The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
According to Mark, Jesus withdrew with his disciples to
the sea, and a great crowd followed from Galilee and Judea
and Jerusalem and Idumea, and from beyond the Jordan and from
around Tyler and Sidon. And when the And when the great
crowd heard of 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 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 that they might be with him, and he might
send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons.
He appointed the 12 Simon to him.
He gave the name Peter, James the son of Zebedee, and John the
brother of James, to whom he gave the name Bouana.
Guess that is son of Thunder, Andrew and Philip and
Bartholomew and Matthew and Thomas and James, the son of
Alphias and Thaddeus and Simon the Canonian and Judas Iscariot
who betrayed him the Gospel of the Lord.
Would you pray with me? Lord, we open our hearts to you.
As those early disciples followed you, Lord, let us also
follow you. I pray, Lord, that you would put
us in a community of grace where we can be rightly challenged and
invited further up and further in to become like you, to become
friends with you, and also to share in your holy and good
work. We pray this in the name of
Jesus, Amen. Well, please be seated and you
can turn your your Bibles or your bulletins to mark chapter 3
as we continue our series. Simply Jesus.
Well, my first few experiences of Chicago were as a tourist was
years ago. And I wonder if you could guess
some of the places that I went to experience Chicago.
Yeah, Navy Pier, which is classic mistake.
I didn't know any better. You probably didn't know any
better either when you first went there.
Giordano's. I didn't know.
I went to Ed to Bevic's. You know, where they insult you
and I this. I thought this is Chicago.
The Sears Tower. Still called Sears Tower, the
observatory there, if the bean had existed at that time,
probably would have gotten a picture with friends and it
would have been my Chicago experience.
I did get it. It was, it was Chicago.
It was a taste of it. It was an experience of it.
Kind of on the surface I was a tourist, but I had not yet
become a neighbor. Becoming a neighbor here was a
much longer process. It was a bigger commitment.
It was it was days and years and weeks and a long process, not
just moments. Becoming a Chicago neighbor,
what does that mean? What did that mean?
It means shoveling the sidewalk on a morning like this in the
winter and then in the summer. It means bringing a side dish to
your neighborhood block party. And it means finding and
supporting the offbeat restaurants and grocery stores.
And it means learning how to drive with the perfect blend of
like, you know, kindness and aggression.
You know, you have to learn this over time.
It's not just sampling the city, but actually learning how to
serve the city. And in Mark's gospel, he's going
to show us two different ways of responding positively to Jesus.
And one really is at that tourist level, there's these
crowds that show up for an experience of Jesus, a touch
point, a taste, and that is positive.
Yet a lot of people get stuck there.
That's their, that's their, that's their experience of
Christianity. It's on the tourist level.
But the adventure really begins in the second-half of the text
here, which is the neighbor level, where Jesus calls us to
be with him, to be friends with him and, and to share deeply in
his life and to to let him shape us over a long period of time
until he can entrust his Kingdom to us.
And Mark Fried, we're going to see that Jesus heals the crowds,
but he forms the disciples. And Jesus is always inviting us
to go beyond the crowd level into the discipleship level.
Not every Chicago tourist should become a Chicago neighbor, but
everyone who experiences any good positive touch point with
Jesus is invited to be shaped by him into discipleship.
And I just want to be clear that today all of us are invited up
the mountain to the level of discipleship formation in Jesus.
We'll talk a little bit about what that might mean for us, but
before we do, let's consider that first group, the crowds.
And as we look at verses 7 and 8 of Mark chapter 3, I want you to
just take special notice of all of the uses of the Word.
And can you notice all of the uses of the Word?
And in verses 7 and 8, Jesus withdrew with his disciples to
the sea. This is the Sea of Galilee.
This is his base of operations in the center, as it were of his
popularity. He withdrew with his disciples
to the sea and a great crowd followed.
This is a very unique word for crowd in Mark's Gospel.
This is the highest and and most populated sort of word that he
could use for the number of people.
And they went from from Galilee, which is up north to Judea,
which is an entire region in the South in which Jerusalem is, is
housed. So Galilee and Judea, verse 8
and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from
around Tyre and Sinon. So some of the northwest sort of
communities are, are, are traveling.
And so some of you here, you're familiar with the geography of
Palestine and you know, like this is a massive area,
especially where there's no like cars, there's there's nothing
but traveling on foot or traveling via animal.
This is a massive crowd. This is a very diverse crowd as
well. They're North and South and NW
diverse backgrounds, walks of life.
There are thousands and thousands of people all
converging around one person. They all want to get to 1
person. Why?
Well, Mark says when the great crowd heard all that he was
doing, all that Jesus was doing, they came to him.
When they heard what he was doing, they, they came to him.
And what they were hearing about him was that he was healing
people with all kinds of sicknesses.
And he was also setting people free from, from all kinds of
unclean spirits, otherwise known as demons who were, who were
tormenting people. And these two realities were
constant deep pain points for people in that day.
There was no modern medicine at that time.
Life expectancy right now in the year 2026 in the US is around 78
years old. In the time of Jesus's day, it
was between 20 and 40 years old, brought down especially by
infant mortality. But there was a lot of people
who are just, you know, from young to old, extraordinarily
sick and suffering and from every different level.
You have spiritual, you have psychological, you have psych,
psychiatric, you have physical. And what's happening is Jesus is
restoring people into wholeness and he's setting them free.
And if you or I were living at that time, and if you or I had
any kind of like physical, psychiatric, spiritual, sort of
death is taking over us and we could get to Jesus, we'd be in
this this crowd, You know, if we had any way of getting healing,
we would get there to we would want to converge on this one
man. Pain points of life get us
moving somewhere. We want change.
Things can't stay the same. And I would say that the pain
points of human existence is one of the reasons why people turn
to spirituality and religion. And it's one of the reasons why
people turn to Jesus and they begin to pray and they begin to
consider whether or not God could do something for them
through Christ. These people want relief and you
know, you don't see Jesus in this text responding to the
demands with a criticism. He doesn't say you shallow
consumers, what are you doing here?
All you care about is your healing.
The fact is that Jesus came for them.
He he makes space for them. Verse 9 shows us the
accommodations that he makes for them.
And he, Jesus told his disciples to have a boat ready for him
because of the crowd, lest they crush him.
You can imagine right off of the like little tiny lapping waves
on the Sea of Galilee, about maybe 10 feet off or so, 15 feet
off, there's a fishing boat, maybe one of the fishing boats
that Jesus's disciples would use for the fishing excursions.
And now it's repurposed as a healing station.
And Jesus sets up on the boat, maybe with a, a space for 1/2 a
dozen people or so to, to be around him.
Maybe folks to, you know, help carry people on the boat and and
hold them as Jesus is performing healings and delivering them
from unclean spirits. The water forms a bit of a Moat
so the crowds can't just crush on to Jesus.
They have to maybe form a line. Perhaps we don't know, but
perhaps they form some kind of a line.
And I don't like it's like Midway airport.
People are like cutting in line or something like that.
But but they make their way through the waters and they get
up on the boat and there's a lot of intensity there.
Verse 10, they're, they're pressing around to touch Jesus,
they're trying to touch him. And we just imagine like there's
a, there's a lot of energy here. There's a lot of intensity here.
If if any of you've been in a crowded situation where everyone
wants the same thing, maybe it's a concert, maybe it's Black
Friday shopping, we don't know, a limited edition item.
Everyone wants that. It's not the most personal
tender kind of a moment. It's it's real pushy.
It's real Chevy and you need some crowd control.
It's worth saying that there's something transactional about
these crowds. They want to touch Jesus almost
like he's a magician with special powers that they can
access. They want a touch point from the
Lord, not necessarily an imprint.
And those two things are different.
Something on the surface they want to change, something
physical they a pain they want to go away, something spiritual
they want to change. That goes a little bit deeper,
But they want a touch point, not an imprint per SE.
That choice will come later. Jesus nevertheless gives them
what they saw at verse 10. He had healed many.
He healed many and just imagined the thousands of people getting
healed at all the different levels that you can imagine, the
sicknesses they brought, wholeness, people walking in
freedom, people crying tears of joy for the first time,
thousands of people getting a touch from Jesus.
And it was especially for them. It was kind of a resurrection of
life. We can imagine it.
People jumping out of the boat where Jesus healed them,
swimming to shore, shaking the water out of their hair, crying
for joy for the first time, dancing with their friends.
A woman limping in pain now dancing with her friends.
Or what about a child who couldn't speak after he is
healed by Jesus? He's laughing with his parents.
His parents are throwing him in the air.
Or troubled man who hasn't slept a full night's sleep in years.
Finally, that very night after the touch from Jesus, he sleeps
for 10 hours without any torment, waking him up in the
middle of the night and his life has changed forever.
And imagine being a part of this and seeing this like thousands,
maybe 10s of thousands of people just changed and healed.
Earlier on in Mark's gospel, there was an all night healing
service at Peter's mother in law's house.
The whole village came from all the way from sundown all the way
to sun up. It's like the new dawn of the
Kingdom of God is coming. What it like?
We would never forget this moment.
We would not want to ever forget this moment.
Jesus wouldn't want us to forget this moment, this era where the
healing king has come and God's Kingdom is here and darkness is
getting rolled back and everything in us would want to
just bottle it up and be like, let's just stay here.
Let's just keep this rolling. Let's invite the whole world.
Jesus was here for it. Jesus is still here for it
because he loves saving people. He loves helping people.
So what are the pain points, friends, that are bringing us to
Jesus? What are the pain points that
get us like praying again with passion, like putting skin in
the game with God? What longings got us here this
morning? I mean, it's like how cold is it
out there? How snowy it is?
Somehow we got ourselves here. Was there a pain point that got
you here, that got you moving? What longings get us to like
open the scriptures with some hunger and some and some
passion? What what pain points get us
gathering with people in in a group of group of strangers
we've never met before and being like, I want to be in community
with you. Is it loneliness?
Is it physical sickness or or ailments?
Is it a a painful conflict? Is it spiritual emptiness that
we've we're left in from city life or overwork?
Is it just the basic things of life?
We just need food. We just need money.
We just need protection from danger.
We just need a job. You know, The thing is guys, I
still pray for these things. Like every day I pray give us,
give us this day Our Daily Bread.
I bring, I bring surface touch points to Jesus all the time.
I'm still in the crowds, and Jesus is still finding me in
those crowds, and he's still healing me and he's still
helping me and He's still providing for me, and he could
do the same for you. Truth be told, I still want that
healing touch. I still want that special moment
on the Sea of Galilee. I still want the heavenly
consolations where I know Jesus is speaking to me and leading me
and encouraging me. Oh, it's awesome.
And I want it for you too. I want it for more people and
the Northside of Chicago and all all over this city, not just
from our church, but from all the churches that preach the
gospel. Oh, I want revival and
deliverance from danger. I love a spiritual high.
There's nothing wrong with a spiritual high.
There's nothing. We need them.
We need to sometimes have a spiritual dream where Jesus
speaks to us. Sometimes we need someone to
speak a prophetic word that they had no idea what we're going
through and they spoke something deep.
Deep that they would have never known, but God knew and he told
them to tell us. Sometimes we need stuff like
that, but it just doesn't stop there.
Sometimes we take the benefits without without blessing Jesus,
and sometimes we don't even know it's him.
You know it. It's interesting.
The irony is that in this passage, the only ones in the
crowd to recognize Jesus's true authority and identity are the
unclean spirits. They're the only ones with the
correct theology. Verse 11 and 12, 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.
Jesus strictly ordered them. Hey, you are not the messengers
here. So the unclean spirits in this
text are. They are in a grotesque way.
They're speaking through the people that they have possessed,
and they're using the voice to say the words.
You are the Son of God. They're using the bodies of
these people to kneel down before Jesus, and Jesus silences
the unclean spirits. They're not supposed to talk.
They're not supposed to be controlling.
He would. He would cast them out.
In other parts of Mark, we see Jesus consistently, repeatedly
delivering these poor individuals from the unclean
spirits. It's worth saying too, that
Jesus is not going to build his long term strategy on their
confession. They are unworthy messengers of
his identity. Their theology was accurate, but
they were unworthy. Jesus came actually to form
people who could confess that he was God's Son, with their life,
with their obedience, with a true and good confession.
And that doesn't happen overnight.
Jesus wasn't building his long term strategy on crowds and
popularity. He didn't come to make an
impression, He came to make an imprint.
He didn't come to boost spiritual tourism.
He came to make disciples. And in a world that loves to
scale up, Jesus seems inclined to scale down.
Which leads us to the second, more or more arduous, more
challenging, more satisfying, more personally impactful
section of our text. And Mark starting in verse 13.
This is the disciples here and and he, Jesus went up on the
mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came
to him. This is Jesus's small batch
strategy for building his Kingdom.
He separated from the crowd and he went up a mountain.
He went a higher way, a higher call, an upward climb to be with
his father and he invited others to join him.
He identified a small group of people that he desired to be
with. He saw them, he saw something in
them like I want to shape you, I want to form you, I want to give
responsibility to you. I want us to be friends, Co
workers and I want you to inherit my Kingdom.
That's pretty special. He saw them, he wanted them.
He invited them up and they said yes.
Wow. They said yes to the upward
climb, to the upward call. Do you think you would have said
yes, or that I would have said yes?
Notice how relational this is? Verse 14.
He appointed 12. He appointed 12, whom he also
named apostles. That is sent once so that they
might be with him. This is relational.
It's a call to friendship with Jesus.
He wants to share his life with us and for us to share our life
with him over the next, you know, three years.
He would share a lot of mundane moments with his disciples.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner. You know, they would, they would
walk a lot. They would kind of sleep in the
same dwelling places most of the time.
There was a lot of things that you would experience in a close
community. Highs and lows, laughing and
crying, feasting and hunger, praying and playing, conflicts,
OK, awkward moments, beautiful moments, tender moments.
And with every moment Jesus would impart something very
personal from his, from himself to his disciples.
Same imprint he had from his Father.
He would give to the to the ones he wanted to be with.
And it wasn't just this 12, it was it was others that were not
part of the 12, but they were nevertheless formed and shaped
by Jesus like Mary Magdalene and others.
These people would not be tourists in Jesus Kingdom.
That wasn't their approach. They would be, they would be
neighbors. They they wouldn't just be
consumers of Jesus's ministry, just receiving all the
blessings. They would actually be providers
of it and it would be a blessing for them to pass the blessing
on. Verse 4, second-half of verse 14
describes this. He, you know, he appointed them
and he might send them out to preach and have authority to
cast out demons. Now this too is, is relational
because they're going to share in his work.
They they actually going to join him in his work of restoring the
world to wholeness one person at a time.
And they'll become givers, not just receivers of ministry.
They'll be the ones to announce that Jesus is Lord throughout
the Roman Empire. That took guts for them to do
that. They would be deployed to heal
people to to cast out demons, to push back the darkness.
They would be deployed, guess what, to make other disciples
to, to form imprints of other people like John Mark who wrote
this gospel. Isn't that cool?
The guy who wrote this text was a disciple of Peter, who was a
disciple of Jesus, and the work continued.
Small batch strategy. Jesus trusted them with his life
and mission. In the course of three years, he
made the deepest imprint possible on their souls.
Guess what? There was no shortcuts.
There were no shortcuts to a messy, complex, wonderful,
painful personal process, and it's the best imprint that
anyone could make. Notice the names that Jesus
gives in verse 16 and 17. He appointed the 12 Simon, to
whom he gave the name Peter, which means rock.
Verse 17, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, the brother
of James, to whom he gave the name, the very auspicious name
Boadrenese, that is Sons of Thunder, kind of feels like a
teasing name, a little bit like a, you know what I mean, rock.
I would probably prefer rock than Boander.
It's hard to pronounce anyway, from the jump.
Jesus could always see something in Simon.
You're a rock. You're called to be a rock.
He could see in Peter just a very special and unique future
like Peter. One day you're going to be a
strong and humble leader. You're going to be a rock for
the early church through her first few years of of existence,
which are going to be like, it's going to be like a, like a, like
an earthquake or a storm, but you're going to be a rock for
the early church. So he named him rock.
He named him Peter. But to become that rock, there's
no shortcuts for Peter. He had to go through a
three-year process where he would be melted down into like
molten lava, you know, and he would have to be reforged.
He would have to fail before he could stand.
He had to be exposed before he could represent Christ to the
world. He had to go through the process
where he saw his own immaturity and his own instability and his
own fear. And he also had to see how just
how loved he was through Jesus and how unconditional Christ's
love for him was through the cross.
He had to see that first. He had to fail at life, fail at
leadership with Jesus at his side as his friend, encouraging
him, coaching him, and he had to just be humble enough to just go
through it all. And the the same is true for
James and John. You know, Sons of Thunder,
probably a personality trait flaw, family flaw, something
anger. But we know about John.
He became the beloved disciple. He became very affectionate.
He became a shepherd to the early church, very special guy.
And that was a transformation process for him too.
I do you ever wonder if Jesus sees something in you?
Do you? I've wondered that too.
What do you see in me, Jesus? And I just want to assure you
this morning, he sees something in you.
And you know, even Revel, the Book of Revelation written by
John, says that the Lord has a special name for each one of us
who who call him Lord. It's written on a Whitestone.
We'll find out what that name is later.
Maybe along the way we'll get a hint of what that looks like.
All that to say, Jesus sees something in each one of us, and
it's part of his call for us to follow him.
And there's no shortcuts. There's a painful, complex,
messy process for us to become disciples.
We learn what our name is, what our role is, what our call is.
He works with all types and backgrounds.
At verse 18 and 19, we see a different set of Anne's Andrew
and Philip and Bartholomew and Matthew and Thomas and James the
son of Alpheus and Thaddeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas
Iscariot who betrayed him. That's quite a list.
You know, Some of these people were doubters, like Thomas.
Others were zealously confident, like Simon the Zealot.
Not Simon, who was called Peter somewhere outgoing like Andrew.
He was a big evangelist. Like you got to meet Jesus and
you got to meet Jesus. And others of these were type B
leaders. They were not in the spotlight.
We, we hear very rarely about them, you know, and even Judas
is on this list. And I'm sure Jesus saw something
in him. And the invitation for, for
Judas was, was to become a disciple of Jesus.
You know, so this is like there's an uncertainty to, to,
to the, to the call. We don't have to say yes at the
beginning and we don't have to say yes at the end, but the
invitation is there. And guys, this was the plan.
The crowds weren't that. The crowds looked so impressive
and it was impressive and special, but this like was the
plan. This is digging down to the
foundations of our life through Christ and friendship and
community and formation and suffering and highs and lows and
being known and loved into the future and the name God has for
us and how he's calling us. That's the plan.
He healed the crowds, but He hewed the disciples, He fed the
multitudes, but He formed the few.
He gave them a higher call, not to be better than the crowds,
but to serve the crowds, to make disciples of the crowds.
And what a tragedy would have been for these 12 men, to these
12 individuals and others with them, to stay with the crowds
and to pass up the invitation to climb the mountain.
I wonder if we were to ask them, Peter, James, John, Mary
Magdalene, etcetera, like what were the stakes of climbing that
mountain or not? What would they say?
Like if we did you have any idea of what you were getting into
when you climbed up the mountain with Jesus that fateful day?
Maybe they would say this, look, I didn't know that it would
eventually lead to the cross and I ran away from the cross at
first, but then I embraced it because I, I saw that it was the
way of life. It was God's gateway of life.
So I just, I eventually I ran there, even though I ran away
the first time. Maybe they would say I didn't
know how much immaturity and hurts and sins would come to the
surface. I also didn't know how deeply I
was loved and forgiven until they did come to the surface and
I saw the patient tenderness in Jesus's eyes.
Maybe they would say this. I didn't know how much
responsibility I would end up carrying, but I also didn't know
how thrilling it would be to see people set free.
Maybe they'd say, I'm glad I took that first step up the
mountain, even though I had no idea what it would lead to.
But it was just that first step. Here's the way we become
disciples of Jesus, my brothers and sisters, We pray Jesus lead
me up that mountain and then we follow him.
There is that. The thing is that like going the
next step with the Jesus is not going back down to the Sea of
Galilee to repeat the special spiritual experience that we
once had, to relive that era where we felt close to God.
That's not the future for us to become disciples of Jesus.
It's wonderful and we can thank God for it, but that's not God's
future for us. The future is not down into
nostalgia. The future is up into
discipleship. It's an upward climb.
It's a holy challenge. It's tonight, the right next
step. What might that look like for us
here at Emmanuel in 2026? You know, one way, one very
simple countercultural way, is to begin to make space for
friendship in our life with Jesus in Chicago.
The ambient climate is not going to encourage us in that
direction. We will fill every spare moment
with work, projects, productivity, voice memos,
podcasts, fun times with friends.
Like all these things, we will Max out our time.
We will have no space to hear the voice of Jesus and it just
take friendship, as you know takes time.
Do we want to be friends with Jesus?
I mean, that's a very basic thing.
Do we want to listen to him, work with him, do life with him
is a very basic question. So one of the ways that we make
space for Jesus to climb up the mountain is to just take time,
find a time where we can just be with him, to meditate on
Scripture, to take time in silence devoted to him.
Our discipleship team is actually, we have a discipleship
team at Emmanuel. This week.
They met and they've been designing classes and
experiences for us to learn how to practice this.
In fact, I heard a rumor that Father Samuel is going to teach
a course on Colossians, the book of Colossians.
There's going to be other courses, how to read the Bible,
how to pray. There's going to be some amazing
what we had one yesterday on the Book of Common Prayer.
So space for Jesus. Another way of climbing the
mountain is joining a community of friendship with others who
are becoming friends with Jesus and grow in your discipleship
with them. It might mean not just coming on
Sundays, but joining a city group that meets throughout the
city throughout the week and seeking to grow like Christ with
them as well. Or maybe even a smaller group of
peers who will challenge us in our faith.
I've heard talk of what's called triads to other people who are
also like following Christ together and being shaped into
Christ's image. And when, not if, but when our
stuff comes up and we get close enough to other people and the
Lord. Where our immaturities rise to
the surface. Or when our weaknesses rise to
the surface. Or when our unmet desires rise
to the surface and we're just frustrated that we're forgiven,
loved, encouraged, and called up to face our fears, to have the
right next conversation, to embrace a new spiritual
discipline, To watch and pray with Christ, To fast and pray
during Lent. Whatever the case might be, we
just keep taking the next step of discipleship.
You know, one of the things I appreciate most about Emmanuel
Anglican is that this has always been a church filled with people
who want more discipleship actually, than we can offer.
Most of the time. There's a supply and demand like
issue here to quite frankly, that we're that we're seeking to
to correct. We actually, I'm so honored and
blown away by the hunger I see and hear about from from you,
from the church about wanting to be shaped, wanting to grow,
wanting community, wanting to know what does it look like to
follow Christ authentically, richly and deeply in the city of
Chicago Because it's not easy, right?
But you want to. That's why you're here.
And in 2026, I see Emmanuel Anglican forming people of every
age into deeper discipleship and beyond. 2026 too, but starting
this year, more intentional deep formation of of youth and people
just getting started in their careers and people in midlife
and people in the golden years and every, every age, people
getting formed and shaped to be disciples of Jesus.
The thing is that there's no shortcut to Chicago experiencing
the kind of healing we saw at the Sea of Galilee in Mark 3.
There's no shortcut to getting there without us climbing the
mountain. We got to climb the mountain
first. We got to climb the mountain.
Even as we share the gospel, even as we push back the
darkness, even as we pray for justice in our city, even as we
seek to integrate our faith and our work.
There's no shortcut to discipleship for those things to
happen. Jesus is still calling people up
the mountain, not to impress him, but to be with him, not for
touch points, but for a deep imprint.
Not for a moment, but for a lifetime and beyond.
Why friends, it's because of who we are.
We're not tourists, we're neighbors.
And let's become disciples of Jesus starting this morning and
follow him up the mountain in the name of the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, Amen.