because it's demanding.
It demands a response of letting go. And it's also a call to a demanding task.
A demanding task in verses 14 and 15. And this demanding task is rooted, it's founded upon, the foundation of this task is fellowship with Jesus.
Fellowship with him. Notice it says that he appointed the 12 that they might be with him.
Everything else that they're going to do is founded upon this being with him, this fellowship with him.
This is always foundational in discipleship. Remember what Jesus said in John 15, verse 5.
I am the brine, you're the branches. You can't do anything apart from me. Abide in me.
And let my words abide in you. You must fellowship with Christ.
The demanding task also involves proclamation of Christ in some way or another.
This says that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach, to herald the message of the gospel.
Not everybody is called to preach, but every disciple is called to be some kind of a witness to Christ.
And that can depend upon who you are and how you go about the doing of it.
It can vary with individuals and their gifts and their talents and their personalities and all the rest of that.
You don't see the same kind of witness going on among all of the different disciples.
But all are called to proclaim Christ in some way.
And all are called to serve others in the name of Christ, as verse 15 says. He wanted them to go and not only preach
Christ, but to have power to heal sicknesses and cast out demons. Serving others in Christ's name.
Now those are a couple of very specific ways. But other disciples throughout church history and even to our day, they serve others in other ways.
The point is that discipleship involves the task of serving others in the name of Christ.
I want you to notice this. Without the fellowship, remember I said that fellowship with Christ is foundational.
Without the fellowship, ministry, quote unquote, is just humanitarianism.
It's just doing good things for people and that's a good thing.
But that's the end of it. It's just humanitarianism. But without ministry, you see, without that serving others in Christ's name, without ministry, then fellowship just really ends up becoming a sort of spiritual self -pampering, if you will.
I just want to spend all my time with Jesus. And whether or not
I serve anybody else, that's neither here nor there in Christ's name. No. We're called to a demanding task.
And this calls also for a demanding sacrifice. This call to discipleship is demanding, calls for demanding sacrifice, as verse 20 indicates.
It allowed the multitude to come and to so crowd
Jesus and the disciples they didn't even have an opportunity to eat. This isn't the only time this has happened.
Back in verses 7 and 8, it says, Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea and a great multitude from Galilee followed him and from Judea and Jerusalem, Edomaea, beyond the
Jordan, those from Tyre, Sidon, a great multitude. When they heard how many things he was doing, they came to him, this great multitude.
They came to him, quote unquote, interrupting his agenda, if you will, and he ministered to them.
Sometimes in our following of Christ and our discipleship, sometimes what we want gets shelved.
And we shelve it gladly. We shelve it gladly because sometimes serving others takes precedence over what we want.
Remember the little chorus you sang when you were a little kid in children's church or Sunday school, maybe, if you were a kid in Sunday school and church?
That little chorus, Jesus and others and you, what a wonderful way to spell joy. It's been too many years since I sung the whole thing, but I don't get it.
I don't remember it all. But J is for Jesus, for he has first place.
O is for others, you see face to face. Y is for you. So whatever you do, put yourself last and spell joy.
And what's that little chorus communicating to boys and girls in Sunday school and children's church?
It's communicating this very idea that following Christ, being a disciple of Christ, demands some sacrifice.
Sometimes you have to put yourself aside and what you want, what your ambitions and what your desire so that you might serve others and it takes precedence.
It's kind of like what we might do next Sunday afternoon, you know? You might have something else you'd rather do than put boxes in the back of a truck to help out a family in need, but we'll do that.
We'll do that. Well, if you're a Christian, if you're a
Christian, you're a disciple. It's a call that just goes with the territory.
The question is, are you actively endeavoring to live out that discipleship, submitting to the changes in your life that Christ seeks to make, facing whatever opposition that being a disciple brings your way, facing it with courage and commitment to obey, and even yielding your self -interest that you might serve
Christ by serving others. Call to be disciples and accept the challenge.
Our Father in heaven, I pray that we would, as your people, be faithful to follow our
Savior. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. And there's a blessing in the back there.
Good to see Kent and Lori walked in here and got the last ten minutes, so good to see you. God bless you.
387, 387 in our hymnal. We'll close with a song, I will follow, I will follow the
Lord Jesus wherever the pathway may go. Let's stand together as we sing, shall we? I will follow thee, my
Savior, where 'er the pathway may go.
Through the storm or through the valley or through great trials so low.
I rest in thee, trust in thee,
I place my life in thy hands.
I will follow thee, my Savior, lead on, my shepherd, lead on.
All right, we'll follow the shepherd this week as you go about whatever your calling is in everyday life and realize that whatever that calling is, is also overlaid by the calling to be a disciple.
A reminder to the finance committee, we have a meeting this evening, so we'll get to that shortly.
Our Father and our God, dismiss us now with your blessing, and I pray as we go from this place and we go to our homes and our workplaces, wherever you would lead us in the course of this week, we would be following our shepherd who has called us to be his disciples.