Putting the Cross before the Crowd

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I told a preacher friend this week here in town that my wife is a good sport, maybe the greatest of all sports. Our anniversary was last week, as many of you know, because I made an offhanded comment about how our child care plans fell through. And several of you graciously offered to help with the children, and it would have taken several of you.

You’ve met them. But we had already talked it over and decided the easiest thing was just to wait until they went to bed and get food and bring it home. And so that’s what we did.

So my wife is a good sport for that reason already. But we got to the day of and realized, wait a minute, I’m in the middle of refinishing our dining room table and building benches and refinishing chairs to go with it. And what I thought was going to be about a two or three day job, we’re now entering the second week, third week.

I don’t know time is irrelevant uh where are we going to sit and so she said we can push some of the the kids desks together in the classroom and so we that’s where we ate our anniversary dinner but I’ve learned something over the last several years and that’s that’s that Mexican food is the way to my wife’s heart and so we tried to order Mexican food I say tried I tried to order Mexican food ended up having to have her call because I was getting so frustrated with the computer I like online. And so I was trying to order tamales. I love tamales.

I was trying to order these tamales and every option I was putting in the computer was not working because you put in your order and then it says what kind of sauce do you want? Okay, I’ll take green chili sauce. No, no, you have to have two options because you’ve picked two tamales.

Okay, I want green chili sauce on both, but it spits that back out at you. Okay, I’ll pick the other option being sauce on the side. Oh no, you pick one option.

Wait a minute, I have to pick more than one option, but no more than one option. Does anybody else see the problem here? I’m so frustrated.

I tried every combination of sauces, and what I figured out was at least at that restaurant at that time that I was trying to order on my computer, you could not order tamales and sauce. You also could not order tamales and no sauce. And I worked on this for probably 20 minutes, didn’t I?

And finally I said, forget it, I’m having nachos. It’s not worth it. But I realized there’s a mutually exclusive choice here.

There’s something in the computer’s brain that says you can’t do A and do B at the same time. And we run into that all the time. If you’ve ever dealt with trying to do class schedules, maybe for a public school or for college.

You’ve run into, you can’t take this class and this class at the same, because they’re at the same time. They’re mutually exclusive. You have to make a choice.

And one option is going to prevent you from having the other. Sort of like that saying, eating your cake and having it too. We always say it wrong.

We say eat your cake, or have your cake and eat it too. You can have your cake and then eat it. And usually cake will hang around my house for about a week until every bit of it has been eaten.

We will have had and eaten our cake. But the phrase is you can’t eat your cake and have it too because once it’s eaten, you don’t have it. It’s gone, right?

These things are mutually exclusive. We deal with this all the time in areas of life. Marriage, for example.

In most places of the world, you marry one person, you’re agreeing not to marry all the other people, right? That’s the way it’s supposed to work. Solomon, for all his wisdom, didn’t understand that that was going to be a problem for him.

That was sort of his downfall. And I’ve always said, I love my wife, but I couldn’t handle a couple more like her, right? And she’d say the same thing about me.

No, you are agreeing to marry one person. You’re choosing one person to the exclusion of all others. Some choices in life are mutually exclusive.

And Jesus dealt with a choice that was mutually exclusive. He dealt with what we so often have to do, which is putting one thing aside for the sake of another. And tonight we’re going to look at this in Mark chapter 3.

What Jesus faced was the need to put aside what most people would say was good, because he was putting his entire focus on what God said was best. We need to be careful about that as well, because we can be so busy chasing good things that we ignore and neglect what God says is best. And Jesus was faced with an opportunity, he was faced with a moment in time where he put aside what was good, what we would look at and say is a good thing. But he did it because he was going after what God said was best. We are going to be in Mark chapter 3, where we left off last time. Mark chapter 3, we’re going to start in verse 6.

If you’ll turn there with me in your Bibles, if you’re using one of your devices, there’s a link in our bulletin to take you right to it, or it’s on the screen. And if you would stand with me as we read from God’s Word together. Mark chapter 3, starting in verse 6.

And I’ve got open to verse 7 here. Verse 6 says, Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against him how they might destroy him. But Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed Him, and from Judea, and Jerusalem, and Idumea, and beyond the Jordan, and those from Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they heard how many things He was doing, came to Him.

So He told His disciples that a small boat should be kept ready for Him because of the multitude, lest they should crush Him. For He healed many, so that as many as had afflictions about him, excuse me, sometimes the lines run together. Let me start that over from verse 10.

For he healed many so that as many as had afflictions pressed about him to touch him. And the unclean spirits, whenever they saw him, fell down before him and cried out, saying, You are the Son of God. But he sternly warned them that they should not make him known.

And he went up on the mountain and called to him those he himself wanted, and they came to him. and you may be seated. Now, one thing that I’ve appreciated myself about doing this study with you on Sunday nights is that as we’re going piece by piece through the book of Mark, I began to understand some of these stories and some of these snippets in between the stories a little better, because if you’re just looking at the passage by itself, it doesn’t seem like there’s a whole lot of information here.

Jesus got tired of the crowds. Jesus went away from the crowds. It doesn’t really tell you that much.

It doesn’t tell you that much, except I’m sure we’ve all felt that way, especially any other introverts in the room. Sometimes you just, you may love people, but sometimes you just got to get away from the crowd for your sanity. That’s really not the exact point of this.

Sometimes we’ll look at this, if we take it just on its own, and we’ll see even Jesus needed a rest. Even Jesus needed a break. And it can be taken as a reminder to us that God designed us to need a rest, and sometimes we have to get away from the crowd a little bit, but that’s really not the point of what this passage is about. When you take it in context of the things we’ve already studied and the things that happened before, the things that happened after, we’re really dealing with the purpose of Jesus’s mission.

That when God the Son came to earth in the form of a human being. It was for a purpose. And this is yet another opportunity for us to see how Jesus was focused on that purpose that the Father had given him.

This is right after he had just had a couple of rows with the Pharisees over healing on the Sabbath, or what they said was farm work on the Sabbath, basically, the disciples being able to walk through a field and pluck heads of grain and eat them in order to live. And they said, oh, he’s doing farm work. We had that conversation a couple weeks ago about all the ways to misunderstand God’s law, all the mistakes they made.

And I have to tell you, Sunday night we got home and I was helping the kids get ready for bed and Madeline said, Daddy, why did you do so many mistakes in your message tonight? And my first thought was, excuse me? I just looked at her and said, what are you talking about?

I was about to feel a little offended. She said, well, why did you talk about all those mistakes the Pharisees made? Oh, okay.

So that’s what last week was, how they completely misunderstood God’s law and Jesus had to correct them. But one of the things that happened in the midst of the healing on the Sabbath was that Jesus’ fame began to get out. And we’ve already seen this all through just the beginning chapters here, that every time Jesus did anything that was remotely remarkable in the people’s perception, his fame started to grow so that the crowds flocked to him.

And because they wanted to see what he was going to do next. There was some curiosity. There was some intrigue there.

Don’t look at the crowds though that follow Jesus and mistake that for loyalty. Don’t mistake them following Jesus around with them following Jesus. That just came to me.

I need to write that down and remember that for myself later, that there’s a difference between following Jesus around and following Jesus. The crowds were following him around. Jesus had to get away from that.

And we may think that’s crazy. What religious leader wouldn’t want a massive crowd? But that wasn’t what Jesus was there to do.

You see, Jesus’ mission from the Father led him to the cross. In these previous studies that we’ve looked at on the book of Mark, we’ve seen some of the Jesus said that he was committed to. We see in chapter 1 that he was committed to preaching the truth.

Verse 38 talks about that. We see in a previous story in chapter 2, verses 5, and again in 9 through 11, that he was focused on forgiving sins. In chapter 2, verse 17, he talks about calling sinners to repentance.

See, Jesus’ ministry was focused on making a spiritual difference. I don’t think Jesus minded a bit taking care of people’s afflictions, feeding them, healing their diseases, those sorts of things. I don’t think Jesus minded a bit because he loved people.

But it became a problem when he attracted this following that were so hungry to see miracles. And many of them were so hungry to see anybody, any kind of charismatic figure, any kind of leader that they could flock to because they were looking for. .

. Don’t forget they were looking for an earthly Messiah who was going to be a political leader to drive out the Romans. That’s what many of them were looking for.

And if they came to that point of seeing Jesus as that and trying to squeeze Jesus into that mold, they were going to completely miss the point of why he had come. And he later explained in Luke 19. 10, the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. He said again in Luke 24, 7, the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise again.

And he said in Luke 9, 51, when the time had come for him to be received up, or I’m sorry, he didn’t say this himself, but it says in Luke 9, 51, when the time had come for him to be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. Jesus him to be crucified by sinful men and to die and to rise again the third day. He knew all that.

So when the time came, he was determined and he was focused to go there and actually do what the father sent him to do, not to be pulled aside by all these other distractions that might have been good because, oh, he’s developed a following. Oh, all these people want to see what he’s going to do next and he’ll have the opportunity to share the word with them. That wasn’t, his purpose was not to attract a crowd.

And so all of this explains at least in part why Jesus in verse 7 withdrew with his disciples to the sea. Now it may be true that Jesus was tired. It may be true that Jesus in his humanity was tired and needed a break.

But when you look at this in the broader context of what’s going on in Mark, Jesus was getting away from the crowd because attracting a crowd and putting on a show for people was not the focus of what he had come to do. It was essentially a distraction. For Jesus to do tricks for them was a distraction from what he had come to do.

His principal reason was to refocus on his mission. In some cases, as I said, it was counterproductive for him to have this crowd around all the time. It says in verses 7 and 8, a great multitude from Galilee followed him.

It lists all these places. They were coming from all over, from Judea, from Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, Tyre and Sidon. It says a great multitude, people coming from all over, from every direction, from every country around there, they were coming.

And again, it’s not that Jesus didn’t care about their needs. Because when the opportunity presented itself, and when it intersected with the mission the Father had given him, he was only too glad to heal people. He was willing to do it.

He was willing to do it even when his disciples said he shouldn’t. For example, when his disciples said, get away from here, kid, he doesn’t have time for you. And Jesus said, suffer the little children to come to me.

Jesus made time for people. Jesus made people a priority, but the way he made people a priority was fulfilling the Father’s mission to redeem them. And so we never, we can’t, to understand what he’s doing here, we’ve got to make sure we never forget that Jesus’ mission from the Father led him to the cross.

That’s where he was headed. And so, consequently, anything that pointed away from the cross was unwelcome. anything that pointed away from the cross was unwelcome when he began to attract this following this this massive crowd it said he healed many so that as many as had afflictions pressed about him to touch him everybody who had a problem came to see jesus I don’t know how many people lived in that part of the world back in their day you know the entirety of what’s now israel and Jordan and that area, maybe a couple hundred thousand.

We’ve got close to a hundred thousand in Lawton. Imagine if everybody who had a need in Lawton came to see you. Oh my goodness, right?

I told you, sometimes I have trouble with crowds. I get a little claustrophobic. And that’s why I told you this morning, we tried to go to the fall festival at First Baptist West. And as soon as we turned down that street, I said, oh, no, no, no, this is not happening.

We couldn’t do it. And there were not 100,000 people there. But I looked at that crowd and thought, there’s no way we can get through that.

Imagine, understand what the Bible says here. They’re not saying a lot of people came to see Jesus. Like if I had a dozen people stop by my office in a day, I’d say, that’s a lot of people came by today.

I’m not saying a lot of people. They’re saying a lot of people came to Jesus. In another story, I believe it is, they do run together for me a little bit because I was already working on next week’s this afternoon.

But in one of these stories, it talks about how they were crammed together so close they couldn’t even eat bread. So I’m picturing being in the Dallas airport and walking through there and you know you can’t even readjust your your bag or whatever because everybody’s packed in there so tightly your arms are stuck down at your side it’s a massive people and what’s wrong with this is that people were treating him like a rock star which was not his reason for coming and a lot of times religious leaders or just people in ministry people in church in general. They’ll act like they’ll better accomplish their mission if they attract a bigger following. But Jesus shows us that was not necessarily the case.

Now let me be clear on this because I said something this morning that if taken out of context might sound like we didn’t want more people here. That’s not the case. There’s room for anybody that wants to come and hear God’s word and wants to work with us.

There’s always room for that. My point in this is that we can be successful in ministry without having thousands and thousands of people here on any given Sunday. Sometimes as churches we think we’re unsuccessful because we don’t have thousands and thousands of people here on any given Sunday.

When I came to this church, a few of you said, sorry, we’re just a small church. Charlie and I were looking around thinking, you should have seen some of the places we’ve served before, which is not a knock on them. They were where they were supposed to be and doing what they were supposed to do for the Lord.

But we were thinking to us, this is a big church. It’s all in your perspective. And as long as we’re doing what God’s called us to do, it’s not about the size of the following we’ve developed.

Somebody’s not more successful in ministry because he’s got 20,000 people in his church. If he’s preaching the gospel and doing what God calls him to do. You’re not less successful if five people show up for your Sunday school class.

If five people heard the word, if two people heard the word, you’ve been successful. Of course, we always do want to try to reach more. Not to build a following, but so more people can hear about Jesus.

But the point is, it’s not the size of the ministry that makes it a success or not. Because Jesus had the option of this massive following. Jesus said, no, I’m going to go hang out with these 12 guys.

He did something I can’t imagine many religious leaders doing. you see God had already foretold that Israel was going to reject Jesus when he came as the Messiah it says in Isaiah 53 3 talking about the Messiah he is despised and rejected by men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from him and he was despised and we did not esteem him see God had already said part of his plan for the Messiah was that he was going to be reject it. You can see, I’m sure, how Jesus, being a rock star, didn’t really fit into that mold.

For the Father’s plans to be fulfilled, Jesus needed to be crucified. For him to be crucified, his own people needed to hate him.

And so Jesus had to distance himself from this screaming teen girl British invasion kind of some some of you are too young to get that I’m too young to get that reference but some of y’all understand what that means Jesus had to distance himself from the Justin Bieber Bieber I can’t even say his name right Justin Bieber like adoration that some of these people were pouring out on him he had to go focus on getting to the cross and so this was part of the lord’s plan to get him to the cross because it says in acts 2 23 looking back that jesus was delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of god it was his plan all along that he would be taken by lawless hands he would be crucified and he would be put to death now there’s a problem here when even the it’s so apparent that he’s somebody different it’s somebody it’s so apparent that there’s some glory here that has to be recognized that even the unclean spirits are crying out in verse 11 when they saw him and they fell down before him and they cried out saying, you are the son of God.

Even the unclean, even his hated enemies, even Satan’s crafty little minions were crying out that he was the son of God. But God’s plan was for the people to reject Him and crucify Him, and them growing overly attached to Him as a miracle worker, and looking at Him to fulfill their ideas of a Messiah, those things were not part of the plan that was going to get Him to the cross. And so fulfilling the Father’s mission required this delicate balancing act that Jesus goes through throughout His ministry, Where he was not trying to ingratiate himself to the crowd so much that they tried to sweep him into power, but he was also not keeping them so far at arm’s length that they just ignored him altogether.

He had to proclaim God’s word. He had to show these signs of who he was. But he had to do it in such a way that he didn’t develop too much of a following.

Anything that pointed away from the cross was unwelcome to him. And so Jesus withdrew from everything that didn’t move him closer to the cross. You know, there are some things in life that move us closer to the cross, and there are some things that move us further from the cross.

Jesus got rid of everything that wasn’t moving him closer to the cross. That included the crowds. Most of us would enjoy the fawning crowds.

But he walked away from them. he told his disciples in verse 9 to keep a small boat ready for him because he said the multitude might crush him there were so many people there that they might crush him most of us would sort of revel in the flattery people saying wonderful things about us but jesus rejected it I mean these these unclean spirits they were crying out they were saying you are the Son of God, but it says He sternly warned them that they should not make Him known. Now, some people look at passages like this when somebody testifies about Him being the Son of God and He kind of quiets them down.

They’ll say, see, even Jesus, He never claimed to be the Son of God. That’s just something that was made up later. No, there was a reason why He told them to keep quiet, and it wasn’t because he wasn’t the things that they said he was.

As a matter of fact, it says he certainly warned them that they should not make him known. Jesus doesn’t say, keep quiet or you’ll mislead people. He says, keep quiet or my identity will get out.

Jesus was the son of God and he claimed to be. But he needed them to keep quiet about it for now. And most of us would want to build something big in our lives.

Nobody sets out to want to, I want to accomplish small things in life, right? Well, I take it back. The older I get, I’m not saying I’m old, but the older I get, the smaller my list of goals gets.

I just want to clean up the trees in my yard from the ice storm last year. That’s what I want out of life right now. When I was 18, I wanted to conquer the world.

not literally, not by military force or anything like that. But I had all these plans and dreams. Now I just want a clean yard and kids that behave, right? But we don’t set out in life to want to accomplish small things.

Most of the time we want to build big things. But Jesus focused on discipling. He had this massive crowd, but he focused instead on discipling a small group of men that he had already chosen so that he could work through them when he was gone.

It says in verse 13, He went up to the mountain and called to him those he himself wanted, and they came to him. Jesus picked a few men and invested in them. Not that they were somehow more valuable, not that they were somehow more loved by God than anybody else, but it was because he had a plan for them.

And he had a plan for them that once he had fulfilled the work of our redemption, that those 12, minus Judas, but that those apostles would then go and carry that message out to the rest of the world so that they could be saved. And what we see throughout this is that Jesus would not let people grow so attached to him as the guy who made all their dreams come true that they missed the chance to see him as the Savior who made them new.

there’s a big difference there’s a big difference a lot of times we will want jesus for what he can do for us the crowd wanted jesus for what he could do for them they wanted him for the healings they wanted him for the feedings they wanted him for the spectacle too many times we want Jesus for the promotion or for the new vehicle or for the happy marriage or the well behaved kids and we think Jesus is here to provide that now he can certainly bless us with any of those things if he wants to but that’s not his purpose. His purpose was to make us new. His purpose was to reconcile us to God.

And sometimes we think, well, if Jesus really loved me, wouldn’t he do all the things I want him to? Doesn’t he just want me to be happy? Jesus does love you.

But there are far better and more important things that He wants for you than just happiness. And sometimes we do find, even when it’s a struggle in our life and in our faith, we find ways to be happy with Him. But not through the list of stuff.

It would be a shame if we came to Jesus, not seeking Jesus and not seeking the life that He offers us, not seeking the reconciliation with the Father that He offers us, not seeking the spiritual renewal and transformation that He offers us, but seeking the stuff we think He’s going to give us instead. And so while we might look at this and say, well, Jesus, He had these crowds that just adored Him, and they followed Him, and He pulled away. Doesn’t that sound kind of moody?

Doesn’t that sound kind of selfish? No, no, no. Jesus was doing the most loving thing He could by not letting them get attached to the Santa Claus Jesus so that they could know the Savior Jesus. For Jesus, the crowd mattered.

But because the crowd mattered, the cross mattered even more. And so for some of you tonight, For some of you tonight, you may never have trusted Jesus as your Savior. This, what I’m telling you about Him going to the cross for you, it may be completely new information to you, or it may be something that you’ve heard many times before, but maybe it’s suddenly clicking for the first time in a new way.

I want you to look at this before we’ve even gotten to the cross. The cross doesn’t come in for several more chapters. And look at everything that Jesus chose to forego.

He walked away from things that none of us would easily walk away from. And he did that for us. He did that for you.

He walked away from all of that knowing that the alternative was going to be crucifixion. He walked away from that knowing that he was going to die in a horrific way, despised and rejected by the people he came to save. there was a clear choice here between one or the other can’t have both and jesus chose the cross over the crowd for you he took responsibility for sin he did not commit all the times we’ve disobeyed god he took responsibility for every one of those things and he was nailed to the cross in our place and he shed his blood and he died to pay for those sins in full.

So that you who were separated from God, who are separated from God now, could be reconciled to God, could have peace with God, could have eternal life, could be transformed from the inside out. Not because you’re a good person or you worked harder to get it, but because Jesus paid for it. He went through all of that for you.

And if you have questions about that, in a few minutes when we stand and sing together, if you have questions, if you’d like to talk with somebody, you’re more than welcome to come forward. I’d be glad to answer any questions you’ve got or try to. If you’re shy, you can come visit with me out in the Welcome Center.

Or call up here to the office. Whatever you need to do. And also, right where you are, you can trust Him and ask God’s forgiveness.

Because Jesus died to purchase it. There’s a message in here to believers too, as we realize that Jesus had a choice here between the cross and the crowd, and as tempting as the crowd would be for any one of us, Jesus chose the cross. And it’s a reminder to us that we need to evaluate constantly the ministry that we do, the service that we perform.

Are we focused on popularity of what we’re doing or are we focused on faithfulness to the gospel? We can do a lot of things to try to draw in a big crowd. As a church, we can do a lot of things to try to draw in a big crowd.

As a Sunday school class, we can do a lot of things as a particular ministry, just as to get distracted by, well, you know, we could draw a much larger crowd if we did this. It could impact a lot more people if we did this. And those aren’t necessarily bad things.

But if it has to be a choice between popularity with the crowd or faithfulness to the cross, we shouldn’t have to give it a second thought. If we try to grow a ministry or grow a church without being faithful to the cross, there’s no point in having the crowd. The cross has got to come first. And I don’t say that tonight because I think anybody’s doing any different here.

Because I think anybody’s doing anything wrong. We’re going section by section through Mark and this is where we were tonight. But I’m also telling you this because it’s true.

It’s a reminder you probably need at times. It’s a reminder that I need at times. And I love you enough to give you the reminder.

The cross has got to come first.