Good morning. My name is Jimmy. I'm one of the pastors here at Metrocrest. And I'm delighted to have you here. Since this doesn't happen often where things come together as they're coming together this morning, if you'd allow me a moment of personal privilege, I wanted to acknowledge my mom and dad are here, and on Friday, they will be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. 50 years ago this Friday, they were married in Copper's Cove, Texas. And then dad took her back to the great state of North Carolina. So anyway, would you turn with me to Mark chapter three, In your program, there is a salmon-colored piece of paper that has our text on it, if you'd like to look there, and a place on the back to take notes, if you wish. Or you can look in your Bible, or one of the Bibles that's under the chairs, or on your electronic device. But we are going to look at Mark chapter three, verses 7 through 35, and if you would stand with me and let's hear from God this morning as he speaks to us through his word. Let us as a church pay attention to what the Spirit is saying to us. Verse 7 of chapter 3, Jesus withdrew his disciples with his disciples to the sea. And a great crowd followed from Galilee, and Judea, and Jerusalem, and Edomia, and 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 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 whom he gave the name Peter, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, the brother of James, to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder. Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James, the son of Alphaeus, Thaddeus, Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, He is out of his mind. And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, He is possessed by Beelzebul. And by the prince of demons he casts out the demons. And he called them to him and said to them in parables, how can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed, he may plunder his house. Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin. For they had said, he has an unclean spirit. And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, your mother and brothers are outside seeking you. And he answered them, who are my mother and my brothers? And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister. mother. This is the Word of the Lord, let's pray. Father, we thank you for this word from Mark. Thank you for giving it to him to write. Thank you for providing and preserving it for us to read all these years later so that we might know Jesus and so that we might make him known. Would you now by your spirit come and make him known to us in the preaching of your word, in the administering of your sacrament at the Lord's table? Would we see Jesus high and lifted up and would you draw our hearts to him? We ask in his name, amen. Please be seated. So why are we here? Why are we here? I know now there's some of you who are elbowing your mother or your spouse and asking, exactly, why are we here? I mean, it's a beautiful day. I'm hungry. But besides that, seriously, why are we here? Not just at Metrocrest on a beautiful October Sunday morning, but why are we here at all? Why do we even exist? For what purpose are we here? It's a question, of course, that's been asked and answered for ages. It's a question that many of us ask when our relationships and the responsibilities of life begin to get confusing, when our paths take us into the valley of the shadow of death, when the plot thickens and the pages turn to the dark chapters of our stories. Some of you are there right now. Your heart is heavy with the weight of your relationships and your responsibilities, and you're asking, why am I here? If we have not numbed our hearts during these difficult days, we may have the courage to ask, why am I here? Is there any purpose for this pain, in this pain, beyond this pain? And we have to ask that question because pain makes us prone to forget our purpose. But why am I here is not just a question for the dark days. It's the question all of us must ask when it's all good as well. When our hearts are full with the pleasure that comes from fulfilling relationships and fulfilled responsibilities, when our paths lead us into green pastures and besides still waters. When this chapter of our story is marked by physical and relational health and wealth, some of you are there right now. Your heart is light because at least for the moment in this season, your relationships and responsibilities are not a burden, but a blessing. And if that's where you are, if all is going well for you, then heed this warning from King Solomon, whose life defined living the dream. He said in Ecclesiastes 7, it is better to go to a house of mourning than go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone. The living should take this to heart. Frustration is better than laughter, he says, because a sad face is good for the heart. The heart of the wise is in the house of the morning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure. Solomon is reminding us that pleasure also makes us prone to forget our purpose for living. He suggests that people who are living the dream are perhaps even more prone to forget their purpose than those who are in pain. It's easy to numb our hearts during our days of delight. And so even when it's all good, we must ask, why am I here? Is there a purpose for this pleasure, in this pleasure? Is there a purpose beyond this pleasure? Why are we here? It's a simple yet profound question. It has a simple and yet profound answer. So simple, in fact, that as soon as I tell you the answer, you're going to be tempted to dismiss it. And here it is. The Bible teaches us that we are here to know God and to make Him known. The purpose for your pain, in your pain, and beyond your pain is that you might know God and make Him known to others. The purpose for your pleasure, in your pleasure, beyond your pleasure is that you might know God and make Him known to others. I am here, I exist to know God and to make Him known. And you're saying, well sure, preacher, you're a pastor, that's your job, get to it. No, my job is to equip you to know God and make Him known. And that's what I'm doing right now, thank you. I'm getting to it. But my purpose is the same as yours. My purpose is to know God and make Him known, no matter what my profession is. And so is yours. The same is true for you. You are here. You exist. You're alive to know him and to make him known. No matter what's going on in your life right now, whether it's at home or work, in your body, in your extended family, whether it's good, bad, easy, hard, you can know God no matter what. You can make him known no matter what. And so can I. How do I know this? Frankly, because the Bible tells me so. We were created to know God and to make him known. It's interesting that at the center of all of reality is a God, a three-in-one God, who knows himself and makes himself known. He knows himself in the eternal relationship of God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, but God didn't keep himself to himself. He created a people to whom he could make himself known and he created a place in which they could be with him and in which they could make him known. Genesis tells us that he formed the universe and he filled it with people, made it in his image, who could know him and make him known. He created all of us, all of humanity, to be with Him and to make Him known to the generations to come so that they could be with Him and know Him, and they could make Him known to the generations to come. But when Jesus came, He came into a world that no longer lived to know God and make Him known, at least not on God's terms. Because of our rebellious hearts, we've cut ourselves off from that purpose. And He came to rescue us from our refusal to know God and make Him known and to restore us to that purpose for which we are created. And so that brings us to Mark chapter 3. Look again at verses 11 through 15. Mark says that whenever the unclean spirits saw Jesus, they fell down before Him and cried out, you are the Son of God. You'd think that would be something he would want. He wants to make himself known, right? But he strictly ordered them not to make him known. Interesting. So far in Mark, he's told demons not to make him known. He's told healed people not to make him known. Interesting. But then he appointed 12. whom he also named apostles, for two things, so that they might be with him and so that he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons. These men were called and commissioned to know Jesus and to make Jesus known. And I want to make it clear, it's not just to know about Jesus, but to be with Jesus, to know him relationally, not merely intellectually. And so throughout the rest of this message, when I talk about knowing God and knowing Jesus, I am talking about intimate knowledge, not merely intellectual knowledge, though it's not less than intellectual or factual knowledge. It is more than that. It's being with Jesus. It's interesting that the disciples were known for this in Acts chapter 4. It says that when the religious leaders saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. Their intellectual capacities were not impressive, but the fact that they had been with Jesus was unmistakable. So it's not less than knowing facts, but much more. They were called to know him, and they were also sent by Jesus to make him known to the world by declaration, preaching and proclaiming Jesus, and by demonstration. He gave them the authority to, as a friend says, punch holes in the darkness, to push back the darkness, to give living proof that the light of the world has come and is coming again. Under that preaching, now 2,000 years later, we sit. You are listening to the testimony of those men as recorded by Mark. And you are gathered together as a community of Jesus' people on Jesus' mission to punch holes in the darkness, to push it back. These men passed down from generation to generation this purpose of making Jesus known because we know him and now it has come to us. And I want to note too that these men fulfilled that purpose in the midst of a culture that rejected Jesus. They were rejected by their families, they were kicked out of their religious communities, and they gave up their financial security and eventually were killed for sharing and showing Jesus to people. And still, they were able to accomplish the mission to know Jesus and to make him known in their generation. What about us? What about our generation? Listen, church. no matter who the president is now or will be, no matter whether the economy takes off or tanks, whether we wake up tomorrow to find that the American experiment has failed or is flourishing, whether our religious liberty is lost or limited, you and I are still called and capable to accomplish our purpose to know God and make him known. Make no mistake about that. And if we're gonna be that kind of people, then we need to come to Jesus. So we're gonna look at him this morning in Mark 3. I'm gonna spend the rest of our time mainly focusing on knowing Jesus as he's been revealed in Mark's gospel. And I'll spend just a brief minute or two on the second point of making Jesus known. It's because I'm convinced that the more I know Jesus, and I mean truly know him, the more likely I will make him known in the places he's put me. So let's look at Jesus together now. This is where it's gonna get fun. In Mark chapter three, we have a summary of who Mark has already shown Jesus to be in chapters one and two, particularly in verses seven through 19. This is a summary. Mark is kind of wrapping things up, tying things up before he moves further in the story. And in these verses, and in Mark chapters 1 and 2 so far, Mark shows Jesus and asks us to know Jesus as the king of a new creation and the king of a new community. So first let's look at the king of a new creation. Again, Mark tells us that crowds were coming to Jesus for he had healed many so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. Imagine that. He thought he was gonna get crushed by the crowds. That's how popular he had become because of his healings. Mark, first of all, wants us to know Jesus as the king over physical brokenness. In Mark chapter one, he healed Simon Peter's mother-in-law and many with diseases. He cleansed the leper. In Mark chapter two, he healed the paralytic who got up and walked. And now in chapter three, he healed the man with a withered hand on the Sabbath. So, so far in chapters one through three, Mark has been working to show that Jesus is God, the creator, the one who in the first five days of creation made every physical thing and the one who will one day make all things new, a new heaven and a new earth, a new creation. These miracles are meant to give us a glimpse into the new creation over which Jesus already reigns and is already renewing, but is not yet finished. But Mark not only wants us to know Jesus as the king over physical brokenness, he also wants us to know him as the king over spiritual brokenness. Spiritual brokenness that is found both in angels and humans. Mark summarizes Jesus' rule over the spiritual brokenness of angelic beings in verses 11 and 12 when he talks about unclean spirits who cry out and they fall down. That's a falling down in homage to a God or a king. In Mark 1, in the wilderness, he was unsuccessfully tempted by Satan, but he was successfully ministered to by angels. In Mark 1, he heals a man with an unclean spirit, says, be silent and come out of him. He silenced him and sent him away. In Mark 1, again, he cast out many demons and did not permit them to speak. So Jesus is the king over all angelic beings, including the broken ones, the rebellious ones. But Mark also summarizes Jesus' rule over the spiritual brokenness of human beings. In verse 28 of our passage, he says, truly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man and whatever blasphemies they utter. That doesn't mean everybody gets forgiven, it's just done. It means all kinds of sins and blasphemies will be forgiven. Our spiritual brokenness does not stop King Jesus. In Mark chapter two, Mark tells us the story of the paralytic to whom Jesus said, son, your sins are forgiven. And Jesus said, the son of man has authority to forgive sins. In Mark chapter two, Jesus said he came to heal the spiritually sick. They're the ones in need of a doctor, he says. So in chapters 1 through 3, Mark has been working to show us that Jesus is God the creator, the one who not only made angelic beings, a third of whom rebelled against him, but then on the sixth day of creation made human beings, all of whom rebelled against him. Jesus, through Mark, is making himself known as the one who will one day make all things new, who through the exchange of his perfect life, his payment of death on the cross, his powerful resurrection from the dead, he will make new creations out of every man, woman, boy, and girl who will trust in him alone for the forgiveness of their sins. Paul said it this way, anyone who is in Christ, He is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. Jesus came to disarm the devil, to bind the strongman, to sabotage Satan and his work, so that Jesus and we could enter the strongman's house and take Satan's spoils, namely, spiritually broken people. Jesus came to declare and demonstrate that for those who are his, the old has passed away and the new has come. So Jesus is the king of a new creation that's already but not yet finished and is coming. His miracles and his forgiveness of sins are glimpses into that glorious new creation. But Jesus is also the king of a new community. Look at the parallels between what God did with and for Israel in the Old Testament and what Jesus did here in Mark chapter 3. Very interesting. In the Old Testament, God called to himself a people that he desired, 12 tribes. And they came to him out of Egypt into the wilderness. And Moses, after doing signs and wonders, miracles that confirmed him as God's messenger and mediator, he led them to a mountain, Mount Sinai. Well, now look what Jesus does. Jesus withdrew, it says in Mark 3, with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem. All those places he lists are places in the north, the south, the east, the west. They include Gentiles, not just Jews. Jesus is the new Moses. And when the great crowd heard all that he was doing, his signs and wonders, they came to him, and he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him, and he appointed 12." Twelve. Not tribes, but apostles. Mark is trying to show us that Jesus is the fulfillment of all that the Old Testament promised. In the Old Testament for Israel on Mount Sinai, God established a covenant relationship with Israel with laws. Interesting, the laws prescribed knowing God by loving him with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength, Commandments 1 through 4. They prescribed making God's love known by the way they love their neighbor, Commandments 5 through 10. He was building a community that would know him and make him known. Look what Jesus did with the apostles. He appointed them that they might be with him and he might send them out to make him known. This new Israel is to be built on the 12 apostles and it is also a community that knows God and makes him known. But this new community is established not with the old covenant but with a new one. In the old covenant given at Mount Sinai, sinners like us could only be in a loving relationship of knowing God through obedience to the laws concerning the temple, the priests, the sacrifices. That's it. It's the only way sinners could know a holy God. This new covenant community, the church, knows God up close and personal through the one to whom the temple, the priests, and the sacrifices pointed. Jesus said, I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. And he did. Jesus is the way to know God because he is our true temple, our true high priest, our lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Mark shows us in chapters one and two that Jesus was in constant conflict with the Jewish leaders of his day because essentially they had put their trust in their obedience of God's laws rather than in God himself. They were relying on their rituals rather than on the one to whom the rituals gave them access. But Mark wants us to know Jesus as the redeemer of our religious brokenness. our self-dependent solution to our brokenness. And so Jesus exposes the brokenness of the religious self-salvation projects by going after the misuse and abuse of the Sabbath. And so in chapters one and two, we saw that Jesus won't tolerate our legalistic heartless Sabbath keeping. It's not about religiously keeping the rules, but remembering and resting in the King who comes to redeem and restore. Mark has been working to show that Jesus is not only God the creator, but God the redeemer. The one who on the seventh day of creation week said, it is finished. And rested from his work and then invited his people to rest with and in him. The Sabbath was a gift of dependent rest for independent rebels. A reminder that we could rest from our doing by resting in the God who has done it all. These confrontations with the religious leaders were recorded to show us that no amount of self-dependent law-keeping or rule-keeping could redeem or restore our physical and spiritual brokenness. We must rest in Jesus the Redeemer alone. On the cross, he announced the good news that it is finished. And then the curtain between God and his people was torn from top to bottom. The true Moses has come to lead us out of bondage. The true Aaron has come to be our high priest. The true Lamb of God has come to be the sacrifice for our sins. We can know God on his terms, not ours. Friends, be encouraged, Jesus didn't come for people who have their acts together. He came for people like Peter, who promised to die for Jesus, but denied him three times. He came for people like James and John, the sons of thunder, who asked their mommy to ask Jesus to put them at his right and left hand. He came for people like Thomas, who wouldn't believe until he could put his fingers in Jesus' wounds after his resurrection. He came for you and me. He came for you and me, who deny Him, who demand from Him, and who all the time disbelieve Him. So what is your response to this King Jesus? Something that's interesting in this passage is to see the way people responded to Jesus. And the two responses that are here are, He's mad, or He's bad. His family said, he's mad, he's out of his mind. And the scribes said, he's bad, he's possessed, he's a fake, he's a deceiver. You know that C.S. Lewis is famous for arguing that you must believe that Jesus is either a lunatic, a liar, or he's Lord. He said, a man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg, or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the son of God, or else a madman or something worse. Lewis says, you can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. Lewis says, it seems to me obvious that he was neither a lunatic nor a fiend, and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that he was and is God. The underlying response underneath those responses of he's mad or he's bad is a response of unbelief. What is your response to this Jesus today? What is your response to the Jesus that Mark is revealing to us? Do you dismiss him or do you bow and fall at his feet and call him Lord and God? Mark has given us a great, great opportunity to know Jesus as He really is, the great and glorious and gracious God. And when we know Him, we will wanna make Him known. So just a minute or two about making Jesus known. I'm gonna embarrass a couple of people this morning. I did not ask for their permission to use them as an illustration, but if they don't let me do this, I will not marry them. to each other in December. My friend, Steven Hartgrove, sitting right back there with his lovely fiancee, Caitlin. Steven loves to tell people about how wonderful Caitlin is, and he does it on Facebook. I'll see every now and then, she's just awesome, I love this woman, I'm so proud of her, and he just gushes, ooh, it's awesome. All of us husbands need to take note of that and learn from him. But this is a wonderful picture, isn't it, of what happens when you get to know someone whom you've come to love and adore. You have to make them known. You have to. He can't help himself. He gets the joy of making Caitlin known to the people in his world, and she gets the glory of his adoring love and praise. That's all that Jesus asks from us is that we would know him so well and know him as so wonderful that we can't help ourselves but to make him known two ways. We make him known through declaration. He sent them out to preach, to proclaim the good news about the king and his kingdom. In order to do that, you have to use words. You can use his words, show someone, Mark, say, would you read about Jesus with me? Or you can use your words, your testimony of knowing Christ. Tell them how he has shown you that he is the king of a new creation and a new community, and that you're caught up in that kingdom and in that story. And as you do, remember, the disciples were not known for their smarts, for their intellectual powers, but they were known as men who had been with Jesus. You're not being asked by Jesus to impress people with what you know, but to impart to them who you know. But also through demonstration. Not only do we proclaim the good news, we portray the good news about the king and his kingdom. And we use works, works motivated by His grace, works that are not meant to get God to love us, but works we do because He loves us. Use His works and the apostles' works. Use this word. Recorded miracles and healings and authority over demons that Jesus and the apostles did. But use your works, our works, the miracle of transformed relationships. Do you realize that those 12 guys should have never hung out together? You've got a zealot who wanted to bring the government down. You've got a tax collector who was working for the government. It just shouldn't have worked. Before the service, I saw my son and his friend, Steven, who, one's a Tennessee fan and one's an A&M fan. Only by God's grace should they sit together. The miracle of transformed relating, loving God and others, putting Jesus on display by how you relate to people, portray the power of the gospel by the way you relate to people. Jesus said, they will know you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Because Christ is in you and you are in him, you have authority, his authority, to punch holes in the darkness, to push back the darkness, to give living proof that the light of the world has come and is coming again. That great gospel-believing and preaching Anglican bishop of the 1800s, J.C. Ryle, said it this way, a Christian is a walking sermon. They preach far more than a minister does, for they preach all week long. Make Jesus known with your words, with your works. As we come to the table now, I want to wrap up what we've been talking about and lead us to the table. And I want to do that with this quote that I've put in your program on the handout. I think Larry Crabb sums this up beautifully when he says, Christians are thirsty both to know God and to reveal God. The pursuit of knowing God as he is in his eternal community and knowing what he is doing in this disappointing and difficult world generates an insatiable thirst to make him known to others, make known who he is and what he's up to. Friends, are you thirsty to know God and to make Him known this morning? Are the circumstances of your life creating in you a craving to know Jesus and to make Him known to others in your world? If so, you've come to the right place. You've come to a place where Jesus not only reveals himself through the preached word, but through this table, through this picture of his life and death and resurrected life. If you're hungry to know God, know him here. Know him in Jesus. And he will create in you this insatiable hunger and thirst to make him known. because you're amazed at how awesome he is. And you love him too much to keep him to yourself.