The Job Description of A Jesus Follower

Mark 3:7-21

Does anyone here remember, back when you were a kid, on a Saturday morning, hopping in the car with your dad or grandpa, to head down to the hardware store to pick up supplies for the day’s home improvement or repair projects? I sure do, and they’re great memories. Or maybe you were walking with a parent or grandparent through JoAnn’s Fabrics as they bought what they needed to sew and stitch something together. You may not have realized it then, but as you walked through the hardware store or fabric store with them, you were learning.

Pastor C. Philip Green tells this story from his own childhood. “When I was a kid, Saturday mornings were chore day. Often my dad would say, “C’mon kid,” and I’d hop in the station wagon, and we would drive down the street to Hooper Wolfe’s hardware store. Hooper Wolfe’s had an old wood door, painted white – except where the paint was worn off near the handle. You walked in, and you could hardly move. There were two narrow aisles. The counters were filled with merchandise, shelves were overflowing, and stuff was hanging from the ceiling. You’d think, No way am I going to find anything in here.

But you didn’t need to. As soon as you walked in, Clarence from behind the counter would say, “Help you today?” My dad would say something like, “I want to hang a light out back.”

Clarence would come out from behind the counter and ask questions. “Where you going to hang it? Over the patio? Well then” – and he would start rummaging through shelves until he pulled off just the right light – “you want a light like this. And don’t use these bolts here; they’re good for indoor stuff, but for outdoor, you want something galvanized.”

“Your wall is brick, isn’t it?” Clarence asked. (Even though our town was small, I was impressed he knew what our house was made of.) “Well, to run the conduit through there, you want a masonry drill bit at least ¾ of an inch. If we don’t have that in stock, you can get one over at Miller’s Lumberyard.” Then Clarence would pull a flat carpenter’s pencil off his ear and get out a little piece of paper and sketch it all out. “The conduit goes here … and make sure you don’t mount the light too close to the soffit.”

Today, when I have a project on Saturday, I head to Home Depot. Unlike Hooper Wolfe’s, where you had to parallel park on the street, there’s an ocean of parking. And inside, Home Depot is huge. The ceilings are 30 feet high. Home Depot has forty times the inventory of Hooper Wolfe’s. It all looks great under bright, argon lights.

There is a guy in an orange apron – a block away. If you run him down, he’s likely to say, “Sorry. I usually work in paints. I’m just covering in electrical because someone called in sick.” So you’re pretty much on your own.”

Something similar has happened in the American church. We have programs that are amazing, with Disney-level quality and technological sophistication. But something’s missing: Clarence. We all need a Clarence, someone who knows more than we do and who will guide us to grow in Christ.

Throughout the Bible this is the primary way faith is passed on. Moses trains Joshua in how to lead; Eli trains Samuel in how to pray; Jesus teaches the apostles; Timothy’s grandmother Lois trains up her daughter Eunice, who trains up her son Timothy; Paul calls Titus his “son” in the faith. When it comes to helping people grow into spiritual maturity, the Bible gives us “the Clarence Principle”: the older teach the younger, and those more mature in the faith guide those who are newer in the faith.[i]

Today, as we continue our journey through the Gospel of Mark, we find the crowds pressing in on Jesus. He’s obviously a powerful healer, and they’ve gone from hoping for healing, to expecting it, to practically demanding it. And in the midst of the chaos, Jesus draws away and chooses twelve he will call his “disciples” in the narrower definition of the word – those he will pour himself into, mentor, correct, and instruct. They will not be able to carry the sin of the world to the cross, but they WILL be the ones to continue his work of ushering in the Kingdom of God, training others to do what they did, just as Jesus taught them to do what he did. Turn with me to Mark 3:7-12.

No matter where Jesus goes – to the synagogue, to Peter and Andrew’s house in Capernaum, even to the shores of the Sea of Galilee, the people find him, and follow him. And they’re coming from everywhere. Galilee, Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, areas beyond the Jordan River, even the areas around Tyre and Sidon. Not just Israel as they knew it at the time, but Israel as the great King Solomon knew it, and grew it. Some of these people would have had to travel close to 100 miles. By foot. That’s a five day journey for an able-bodied person. But these people are in need of healing, or are bringing people with them who are in need of healing. It’s likely it took them much longer. These people are desperate.

So desperate that they’re no longer ASKING Jesus to touch them, they’re simply trying to touch him. Maybe trying isn’t the right word. Demanding is more like it. Look at Vv. 9-10. The crowds are pressing in so hard that Jesus is concerned for his safety and the safety of his disciples. So he makes sure there’s a boat standing by in case they need to back up into the water, so that he can teach safely. These people – they’re desperate.

Have you ever felt that kind of desperation? True desperation isn’t just FEELING LIKE you’re at the end of your rope. It’s BEING at the end of your rope. I remember coming home from work one day and when I came through the door, Becky called out, “Tread lightly. Zeke’s on the edge of a cliff right now.” And from the other room I heard his precious little voice yell out, sadness and desperation in his tiny voice: “I’ve already fallen off the cliff, and I’m holding on by my fingernails!” That’s desperation.

On July 30, 1945, the battle cruiser USS Indianapolis was returning from a mission delivering enriched uranium to allied forces in the Pacific. It did not make it home. A Japanese torpedo hit the cruiser on its way back. It sank in minutes. In only 12 minutes, 300 of the 1,200 men died. Nine hundred went into the water, enduring four days and five nights without food, without water, and under the blazing sun of the Pacific. Of the 900 men that went into the water, only 316 survived the lack of water and the sharks. One of those who survived was the chief medical officer, who recorded his own experience. He wrote:

There was nothing I could do, nothing I could do but give advice, bury the dead at sea, save the lifejackets, and try to keep the men from drinking the water. When the hot sun came out, and we were in this crystal clear ocean, we were so thirsty. You couldn’t believe it wasn’t good enough to drink. I had a hard time convincing the men they shouldn’t drink. The real young ones…you take away their hope, you take away their water and food, they would drink the salt water and they would go fast. I can remember striking the ones who were drinking the salt water to try to stop them. They would get dehydrated, then become maniacal. There were mass hallucinations. I was amazed how everyone would see the same thing. One man would see something, and then everyone else would see it. Even I fought the hallucinations off and on. Something always brought me back.”[ii]

Desperate people do desperate things. And the people are desperate. And so wherever Jesus goes, they find him, mob him, desperate for a touch, and if he can’t touch them, they’ll touch him, praying that will be enough. And they’re more than willing to trample someone to do it.

He doesn’t even have to touch the demon-possessed and oppressed. When the demons saw him, they cried out, “You are the Son of God!” This wasn’t a confession of faith. In the ancient world, people believed that if you could discover the name of a spirit and use their name, you could exercise control over it. The demons are trying to control Jesus. He doesn’t even bat an eye, and while what they say is true, the words of a demon will not do, and so he silences them. They are attempting to muzzle him, to render him harmless to them. Yet, with authority and little effort, he silences them, and renders them harmless.

And then he draws farther away from the crowds, calling with him the ones he wanted to join him. Look at Vv. 13-19.

The demons know that Jesus the Son of God. The desperate crowds see him as a powerful miracle worker. But to his disciples, to those closest to him, he becomes their mentor. And they become his apprentices. It wasn’t unusual for a rabbi to take on disciples. That’s what rabbis did. They took on a group of those they deemed to be the best and the brightest, those worthy to learn to do what the rabbi himself did.

Other elites wouldn’t have approved of Jesus’ choice of disciples. They weren’t the best, and they weren’t the brightest. Not in the eyes of the intellectual and religious elite. They weren’t even a group of people likely to get along. Several were hot headed Galilean fishermen who had dropped out of school to learn the family business. Another was a tax collector who had collected their taxes and likely cheated them. Others we don’t know that much about.

But Jesus saw something in them that others didn’t see in them, something they probably didn’t see in themselves either. If you and I are honest as we read the gospels, he probably saw something in them that WE don’t see in them either. He saw in them the foundation upon which he would build his church, his people, his kingdom, in this world. He saw in them the men who would turn this world upside down with the good news of Jesus. These are the men Jesus chose. Mark tells us they’re the ones he “desired.” Jesus wants us to want him, but he desires us too. He pursues us. He calls us to him. He wants us to join him. He wants us to become his apprentices. Not to stay in the crowd, but to join ourselves to him. He wants us to be with him.

The crowds love him and are drawn to him for what he can do for them. Disciples, apprentices, are drawn to him and his invitation not just to let him do things for us, but to do things for him. To let him do things through us. Are you just part of the crowd, or are you a disciple, an apprentice? Do you come only for the show, the power, for what Jesus can and will do for you? Or are you committed to joining in his kingdom and work?

So what is the job description of an apprentice of Jesus anyway? Look at the last part of V. 14-15. A disciple, an apprentice, is someone who is WITH Jesus. In Matthew’s gospel, he emphasizes Jesus being WITH us. The last words of Matthew’s gospel are spoken by Jesus: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). Yes, Jesus is WITH us. We are not alone. Through the Holy Spirit Jesus fills us and empowers us to choose him and to follow him. He heals and he guides. But Mark reminds us that we are also WITH Jesus. We must make the choice to be with him.

So what does it look like to be “with” Jesus? First, it means we’re willing to follow wherever he leads, whether it makes sense to us or not. Whether we feel qualified for it or not. When Jesus says “go,” we go, even when the going doesn’t make sense to us or to others. When he says, “stop,” we stop, even when the stopping doesn’t make sense.

Second, being with Jesus means we’re willing to share in the work of ministry. And that work never stops. The crowds are crushing in on Jesus on the lakeshore. So much so that he asks for a boat to be brought, not so that he can escape, but so that he can minister safely and effectively. And now he is inviting these twelve disciples into the same work. If we’re with Jesus, we’re doing the work he wants done, even when it costs us.

Look down at Vv. 20-21. Jesus’ human family, his mother and brothers, hear about all this and come to get him. The crowds are so great that Jesus can’t even take time to eat. So they go out to grab him. Now, this isn’t to say that those who minister should never consider themselves. Jesus is obviously concerned with safety as the crowds press in. And he does his best to draw away for rest and refreshment.

We cannot pour from empty pitchers. But the work of ministry is always before us, and the work is greater than any of us, in our own strength, and alone, can accomplish. There are times when we have to turn families away from our meal because we are out of food. There are people whose very real needs we are not equipped to meet. But that doesn’t mean we just disengage and withdraw. We do our best, and trust that God will meet the needs of those he sends our way. We don’t give up, and we don’t quit. We rest, we refresh, and we get back at it. Yes, there are times of necessary sabbath, rest and refreshing. God set aside one day in seven for that. Our culture tends to set aside two and is flirting with three. But setting aside one day in seven means there are six in seven in which we are about his work, wherever we go.

And I’m not just talking about the professional pastors and ministers. This truth is for all of us. We are all ministers. We are not all professional preachers and teachers, but we are all ministers, and we are all called to ministry. Apprentices of Jesus understand this and jump into his work.

So where are you – in the crowd, or on the mountain with the other disciples, WITH Jesus, learning to do what Jesus does?

In his book, “Love Does,” Bob Goff says, “I do all of my best thinking on Tom Sawyer Island at Disneyland. There’s a picnic table at the end of a little pier right across from the pirate ship. I suppose most people think this place is just a prop because there are a couple wooden kegs marked “gunpowder” and some pirate paraphernalia hung over the railings. But it’s not just a prop to me; it’s my office.

There are no admission requirements at Tom Sawyer Island. It doesn’t matter how tall or short you are, old or young …. You can do countless things there. Most of them involve running and jumping and using your creativity and imagination. It’s a place where you can go and just do stuff. In that way, it’s a place that mirrors life well—at least the opportunity to do much with our lives ….

Somewhere in each of us, I believe there’s a desire for a place like Tom Sawyer Island, a place where the stuff of imagination, whimsy, and wonder are easier to live out—not just think about or put off until “next time.” This is a weighty thing to think about on my island, but I often consider what I’m tempted to call the greatest lie of all time. And that lie can be bound up in two words: someone else.

On Tom Sawyer Island, I reflect on God, who didn’t choose someone else to express his creative presence to the world, who didn’t tap the rock star or the popular kid to get things done. He chose you and me. We are the means, the method, the object, and the delivery vehicles. God can use anyone, for sure. If you can shred [play] on a Fender [a guitar] or won “Best Personality,” you’re not disqualified—it just doesn’t make you more qualified. You see, God usually chooses ordinary people like us to get things done.”[iii] Let us pray.

[i] From a sermon by C. Philip Green, Leading Under Fire, 8/5/2011)

[ii] Bryan Chapell from the sermon “Killing the Red Lizard,” Preaching Today Audio Issue # 265

[iii] Bob Goff, Love Does (Thomas Nelson, 2012), pp. ix-xi