If you don't have a Bible, you should be able to find the text in your order of worship. Starting at verse 7, I say to you, hear the word of God, Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed from Galilee, and Judea, and Jerusalem, and Idumia, and from beyond the Jordan, and from around Tyre, and Sidon. 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, for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, you are the Son of God, and he strictly ordered them not to make him known. And he went up on a mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve 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 twelve, 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 Boenergies, that is, sons of thunder, Andrew, Philip, and Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, and James, son of Altheus, and Thaddeus, and Simon the Kennanian, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. Let us pray. Father, I pray now that you would come and open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf. I pray that as we enter a new year, because we enter a new series, that you would make your grace that much more abundant to us. I pray that you be in my head, in my thinking, in my heart, in my understanding, in my mouth, in my speaking, in Christ's name, we pray these things, amen, and amen. Well today starts a new series, because it really starts a new part of the church calendar year. We just finished Advent, and how the church calendar works more or less is that it begins the year begins with Advent, and that is where you celebrate the coming of Jesus, and then after that, the church calendar covers the gospels. That is where we are now, the life and ministry of Jesus, and then into the summer you get the epistles, the work of the Holy Spirit. So we are starting the book of Mark. We have worked through the first three chapters last year, and we are starting now at chapter 3 and verse 7. I was thinking this week, when I was a kid, I know this is going to surprise a lot of you guys. I was a latchkey kid, and so my mother was working to a job, she was always gone. We didn't have computers, I know that's going to horrify those of you under 20, and there were only three channels on television, and yet on Saturday afternoon, you almost always could count on a great World War II or World War I movie. Almost always, and I love that, I mean I look forward to that. So it's going to surprise some of you, I know that I used to watch every Saturday afternoon, and I would be glued in front of the World War II movie, and dream about the day that someday I might be a soldier, and be a hero. And remember all those movies, you know, Kelly's heroes, and the big red one, and all those, my favorite of all of them, maybe it's because of the title, was The Dirty Doesn't. Remember The Dirty Doesn't? Basically, this major, Lee Marvin, who is given the mission to basically disrupt the German officers shortly before D day, and so he's given the mission to attack a Swiss chalet, I believe, or French chalet, where all the officers are congregating, and it's going to be a suicide mission, and so what he does is he goes, and he chooses 12 criminals, and offers them their freedom if they will go on this mission. So if they'll go on this mission, which is basically a suicide mission, they have a chance at freedom, and they got their name, Dirty Doesn't, if you remember, it's really the only thing that's clear in my mind after all these years, if he was trying to toughen him up, and he wouldn't give him any hot water, and he told him to shave because they were going to be inspected, and one of the guys said, we ain't shaved until we get out water! And he said, I guess you'll just be The Dirty Doesn't then, and that's how it ended. What's I got to do with our text today? What has everything to do with it? Because we're going to talk today about another dirty dozen, we usually call them apostles, and what they have in common, what the original Dirty Doesn't, among other things, is that they weren't looking for the job, the job found them. In other words, in Jesus' day, it was typical, it was much like it is for today, for college students, where college students begin, maybe in 10th or 11th grade, they start thinking where they want to go to college, and they start preparing for SATs and ACTs and that kind of thing, and then they begin to apply for colleges, and they put their best foot forward in hopes of getting into the school they want. Well, in Jesus' day, it was like that as well, except you would do that with a rabbi. In other words, you would go and beg a rabbi to take you on as a student. You want to study under Gamma Leal, or someone like that, and it was totally unheard of, and upside down, and backwards for a rabbi to go around and pick his students. And yet, that's what Jesus did. And the only thing that the Jesus disciples really have in common with each other, I mean, batches of them have things in common, but what they have in common, most of all, is that not one of them are part of the religious establishment of Jesus' day. Not one of them. If you remember it from last year, and I know you do, when we looked at the first three chapters of Mark, the first section of the book of Mark closes or finishes in verse 6, and it's sort of the summary of the opening to Jesus' ministry, and if that's the summary to the opening of Jesus' ministry, we can see that the goal of Jesus' ministry, apparently, was to frustrate and anger all of the religious and political establishment of his day. And he did a fantastic job. In fact, he did such a good job. They worked together. If you look at verse 6 of chapter 3, it says, the Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. So that closes the first section of the book of Mark where you have the religious Jewish people, plotting with the political Jewish people, both of them saying, we need to get rid of this guy. And was it because Jesus was a bad guy? Absolutely not. He went around doing good. It was because they held people in their grasp by defining for them how law ought to be obeyed. And over and over again, Jesus said things like, you heard it, say, said, but I say. And the biggest thing that got him in trouble of all was the fact that he used to heal people on the Sabbath. And the Sabbath was the thing that they held most dearly to them, the thing that they controlled the most. And so as we transition, you see Jesus leaving them and withdrawing from them. We're really be for the sake of time this morning because we're celebrating the Lord's supper. We really only have two points this morning. The first point is going to be the crush of the crowd. Crush of the crowd number one. And the second point will simply be the dirty dozen. Just going to love that title. We are going to look at the apostles very briefly this morning. So let's look first at the crush of the crowd, says in verse 7, Jesus withdrew his disciples to the sea and a great crowd followed. And I think of a map here. Yes. A great crowd followed from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Idiumia and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. 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, less they crushed him. For he had healed many so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him and whenever unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, you are the son of God. So you notice on the map, my cities didn't pop up. There they come. You're supposed to be cooler than that when I did it, but a couple more, Tyre and Sidon, boom, one more. There we go. Why did I put this up here? More than just I thought it would be cool. I just wanted to show you the geographic dispersion of where all these people were coming from. On one hand, the religious leaders and the political leaders hated Jesus and they sought to do away with him and yet that's about 120 mile stretch between places where people could come from, where you have Sidon at the very north, Idiumia is a region at the bottom, Transjordan is basically everything to the east and then everything up to the Mediterranean. In other words, people were coming from the north to south, the east and the west. They were coming from everywhere to get to Jesus. They were coming from all over the known world to them to pursue Jesus. Now, the question is why and the answer is that I had a seminary professor who would always say to us, gentlemen, you'll be successful if you remember everyone's favorite radio station. Let me tell you what do you mean by that Bill. He said everyone's favorite radio station is WIMF, WIFM. It's in it for me. If you remember that, you'll be successful in life that that's what people want, what's in it for me. When you look at the crowd, it's actually rather crass and the language used here where it says that they saw him and they came around him and he was afraid they would crush him. The word, it's more than crush, it's almost malicious, it's malignant, it's almost an evil that they're coming around him not because they desire him. They're coming around him and they're pursuing him from all over because of what he can do for them. And that makes sense. Does it not? I mean, if you're sick, if you have cancer, if you have some malady, and you see people do it all the time, they go to incredible extremes and try incredible things in order to find a remedy. What have you got to lose? And so you hear about this rabbi who's walking around, who's healing people of all their diseases, why wouldn't you come from 120 miles away, even if you had to walk in order to be healed? So that makes sense. But the question you have to ask yourself that comes up for me is why do I pursue Jesus? Why do you pursue Jesus? You pursue Jesus because of who He is, or only because of what He can do for you? And a way to tell if you pursue Jesus because of what He can do for you, rather than because of who He is, is you tend to be frustrated and angry a lot, which is pretty convicting to me actually. Why? Because if you're pursuing Jesus for what He can do for you, He's almost never going to do what you want Him to do, and so therefore you're always going to be upset. If you're pursuing Jesus for who He is, you can never be upset because the closer you get the more beautiful He is, the closer you get the more desirable He is, the closer you get the more peace you have, and so the question is, why am I pursuing Jesus? Because of what I think He can do for me or because of who He is. There's another interesting twist here because apparently the crowds really didn't know who He was. They knew He was this guy who could heal people, so let's get in there. And one interesting part is, I love reading, you know, commentaries with one of the benefits of my job, and to see theologians and biblical scholars argue over what a text means, and a lot of people said the reason that Jesus withdrew to the sea is because He's repeating the sea is in the Old Testament, the place of chaos, and demonic activity, and He's drawing away to the sea in order to relive the wilderness experience. And I think that's just way too complicated. That's my opinion. I think the reason He withdrew to the sea was almost purely for pragmatism because at the sea He could stand in a boat and not be crushed. At the sea He could preach across the water and the sound we carry and people would hear Him. So that's one part. The other part is if you notice in this text there were one group of people who actually did know who Jesus was. They didn't want Him either, but they recognized Him. And then another big debate is Jesus' response to them. Look at verse 13 or 12, brother. It says in 11, whenever unclean spirits saw Him, they fell down before Him and cried out, you are the Son of God, and He strictly ordered them not to make Him known. Well, the question is, a couple of questions is why did they say that? Why would they shout that out? And then why would Jesus tell them to be quiet if it was true? There are several different theories for why they may have shouted that out. The first one is if you remember back to the Old Testament or if you've ever seen the movie Hellboy, remember that basically the concept in the Old Testament was that if you knew someone's true name, if you knew the true identity and said it, you would have power over them. That's why when Jacob wrestled the angel, you remember that if you read that story again, Jacob is really only concerned about one thing. Tell me your name. Because he thinks if he can speak the name of the angel, that somehow he will have control over the angel. So maybe by the demon speaking the name, Son of God, they think that they will be able to control Jesus and obviously didn't work. Jesus, in this passage, Jesus reminds me, if you've ever seen the dog whisper, sees Milano, when a dog gets out of line, he just goes, that's all he does. That's what Jesus reminds me of here. Whenever demons come around, they seek to speak his name to have power over him and they're just little yap and dogs because he is the Son of God. So what other reason might they say his name, they might say his name because they're trying to force his hand. I mean, you've got a huge crowd there and if you can get people drummed up and thinking, maybe this is the Son of God, maybe this is Messiah, maybe this is the King, they put them on their shoulders and march them in through Jerusalem and then Jesus plans ultimately to die would be foiled. So that's those are the two sort of governing theories of the other question is why would Jesus tell them to be quiet? For one, maybe he was just showing them, I'm the boss here and you are nothing, but maybe he's just doing that, maybe he's just showing his authority. I think there's something else here, at least in the structure of the text. You see that demons, they were giving the story, but they weren't giving the whole story. He certainly was the Son of God but they didn't say also that he was the Son of Man. They couldn't have given the whole story and that whole story, to tell that whole story would be reserved for someone else. In other words, there's a sense here as you read the flow of this text that Jesus is saying, proclaiming who I am is going to be someone else's job, not demons, if demons aren't saying who you are, then who's going to proclaim your name? Who else but the dirty doesn't? The fishermen that are cussing back there, they're the ones, the dirty doesn't will proclaim my name. That's where Jesus goes next. He tells the demons to stop preaching and stop proclaiming his name and then he picks 12 people out who he actually encourages and sends to preaching. That's where we'll look next quickly, the dirty doesn't. The first two verses here had a lot of theological significance. It says in verse 13, 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 named apostles so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons. Well, basically whenever you talk about the mountain or mountains in the Old Testament certainly but especially in the Gospel of Mark as well, you begin to get into sort of theological territory because on the mountain is where you meet God. You want to get the 10 commandments, go up Sinai, you want to meet God, go up Zion, you want the transfiguration, you go up on the mountain. So Jesus, it says very, you know, it stately goes up on the mountain and then what's interesting is who he calls to himself and I wish I had told the first service, I wish I had about another 20 or 30 minutes at this particular point because it says that Jesus called those whom he desired. No one else, he called those whom he desired and did you notice their response? And they came to him. In other words, the call of Jesus is effective. Those whom Jesus desires to be in relationship will be in relationship to him. On the other hand, the question is, do you hear Jesus calling you? Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling to come home, sinner, come home, do you hear that? If you hear it, you need to go, go to Jesus, run to him. Jesus calls those whom he desires and then he gave the apostles basically a commission. He called them for two reasons. The second reason is twofold and in many ways, he does the same thing with us and there's a little difference in one of them. Notice the first thing that he called the disciples to do is he called, well, first it says he made 12, very appointed 12 and that's the language of creation. He made them 12 and the reason for 12 is because Israel at that point, there had only been two, there were down to about two tribes and everyone thought the gig was up and Jesus forms 12 tribes, representing the 12 tribes of Israel. He's renewing the nation of Israel and he's renewing all of creation through these 12 and here's how they are going to renew all creation. He says he named them also apostles so that they might be really busy doing lots of stuff for him and then send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons. Did you notice the reason that Jesus called disciples to himself, the reason that he called and made these people to be apostles is so that they might be with him, period. It doesn't say so that they might do great work, it doesn't say that they might be mighty and power and all these other things it says so that they might be with him. When you begin to think about the gospel and the Christian faith, the indicative, who you are always comes before the imperative, what you should do. And the question you have to ask yourself, if you are also a disciple of Jesus, is my life defined by being with Jesus and everything grows out of that or is my life defined by doing things for Jesus? Because if your life is defined by doing things for Jesus, you are going to be miserable most of the time because of this reason. Jesus doesn't really need you to do a lot of stuff for him. The reason Jesus calls us unto himself first and foremost and primarily is that they, that we might be with him and he called the disciples and the apostles so that they might be with him. So they might be with him and then after being, then they do and what were they to do, they were to preach the gospel so that they might preach and have authority to cast out demons. Now there's some overlap between them and us. We also are sent out every week when we do the benediction, you're sent out to share the gospel with those around you. The differences between our authority and their authority. You see, Jesus was basically extending his ministry through them and he was going to start the church through them and when he gave them authority to cast out demons, it was authority that basically would confirm the gospel they preached because they didn't have a Bible either to preach from. And I know lots of people debate, you know, Tommy, we can believers cast out demons today. Do we have authority to cast out demons? And I always tell people, go ahead and do you try it? Honestly, we may or we may not. Certainly the Holy Spirit is within us and certainly we have the God's spirit to give us power. But this authority given to the apostles, I think probably was only for them. And the next thing that's interesting as we get to the list of apostles is that you see something in Mark that you don't really see in the other, the other gospels as much. They all have lists of the disciples. But what Mark emphasizes more than the rest is the fact that they most of them had nicknames. That's important. That Jesus apparently gave disciples nicknames. And of course, I couldn't help but think about it like when I was in the army. When I was in the range of Italian, everyone had a nickname. Most people did. And your nickname either said that always had something about you or it was something that was very ironic about you or both. You know, my nickname, for example, was mullet.
Because I came from South Florida, fished every day. Somehow, someone found that out. Someone wrote me a letter addressed the mullet Allen and mullet stuck. Now, interestingly enough, in the wise providence of God, my first roommate's nickname was catfish.
That's true. And they used to call it catfish and mullet, the attack fish. I was alpha team leader. He was bravo team leader. And when they needed us in the dead at night, they would signal us by doing this. That's true.
At a machine gun, his name was the edge. Because he looked just like the edge in YouTube. My squad leader's nickname was smack.
We even had a guy who we called rock. And you know why you call someone rock? All things being equal, he was pretty dumb. To be honest with you. Which of course leads me to Peter.
Why did Jesus do that? Remember in the Gospel of John, Peter, Andrew brings Peter. And Peter doesn't get a chance to, quote, choose Jesus. Jesus says, from now on, you're Peter, the rock. And you got to think of your Peter going, good thing you're bad thing. He doesn't even know me, and he's gone me to rock. And the answer is both because if you read through the Gospels, Peter at sometimes is incredibly rock-like. He's incredibly slow. On the other hand, you read through the Gospels. And Jesus says, on this rock, I'll build my church. You see, there's a twist to the name. I think the James and John are actually more funny. Just because I can imagine Jesus laughing. James and John remember, they were the ones who came up and told Jesus, should we call down thunder and lightning on these cities? And Jesus is like, oh, the sun's a thunder. Calm down, boys. And yet, the Apostle John, what is he known for? I mean, Jesus called them the suns of thunder. And yet, we know John, the Apostle John is the apostle of love.
There couldn't be any greater difference. But that's how nicknames work, isn't it? And you work through here. It's interesting. Some of these may be nicknames, some might not be. But he says to Mu and verse 18, he says, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, the son of Altheus. Matthew is also the son of Altheus. So there are probably three sets of brothers in here. And then you have Thaddeus. Thaddeus, you sometimes get confused. Because he also, I think Luke calls him Judas, the son of James. But you could see how the name Judas wouldn't been particularly popular in the first century. And then you have Simon the Canaanian or Simon the Zealot. And the last one, Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. Now Judas is the most interesting one to me. Because we know that the reason Simon Peter is called Simon Peter is because Jesus said, from now on, Peter. From now on, James bore energies. And we don't have a record of it, but you wonder if Jesus met Judas and said, Judas, you'll be called Iscariot. It'd be interesting, however. Because Iscariot means one of two things. One of the things it could mean from the city of Carriols or something like that. Pretty vague. On the other hand, it could mean something like knife-weilder or backstabber.
And you wonder if Jesus calls him that. And he's the only one in on the joke. We're in on the joke because it says the very next thing says, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. Now what's interesting is when you read theologians, you know, I tend to read liberal theologians. We've served with theologians everything in between biblical scholars. And it's interesting how people who are on the more liberal end of the continuum say that the fact that Judas Iscariot is in here shows that this text in Mark is probably not authentic, they would say. Because they say it's such a scandal, the early church, if that was true, they wouldn't have included it. They wouldn't have shown us that. And yet, if you really understand the gospel, you look at this text and the fact that it says, Judas Iscariot, who betrayed them, the fact that it is in there, confirms everything that we know about the gospel. Because the gospel is not about looking good and maintaining face with the gospel is about, is the fact that Jesus came and lived the death you and I should have lived. And he died, the death we should have died. And that was all triggered by this one person whose name was Iscariot betraying him. The worst possible event that could happen to someone, Betrayal, is the thing that one hour freedom. That's why it's there. That's why it's true. You know, when you watch the dirty dozen, if you find an old trailer for the dirty dozen old poster, it says arm them, excite them, train them, or it says, train them, excite them and arm them, then set them loose on the Nazis.
Right, you're supposed to be excited. When you look at the 12 disciples, that's exactly what Jesus did. He trained them, he excited them, he armed them with the Holy Spirit, and he set them loose on the world. Now, the difference between the 12 apostles and the dirty dozen in the movie is in the movie four of the dirty dozen survived the suicide mission with the apostles only one does. Only one survives. In a sense, Jesus sent them on the suicide mission. Now, the interesting thing is just this, everyone of those disciples died, swearing that the gospel of Jesus was true. All they had to do was say it's not true. We didn't see what we said. We said Jesus didn't rise from the dead, and yet everyone of them was willing to go to their death in defense of that fact, because they were the true dirty dozen. Think about that. Let me pray. Father, I pray that as we consider the book of Mark now and into the future that you would make your grace clear, I pray that you would help us to be people of greater and greater faith because we are with you more and more. We pray these things in Christ's name and Amen and Amen.