"Called, Desired, Sent" - Mark 3:7-19

I got a Bible. We're in the book of Mark, being Mark chapter three today.

When I was in Dallas in college, some of y'all know I had, I kind of lucked

into this job working for the Mavericks and the Rangers and doing like advertising

stuff. We found it on Craigslist.

This was back when Craigslist wasn't just for murderers, I guess.

But literally my friend found this job. This guy flew down from Chicago,

met me and him and was like, yeah, these seem like trustworthy people.

And it was fun because we were there during 2011 when they won the NBA championship,

The greatest championship run of all time.

Thank you, Dirk Nowinski It's like when somebody asks you who's the greatest player of all time.

It's Dirk Nowinski I don't really care what else you say. Like there's just an asterisk.

That's my guy But on that team There was a guy named brian cardinal,

We got one. One person knows the world champion Brian Cardinal.

So Brian Cardinal's nickname was the custodian.

And he was my favorite player, namely because before the games,

this is like three or four hours for the games.

Part of our job was we would go down on the court and work on our little machine.

So we did like, if you look at a scorer's table, they used to just be banners, not LED screens.

That makes me sound old. Back in my day, we had banners, not TVs.

But they were banners and that's what we worked on and Brian

Cardinal because he was literally like the last player

off the bench he never played was out there like

three or four hours for the game and he would come up and

he would actually talk to us nobody else talked to

us and that's fair like I was wearing hoodies and

a basketball shirt I was a chubby white like they're looking at me like this is of

no consequence but Brian Cardinal knew why not

chat it up I'm not really going to play that much anyway he did get in

he did make some threes but it was always interesting to

me that as the season went on as the

obviously the Mavericks were pretty good and they ended up winning like Brian

Cardinal kind of became a local hero like if you were to ask someone from Baltimore

or somebody from Detroit or somebody from New York like who who on the Mavericks

you know oh you know Brian Cardinal they're like who's Brian Cardinal right

I know Dirk Nowinski I know Jason Kidd. I know Jason Terry.

I know these guys, but who's Brian Cardinal?

Well, but if you go to Dallas, even today, if you find a Mavis fan,

you're like, Hey, what do you know about Brian Cardinal? And you're like, Oh, sit down.

Brian Cardinal's the man, right? Like he was a, again, like a local hero.

And it would be funny. Like there were times where you would see stories on

the news about Brian Cardinal being at Walgreens, like signing autographs.

You're like, how does that happen? It's like, he was just in Walgreens and a

bunch of people started lining up and he signed all these autographs.

Now, a Brian Cardinal autograph is probably worth $2. I don't know. But.

He may not have been known everywhere yet, but in Dallas, Brian Cardinal was the man. He was the guy.

And everywhere he went, he had a following, a little bit of a cult following.

And much in the same way, Jesus at this point in his life is not known everywhere.

The world does not know who Jesus is.

But in his own little pocket of the world, he is a superstar.

Right? Everybody wants to get near Jesus.

Everybody wants to be near him. I think that's important to note because like

local celebrities are, he can't go anywhere.

He can't do anything without people being on top of him, trying to touch him,

trying to reach out and grab him, trying to go where he's at,

trying to find out where he's at.

And then when he finally sneaks away, he has mobs of people constantly searching

for him, carrying sick people in their arms, looking for Jesus.

Man, we just got to find this guy. If we could just touch him.

And I particularly found this, we'll say, soothing for my soul this week,

especially last night as everybody goes to bed.

And I spend the last couple hours Saturday before I go to bed praying and kind

of going over my notes and reading over the scriptures.

And it was just one of those weeks where nothing felt like it was right.

You know, like everything was just a tick off.

Nothing particularly bad happened, right? Nothing catastrophic happened.

But every time I tried to do something, it was like, why is that?

Why is my timing a little off?

Or, you know, I was going to do this at this time, but now I can't because this

came up and now I got to move this.

And, you know, even this morning, it was weird, like Karis going to Greece.

And so we're trying to figure out like what's going on. It was a weird Sunday morning.

I don't know. Everything just kind of felt a little off. Again,

even this morning in here, it's like there's a lot of people that aren't here that are usually here.

There's a lot of things that happen that usually didn't happen.

There's a lot of conversations I usually have that I just didn't have because

they're not here and it feels weird.

And as I was, again, praying last night and thinking through things and reading

this passage again, it was a pleasant reminder in some ways to realize that was Jesus's whole life.

Jesus's whole life was dictated to him in a way. Now, obviously he's God.

He goes where he wants to go.

Ultimately, he is going to accomplish what he came to accomplish.

But as a man, Jesus's life is not filled with calm days.

It's not filled with just kind of walking around and sitting under a tree and

people are coming and crowding in real nicely.

And they're just row after row. They're kind of just sitting there.

We want to hear from this great teacher.

Right? They're lining up in a single file line to get the sick healed.

No, there was absolute complete pandemonium, chaos around Jesus's life at all times.

And I took some solace in that this morning because I'm like,

you know, number one, I need to kind of get over myself.

You know, I grew up going to church and church has a certain rhythm to it.

And it would be funny, you know, if I went to youth group and something was

different, like we did four songs instead of three or three songs instead of

four, or depending on your youth group, eight songs instead of 13.

I don't know, wherever you went, however y'all want to do that, right?

Maybe the altar call was only three minutes long and not 30 minutes long,

but like anytime we have something that changes in our life,

it's amazing how much internal upheaval that can cause you.

How much that can take your mind off and your heart off what God has called

you to do, where God has called you to go, how God has called you to live.

And we will think it away in terms of, well, I'm just having an off day.

I'm just having an off moment. And that's true, right? We're all sinners. We all have off days.

But I did find it interesting that like, man, I'm so easily put off kilter, right?

If the schedule doesn't go my way, if it just doesn't feel right,

like it's hard for me to focus and it's hard for me to get my mind where it

needs to be. And I think we can find some solace in the way that Jesus handled that.

The way that Jesus handled a life that was full of that every single day.

Obviously, none of us understand the weight that he carried.

None of us are the celebrity that he was. But we all know what it's like to

have life go a little awry, for things not to go our way.

So with that in mind, let me read this first passage here. This is Mark 3.

We're starting in verse 7.

Let's go ahead and read to 12. because really this is just setting the stage.

So he's healed the man with a withered hand. Remember the last verse that we

read last week is the Pharisees held council with the Herodians.

Just a reminder, the Herodians, because it's not a group you hear about a lot,

were Jews, but they were Jews that were loyal to Herod, right?

So they were really kind of another level of tax collector.

Other Jews did not like the Herodians because the Jews hated the Romans and

the Herodians were Jews who loved the Romans.

And so the Pharisees have now entwined themselves with this political group

because it's advantageous for them to kill Jesus.

And so it says in verse seven, Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea

and a great crowd followed him from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Edomia

and from beyond the Jordan.

So again, this is like Dallas and the surrounding areas. Think of it that way.

And they're coming from everywhere.

They're coming from Rockwall. They're coming from Prosper. They're coming from Arlington.

They're coming from everywhere. God forbid they come from Grand Prairie, right?

Dallas, Joe. They're coming from all these different places.

He says, when the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him

and he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him.

So again, the picture is not a calm one. It's not like, again,

Jesus is some guru walking around with these calm crowds, preaching to these stadiums.

He's not going to preaching conferences. There's no security.

All he's got is these disciples that he's picked, and they're probably not security.

When I think of a fisherman, I don't think of, that guy can probably throw hands.

Now, he can throw hands, but not against a massive crowd.

So much so that Jesus is like, hey, park the car outside, keep the engine running,

and the passenger door open.

Right? Because as they push in on me, if I got to get out of here, I need to have a getaway.

And so they literally got a boat out in the sea and they've just got the trolling motor on.

And as Jesus is preaching and he's walking along the beach, they're just going with him.

Because at any moment, this crowd may try and crush him and he's going to have

to jump into this boat to save his own life. That's the picture that we get.

Now, in some respects, we would think, well, man, isn't this what Jesus wanted?

He's got the crowd. He's got what he came for.

Doesn't Jesus want all these people around? Doesn't he want to heal all these

people? Doesn't he want to preach to all these people?

But that's not really the picture that Mark paints. It's not really the picture

that Gospels paint at this point.

Verse 10 gives us a clue as to the reason that there's a problem with this crowd.

It says that he healed many and they wanted to touch him.

That he healed many and they wanted to touch him. So the issue is simply this.

They can care less about who Jesus is, about what he's come to preach to them, about his message.

They care about one thing. What can you do for me?

What can you do for me? I'm sick. I'm tired. My family is sick, right?

I want to kind of poke the religious bear here.

Like, I don't really like the Pharisees. They were mean to my dad one time and

you seem to be on their bad side. So I want to come hear what you got to say.

We're all a little guilty of this. If you have a favorite pastor or you have

a favorite teacher online or whoever it is, right, they come up with a new book

or they have a new YouTube video and you go watch that.

And really you're watching that sitting there going like, hey,

just like poking the bear, like, hey, give me something good.

Give me something good. I'm tired. I need something good. Like I was that way with R.C. Sproul.

Anytime he came up with a new book, I would go get it. And in the first 10 pages, I wasn't just floored.

I was like, what the heck, R.C.? Don't you know I need this?

Like I take a personal offense that this book isn't good enough for me.

And that's kind of the way people are treating Jesus, right?

He's just an animal at the zoo. He just happens to be able to heal people.

They're doing everything they can to go and just touch him, just get their hands

on him. Again, this isn't a bad impulse, right?

If you want to be healed, go to the healer.

I don't think Jesus is taking issue with that. But I think we get a sense from

Jesus that this isn't that important to him.

That may sound like a weird thing to say, but I think that's exactly how he feels.

That to Jesus, he could heal every single person that came up to him and he healed many.

But Jesus knows that even if he heals them,

he knows that even when he raises Lazarus from the graves, that ultimately death still reigns,

that all of these people that he heals will die one day, that they will stand

before God in judgment, that there will be a day where what he really is concerned

about will matter more than anything else. and that is their souls.

And so as they come to him and they want to be healed and they want to just

kind of get a glimpse of this celebrity, Jesus is not excited about that, which again is weird.

It's weird, but he's not excited about that because Jesus knows the reality

behind the curtain is you care about your bodies, but you care nothing about your souls.

You care nothing about your souls. You care nothing about what is eternal.

You care nothing about what I've actually come to tell you. You just want your needs met.

Again, we've already spent some time discussing this earlier in Mark,

but Jesus' concern for their physical needs is secondary.

It's secondary. He says this in John 11, after he feeds the 5,000,

of course, it's 5,000 and we

think they only counted men, so it's probably more like 8,000 to 10,000.

But even if it's just five, that's a lot of people that he feeds with five loaves and two fish.

He does all that and he kind of bolts. He does the same thing he does here in Mark.

He just sees the crowd. They get riled up and he takes off.

The crowd realizes he's gone and they chase him down. I mean,

literally, the crowd goes and finds him.

He says, John 6, 25 through 29, when they, that's the crowd found him on the

other side of the sea, they said to him, rabbi, and again, there's a clue in that name.

They look at Jesus as just a rabbi. Hey man, you're just like all these other

rabbis, but you're a really important one.

You're a really important one. It'd be the same 21st century equivalent of somebody

going, I think Jesus is a really important teacher.

I don't know if you watch Joe Rogan. I don't watch him a lot.

I had somebody send me a clip this week. he's talking about Jesus.

Joe Rogan's been going to church for three years now in Austin.

And somebody was pressing him on that. Would you call yourself a Christian?

Would you call yourself a Christian? Do you believe that?

And his response was exactly this. Well, you know, I really believe that what

Jesus teaches is better than anybody else.

I really believe that Jesus' way of living is better than any other way of living.

I really believe that there's intrinsic basic benefits into doing and living

the way Jesus asked me to live.

Again, he would say, rabbi, right? Jesus, great teacher.

So the crowd says, when did you come here? Jesus answered them,

truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs,

but because you ate your fill of the loaves.

In other words, not because you saw these signs for what they were,

for what they truly revealed. You just wanted your bellies full.

You view me as a supermarket that can now provide for you in a way that no one else can.

Verse 27, do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures

to eternal life, which the son of man will give you.

For on him, God, the father has set his seal. Now listen, they said to him,

what must we do to be doing the works of God? Now he's gonna flip this question on them.

He's gonna flip the question on them. They're gonna say, what must we do?

What do we need to do to do the works of God? And Jesus says, this is the work of God.

That you believe in him whom he has sent.

So they want to know what action do I need to do? What penance do I need to

pay? What sacrifice do I need to make? Where do I need to go? What do I need to do?

What pilgrimage do I need to make? How much money do I need to give?

And Jesus says, believe in the one in whom God has sent.

That's what Jesus wants to do. He wants to preach, repent and believe,

repent and believe. and believe me, this is still a massive issue.

All of us know someone that comes to Jesus because their marriage is on the

rocks, because they have financial problems, or they're dealing with anxiety,

or they want to get rid of an addiction, right?

Consider the society you live in in East Texas.

Consider the benefits of living in a place that by and large,

whether you're Christian or not, has Christian values.

That we look at Jesus and we say, that's a good way to live.

They may not go to church. They may not care anything about Jesus,

but they look at Jesus, they go, that's a good way to live.

We're polite, we're kind, we're gracious. And those are all great things.

Christian values permeate our culture and that makes our culture a great place to live.

That's why people like moving here. That's why people like living here.

That's why I live here. I like living here.

But acting the way that Jesus wants you to act.

Doing some of the things that Jesus asked you to do, though it may have physical benefits.

An unbeliever can take Jesus's marriage advice and it would get better.

An unbeliever can take Jesus's advice on how to treat one another,

how to raise your kids, how to treat your coworkers, how to live amongst the world.

They can take that advice and go live their lives and it will be of some benefit to them.

But Jesus calls people to repent and believe, metanoia, change one's mind.

In other words, the whole mind. He wants all of your mind. He wants it all to turn, all to change.

And repent is pisu, to entrust oneself to.

So he's asking people, give me your whole mind, entrust yourself to me.

And people are coming to him and going, I just, I got an ailment.

He's going, hey, give me everything. And they're going, I just want to walk.

Give me everything. Give me everything. I'm just hungry.

I'm just tired of my marriage. I'm just tired of my kids. I'm tired of my home.

I'm tired of my life. Jesus, would you just fix these problems?

And he's going, repent and believe.

Repent and believe.

Jesus, speaking after or rightly right before, he's about to raise Lazarus from the dead.

He says, I am the erection in the life, whoever believes in me,

though he die, yet shall he live.

And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

Do you believe this? That's a great question.

That's a great question. Not do we think that Jesus is a better way of living?

Not do we think that Jesus is one of the ways that we can know the Lord?

We believe that even though we die, we live if we trust in Jesus.

This is what Jesus is concerned about. He is concerned about their souls.

And it would be a tragedy upon tragedy if Jesus showed up and healed every single

person on this planet of every single disease, but never spoke a word and left

because they would not know the gospel.

They would not have eternal life. And one day they would still face judgment

and still be cast out of God's gracious presence forever.

We have to think the same way.

We have to think the same way. Is that how we think of Jesus?

Do we just want him to fix our problems? Do we want to repent and believe?

Do we want to entrust ourselves to him?

Thomas Watson says, knowledge without repentance will be but a torch to light men to hell.

Knowledge without repentance will be but a torch to light men to hell.

In other words, to light men's way.

If you have knowledge of Jesus, if you have knowledge of him,

if you know what he's asked of you, if you know what he's kind of called you to live like,

and all you do is take that knowledge and light your path with it and go,

yeah, I like that advice. I like that financial advice.

I like that marriage advice. I like that parenting advice.

I like the golden rule. I like the Ten Commandments.

The idea here is all that will do is be a flashlight on the way to hell if you

do not repent and believe the gospel.

Now, how will Jesus respond? How will Jesus respond? Again, there's chaos in and around him.

This crowd is literally pushing on him in such a way that he's fearful for his own life.

The demons are actually coming to see him and he's casting them out.

He's telling them to be silenced.

This is absolute chaos, right?

There's no snake handlers that I can see, but that's the picture I get in my

mind of like people just running around, things going crazy.

Nobody can make sense of it.

The Pharisees are watching from afar, talking to the Herodians,

trying to figure out how can we murder this guy?

Everything is going on. What does Jesus do? What is he going to do? Verse 13, Mark 3, 13.

And he went up on the mountains.

And he went up on the mountains.

He gets away. He gets alone.

I find this so hard to do, and I don't know why.

In my head, I know that I need to find time to be alone. I know in my head that that's a good idea.

But inevitably, if I don't really, really try and make that a part of my life,

I will schedule myself into oblivion.

Even more so, if I don't make it a part of my life, the world will schedule me into oblivion.

They will continue to put things on me. They will continue to give me things.

No one is lacking for things to do.

If you want something to do, you can finally do it. But isn't it interesting

that if somebody were to ask you to do something and you were to say, I can't, I got to work.

I can't, I've got a hair appointment, right? I can't, I've got kids' baseball

stuff. I've got kids' basketball stuff.

I can't, I've got to be perpetually, he's in the bathroom, at the doctor for

my kid breaking everything and busting his face all the time,

right? I've just got all these different places to be.

But if someone were to call me and say, hey, can you do X, Y, and Z?

And I said, man, I can't, like, that is just my time to be alone with the Lord.

It's just my time to be alone.

I don't even think many Christians would receive that well.

They may say over the phone, hey, that's good. But then they would get off the

phone and immediately think, what's this guy's deal? Does he not think I want to be alone?

We've got things to do. We've got things to get done. We've got things to accomplish.

Martin Luther famously says, I have much to do, so I will start the day with three hours of prayer.

Now, I'm not saying we should wake up every day and pray three hours.

I don't want to put that on your conscience. If you can, wonderful, right?

But I think the principle is true. We have much to do, so let's get alone and pray.

Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God.

I'm not trying to get God to do what I want him to do. I'm trying to get my

heart on board with whatever God is doing.

That's what prayer is. Whatever God is doing, right? Jesus gives us the Lord's

prayer. What does it end with? What does it end with?

Not my will, but your will be done.

Prayer again. I'm not trying to get God to do something for me.

I'm trying to align my heart and my mind. Remember, I'm trying to entrust myself to God.

Prayer is really just a time exposure to God. For in having Him, we have everything.

In having Him, we have everything. We have everything we need for character

and conduct and personal holiness.

If we become rich, we become rich with His mercies in prayer.

If we have strength, we become strengthened by Him in prayer.

If we have purity or ability. We become those things by entreating him in prayer.

Again, not because we ask for them as much as when you spend time with a holy

God, he changes you. He changes you.

We wonder why when things get stressful, when the world gets crazy,

when our lives don't go the way we want them to go, that we get angry and upset

and we push back and we're short with our families, we're short with our friends, right?

We start pushing away the good things in our lives.

How many times have you known someone that when life gets crazy,

the first thing they cut out is Christ?

They cut out church. They say, we're just too busy, right?

We just got too much going on. Again, I'm not laying that burden on anyone in

here. I don't want you to hear that and say like, hey, if things are going on, I get it.

I get it, right? We have to miss.

What I mean is Christ takes a back seat when things go crazy.

The reason for that is we don't get alone and spend time with the Lord. We don't.

Instead of our hearts being prepared by God, our hearts are prepared by the world.

And when that happens, we act like the world. We think like the world.

We do what the world does.

So what is the first thing Jesus does? He gets alone. He prays.

What is the next thing he does? Well, he does what he was asked to do when he prayed. He calls.

He says, and he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired.

And they came to him and he appointed 12 whom he also named apostles so they

might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons.

He appointed the 12. Again, Mark doesn't go into much detail about them.

He gives them the names. You're welcome to read those names.

I don't think that's really the point that Mark's trying to make.

I think Mark has a much bigger application in mind. The first thing you see is who does he call?

Who does Jesus call? Jesus calls whom he desires, whom he desires.

This isn't a pickup basketball game. Jesus has plenty of people to pick from.

There is crowds upon crowds and mobs of people coming to find Jesus.

This isn't like when he called his first couple of disciples when he wasn't

known and he's walking on the beach and he grabs these guys while they're fishing.

No, Jesus is a celebrity. Any and everyone that he asked, hey,

why don't you come with me for a while? They would have gone with him.

They would have gone with him. Jesus calls to himself those whom he desires.

When you ask, why did he choose these 12?

The answer is very simple, because he wanted to, because that's what he wanted to do.

You can read the list. You can go learn about all these different disciples.

You know what you won't learn about them, that there was anything intrinsically

special about them that wouldn't have been true of a thousand other people.

Were thousands of tax collectors. There were thousands and thousands and thousands of fishermen.

There were plenty of religious zealots. There were plenty of men who you could

have called sons of thunder.

There were plenty of people like that in the world. And yet Jesus calls to himself whom he desires.

Again, there's no interviews. There's not a hiring process.

It's not like dodgeball where he puts everyone against the wall and he's like,

okay, let me pick the favorite 12. Can you throw a ball? Let's see how this goes.

He doesn't bring people up and say, hey, let me hear you preach.

Read this for me. How much do you know? Let me give you an aptitude test.

Here's a Myers-Briggs. Let me just see. Are you an INTJ? I'm looking for INTP.

So if you're in, you're out.

What's your Enneagram number? He doesn't care.

It doesn't matter. He calls because this is who he desires to call.

This is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 126, for consider your calling, brothers and sisters.

Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many of you were powerful.

Not many of you were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

And God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

God chose what is low and despised in the world, even the things that are not,

to bring to nothing things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

What a thing for Paul to write to the church.

Imagine if somebody wrote our church a letter and they started with,

hey, none of y'all or hardly any of y'all are very special.

This is a great pep talk, right? Next time I'm coaching my team,

baseball team, I'm going to pull them over and be like, Hey guys on a knee,

none of y'all are special.

Yeah. There's nothing special about any of you boys. All right. You're not strong.

You're not great. There's nothing good about you. You know, what's great about

you. I chose you, right? They would look at me like, that's the worst pep talk ever.

So what makes this positive? What makes this good?

What makes this good is, He chose you. He called you.

He delivered you. I say this all the time when these words come up.

It's an absolute travesty that we have turned calling to,

choosing of God into this theological debate. And what they are meant to be is pillows.

They're meant to be great comforts for the Christian so that when your life

goes off the rails, what you lay your head on is not what you've done,

not what you've accomplished, not what you can do, but you look at Christ and go, he called me.

Think of Mark's language. He desired me. He wanted me.

He knew what I was capable of. And more importantly, what I wasn't capable of.

He knew when he called Peter that he was going to be Peter. He knew when he

called Peter, he was going to cut some guy's ear off.

He was like, yeah, that one's mine. That one's mine.

That should be an incredible comfort to you to know that if you're a Christian,

while you are not called to be an apostle, there's no more.

You are called to be a Christian. You are called to do what Mark says Jesus is going to do.

What does he say? He says he called to him those whom he desired and they came

to him And he appointed 12.

Why did he appoint them? So that they might be with him He calls them so they can be with him.

He knows he's not calling an all-star team He very much understands that This

is like if you were playing pickup basketball And you just picked all of your

best friends even though they're the worst people in the gym Right?

You don't care if you get blitzed by 50 You're doing it with your boys, right?

We're going down together And Jesus knows that he will succeed Not because of

these 12 But because he is who he is Because God always wins And as far as he's

concerned He'll take the riffraff Because what?

Because they're mine They're his, they belong to him Doesn't matter how good

or bad my kids are at something They're mine, they're my kids They come home with me.

So he calls these 12 apostles so that they might be with him and to go preach.

Now, obviously, if you're an Old Testament student and all, you'll see some similarities here.

He calls 12 apostles. There's 12 tribes in Israel.

Again, he's just got done dealing for about a chapter and a half of the Pharisees' nonsense.

It's almost as if Jesus is saying, you've got the 12 tribes.

They have all gone astray.

They do not love the Lord. They care nothing about him. I've got 12 apostles.

I'm about to build a people of God on these 12 men.

I'm about to use these 12 men to build a people of God. Now,

obviously one of them is Judas.

Jesus knows that. He calls Judas on purpose.

And Judas just as much fulfills the plan of God as Peter does.

That's really important.

So the apostles will be these foundations that he sets this new covenant on.

But again, I want you to hear me clearly. The goal of his apostles and the goal

of you and me is not perfection, but pursuit.

It's to be with him, to be with Jesus. That's the goal.

In fact, the scriptures will remarkably be honest about how ignorant they are

and how dense they are and how sinful they are and how slow they are to get

it and how slow they are to do what Jesus asked them to do.

No matter how much time they spend with him, it seems like they keep getting worse somehow.

And yet Jesus has called them to what? To be with him.

He has called you to be with him, to be with him, to be with Christ.

This is so integral to what Jesus wants to teach them that at the final supper,

John 15, 16, what solace is he going to give his apostles.

What encouragement is he going to give these men before he goes and is murdered?

What is he going to give them? Is he going to say, listen, you guys have got it.

You've guys got this, man. Peter, you're strong and big, man.

You guys know how to fish. You're the sons of thunder, man. Come on, be encouraged.

No. He asks them not to look at themselves in any way, shape, or form.

He says, John 15, 16, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you

that you should go and bear fruit. That's Jesus's encouragement.

I hope you're encouraged by that. I was extremely encouraged by that this week

because I looked at my week and I was like, man, just blew it just every day.

I'm like, man, that didn't go right. That didn't go the way I wanted to.

Meant to read that day, meant to study that day, meant to pray that day.

Nothing went the way I wanted it to. Nothing went the way I hoped it would.

You read verses like that and you go, So praise God, praise God that I didn't

choose him, but he chose me and he appointed that I would go and bear fruit.

Does not appeal to their ability, to their strength, to their mind,

to their acumen, to their talents.

He appeals to himself.

Jesus appeals to himself and once again, preaches to them, trust me, trust me.

Repent from the way of thinking that you're thinking. Repent from that fear

that so grips your heart and mind.

Repent from that lust that so has its claws in you.

Repent from those things that keep you from trusting in the Lord and believe in him.

He says, I have chosen you and I will keep you.

You are mine. I know you will fail, but you're mine and you will bear fruit.

Change your mind. In closing, is that true of us?

Man, when we look at Jesus, when we think about Jesus, do we first and foremost

think, man, he has come to save my soul.

And if nothing in my life goes the way I want it to from this day forward,

I will have reason to praise him.

I will have reason to glorify him because he has redeemed my soul.

And as he says before he raises Lazarus, even though I will die,

I live eternally in the presence of God, my Father, and His Son,

Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit, I live. I live.

Do we think that way? Number two, do we take comfort in the fact that God has called us?

Not because of who we are, but because of who He is.

Not because of who we are, but because of who He is.

This is what Peter says. We read this a couple months ago, 1 Peter 2.9,

man, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.

I don't know about you. I do not feel that way most days.

I do not go to bed at night thinking, man, I feel like a holy nation right now.

I feel like I'm a part of a royal priesthood.

Why are we those things? Chosen race, royal priesthood, holy nation.

He says, a people for God's own possession.

You are those things that Peter says you are because you have been possessed by God. He owns you.

He has given you the right to say those things about yourself because of his

goodness and grace. And why does he do that?

Why does he do that? He says that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who

called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Listen, it says he called you out of darkness.

He wanted you. He desired you.

He looked down at the world and he looked right at you, right in your eyes.

And he says, I want that one. I'm calling that one.

That one is mine. That one belongs to me.

I will make that person a holy priesthood. I will bring that person into my

holy nation and I will cause them to bear fruit and they will proclaim the excellencies of myself.

Again, your life is not going to be one of perfection, but it can be one of pursuit.

And I find that most people fail to pursue God because they think it depends on them.

They think that God's looking at them going, come on, come on,

man. Come on, pick it up. What are you doing? What are you doing? Really? Again?

Really? Oh, you're tired? Really? Oh, you had something come up? Really?

Listen, the most vivid element, the most arresting element of the portrait of

Jesus we get in the Bible is the way that the Holy Son of God moves toward and touches and heals,

embraces and forgives those who least deserve it, yet truly desire it.

Jesus is drawn towards us, that he is drawn towards our sin and towards our

failures and towards our struggles.

He isn't grossed out by them. He isn't looking at them like,

I don't really, this is pretty disgusting.

I don't really like what I'm seeing here. I don't like what you're looking at.

I don't like how you're acting. No, he moves in.

Finally, 1 Corinthians 1, 30-31, finishing off what Paul says earlier once he

says, hey, you aren't special.

You aren't special. There was nothing about you that makes you special.

He says, and because of God, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom

from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written,

let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.

Paul spends four verses saying, not many of you are wise, not many of you are

of noble birth, not many of you are very important.

But he says, because of God's call on your life, you are in Christ Jesus.

Not many of you are wise, but you receive wisdom from God.

Not many of you are from noble birth, but he's given you the righteousness of God.

Not many of you had this incredible story in your life, but he has given you

sanctification and redemption from God. Why?

So that let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.

We boast not in ourselves, not in what Trinity Bible Church can do,

not in what we can accomplish,

not in our talents, not in our gifts, not in our abilities, not in what we've

accomplished, not in the degrees on the wall or the money in the bank account.

We boast in God alone.

Why? Because he has saved our souls.

He has saved our souls so that even though we do face death,

we do face judgment, just like every single person that Jesus heals.

We face it with a smile on our face, knowing that there's nothing the world can do to me.

God has called me. He wants me in his family. He desires me.

Those whom he calls, he saves. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for your word. God, thank you for the chance to open it.

Thank you for Trinity Bible Church. I say it every week. I just love being here.

I love the people in this room. God, I love what you've done here.

People ask all the time, well, what did y'all do or what are y'all doing?

And I feel like my answer most of the time is I have no idea. I have no idea.

We're not doing anything special, God.

You're working through a bunch of crooked sticks to make a really straight path.

Thank you for that. We pray this morning as we consider your words through Mark.

That first and foremost, we understand that your life was chaotic,

that you lived in a constant state of not knowing what the next thing would

bring, so much so that you had a getaway boat in a lake in case people would crush you.

God, that we would see that and remind ourselves that you needed to get alone

and pray, and God, so do we.

Would you imprint upon our hearts a need to get alone and pray.

Not so that we can receive what we want from God, but so that God can transform

our hearts into hearts that simply want to receive whatever it is God would have us to have.

No matter what our lot, God will be saying, you have taught us to say it is well with our souls.

It is well with our souls because you have redeemed us.

You have called us out of darkness into glorious light, not because of anything

that we've done, anything we've accomplished.

And God, again, I pray that that is not simply something we sit around and debate theologically,

but that we let it rest on our hearts and souls as we go to bed every single

night, as we wake up every single

morning, that the God of the universe desires, wants us to be with him.

God, that you move into our lives You move into our sin You redeem us We thank you for that Amen.