Jesus Movement

6 · Expands the observation by looking back to Mark 1:14 to show that Jesus' arrival in Mark's Gospel is characterized by immediate motion and proclamation

And we've seen Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus sort of arrives on the scene in motion. He arrives on the scene running, as it were. Mark's Gospel begins with one— Mark 1:14 says, "Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God, saying, 'The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.'" Right?

7 · Notes the redemptive-historical context that God has been on the move since Genesis, then provides a grammatical observation about Mark's frequent use of 'immediately' (41 times in Greek) to create an impression of Jesus in constant motion

As Vince preached so well last week, God has been on the move since the book of Genesis. God has been on the move throughout the Old Testament. Now Jesus, God himself, the Son of God, arrives on the scene in motion. And if you want to do a fun exercise at home, look at the Gospel of Mark and underline every time in English the text says the word "immediately." Or in Greek, it's "euthys," right? 41 occurrences of that word. That word, because immediately he came into Galilee, immediately he was over here, immediately he went here, and immediately this happened, immediately this happened, right?

The impression of the Gospel of Mark is that Jesus is in constant motion.

8 · Answers the question of where Jesus is moving by establishing the gospel pattern: Jesus moves toward sinners to save, restore, heal, and bring them back to God

So what is Jesus doing? Where is he moving? Well, Jesus is moving toward people and calling them to himself. He proclaims the good news of God's kingdom. He demonstrates that he is the Messiah through the miracles he performs. And then, this is the amazing thing, this is the gospel reality. This is the good news that Jesus, the Son of God, is in motion and he moves toward us and he moves toward us to save us, to restore us, to heal us, to bring us back to himself, right? The gospel is not, okay, do enough good stuff, wave your arms enough, attract the attention of God, and then maybe God will come over there and save you and help you. And restore you.

No. As it says, Jesus came to seek and save the lost. Jesus is on the move and he is on the move towards sinners to save and restore and heal and make whole. That's such good news.

9 · Applies the soteriological pattern personally to the congregation, then establishes the binary outcome: encountering Jesus produces either rejection or radical following

That's what's happened to each of us. That's why we are in this room. None of us would be in this room if the Son of God himself, through one means or another, had not interrupted our lives and come to us and moved toward us and saved us and restored us and made us whole. But you know what happens in the Gospel of Mark when people encounter Jesus? Nobody who encounters Jesus is ever left standing still. One of two things happens to everybody that encounters Jesus.

Either they reject him, as we'll see next week, either Jesus comes to them, proclaims the good news of the kingdom, and people are like, "Nope, not that. Don't like that," right? As we'll see a lot of that. Or God opens their eyes and they say, "Yes, I just want to be with you, Jesus. I just want to follow you, Jesus," right?

We see this motion throughout the Gospel of Mark. The very beginning, Andrew and Simon are in their boat. In other words, you could picture them at work in their small business. Jesus shows up and says, "Follow me." They don't even bother to flip the closed sign on the door behind them. They just walk out the door and follow Jesus.

Or James and John, it gets even worse with them. They're at their small business. Their dad is working with them. They don't even say goodbye to their dad. They're out the door following Jesus.

Matthew, right, the tax collector, he leaves behind this life of wealth and sin and kind of unrighteousness, he leaves all of it, follows Jesus, right? You see the motion of what's happening. Jesus in motion and goes to sinners, and those sinners, when they encounter Jesus, are then set in motion by Jesus.

10 · Provides structural commentary on Mark showing the transition from calling (chapters 1-5) to sending (chapters 6-16), then demonstrates through Mark 1 and Mark 5 that being sent on mission was part of Jesus' original call and is the consistent pattern throughout the Gospel

Now, this text is sort of the buildup, is the turning of the page in Jesus' relationship to the disciples. One commentator says that the theme of Mark in chapters 1 to 5 is he called the disciples, and the theme of chapters 6 to 16 is he sent the disciples, right? So this is sort of the turning of the page from them following Jesus, being with him, to then being turned to be sent out by Jesus. And Jesus told them upfront in chapter 1 when he called them what he meant for them to do. This wasn't like, This got sprung on them. Like, what? Nobody said anything about this.

No, right as he calls the first disciples, Jesus says, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men." Right, this is the pattern of the Christian life. We don't have time to go there, but just look back at Mark 5 at the story of the demoniac, right? This guy who's oppressed by a legion of demons, Jesus goes across to the other side of the ocean to this pagan demoniac. He frees him. What's the response of the demoniac?

"Jesus, I just want to be with you." And what does Jesus say? "Here's how you be with me. Here's how you follow me. You go back to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you." The natural state of the Christian life is being set in motion by Jesus to tell others about Jesus.

11 · Breaks down the disciples' mission into two components — declaring Jesus' kingship and demonstrating it — then applies the pattern to contemporary believers

Now, what does it look like for these disciples to be sent on the mission of Jesus? Well, it looks like two things. At first, they declare who Jesus is. They declare the kingship of Jesus and that the kingship of Jesus requires repentance, right? These disciples aren't proclaiming themselves; they're proclaiming Jesus. That's so key.

When we go out, the message we go out to the world with is not, "Look at us. We're great Christians. We're great people. Come be like us." It's like, "No, no, no, come see a man who saved me. Come see a man who brought me hope and wholeness and healing." That's the gospel message these disciples proclaim, but then they also demonstrate it.

Now, they demonstrate it uniquely in this instance by casting out demons, and Jesus gave them authority to heal the sick, right? Now, obviously, we don't always have the exact same kind of apostolic authority these people do, but we, in similar ways, demonstrate in both spectacular and not so spectacular ways the reality of Jesus' kingship, right? It may be that we pray for somebody to be healed and God answers that prayer as a testimony to the reality of who Jesus is, and we thank God for that and we pray for that. It may be just as well that we work hard and don't complain year after year and our boss finally says, "What makes you so different?" Right? We declare the reality of Jesus.

12 · Summarizes the first major section with the answer to 'why move on mission' and transitions to the second major question

So, here's the question: why should Christians move on mission? Because that is the natural pattern of the Christian life.

13 · Uses a sports analogy (huddle vs

We often in the church have this picture that this configuration is the normal state of the Christian life, where a few people are standing up, doing things, waving arms, playing instruments, saying things, and More people are sitting down and they're like, "That's good. Amen. You go get it.

Go get 'em, buddy," you know? And that's sort of like, yeah, this is— no, no, no. This is the huddle, right? This is halftime where we all get together. Somebody gets a whiteboard out.

We draw X's and O's, and we say, "Break," and then we as the pastors sit down and cheer you on as you take the field week after week, right? That is the normal state of the Christian life.

14 · Returns to the global mission examples from the sermon's opening to argue that what appears to be elite-level Christianity (missionaries facing death threats) is actually normal Christianity according to Mark's Gospel

Life. God is on the move. And I hope you heard some of that in Dave Taylor's update, right? From corners of the world like the Philippines to Africa to these Somali communities that— with a guy that has a hit out on his life, right? God is at work. And what I want you to see is that's not— well, that's a, that's a super Christian, that's the elite level Christian. No, that's the normal Christian. That's what Mark means to communicate to us.

15 · Opens the second major section by transitioning from exposition to motivational material

Now, second, what does moving on mission do in us?

Look, I knew I was supposed to run, but as I've started running, I've learned so many more benefits of running. And one of the things that's helpful is the more benefits of running I learn, the more it keeps me running. For example, I was talking to a counselor, uh, uh, like a mental health professional, and they were saying, oh man, if you deal with depression or anxiety, running is one of the best things you could do, especially if you run for more than 20 minutes. And, you know, they were listing the health benefits, and I was like, wow, I probably shouldn't skip my run today, you know? Like, let's go, let's get out there.

So here's what I wanna do. I wanna back up from Mark. We're gonna get back into Mark throughout the month, but I'm gonna back up from Mark for a second and give you some reasons that not only do I think this pattern of Christians on motion in mission is clear and compelling, but I want to back up and say, this is what it does in your life and in the life of the church when you move on mission. Okay, ready for that? First, when we're on mission with Jesus, we experience more of God.

Look, man, I love having devotional times with Jesus where I feel like the Lord is meeting me and feel like the Lord is, like the word is vibrant and every worship line and the song is like speaking to me. And then the other times where it just doesn't, you know, you're just like, okay, well, I was faithful, close the Bible, pray for the day, move on, right? I think we all walk around wanting to experience more of God. Maybe you long for more of Jesus' peace. Or more— or you long for more specific encouragement.

You long for more faith, right? That is good. Like the demoniac, right, who just wanted to be with Jesus. That is the natural reaction when somebody is saved by Christ. But here's the reality: if you want to be where Jesus is, you have to be on motion because Jesus is in motion.

If you want to be where Jesus is, Jesus is in motion, so you have to be in motion, right?

Look, one of the functions of the Holy Spirit is to allow us to experience fellowship with God, that we feel the, the Abba Father relationship with God. We can sense the nearness and comfort and peace of God, and that is one of the benefits of the Spirit, one of the purposes of the Spirit. But that, that the Spirit of God being poured out is so inextricably tied to the mission, that we can't pull apart the personal sort of comforting work of the Spirit from the mission of the Spirit. What we see in Acts chapter 2 is the Spirit is poured out and immediately it's a sign and signifier, a crowd is gathered, the gospel is proclaimed, and thousands are saved, right? That is the purpose for which the Spirit was poured out, to enable the disciples of Jesus to be his witnesses.

So if you want to experience more vibrant life in the Spirit, then you must be about the mission of God, because you can't divorce the benefits of the Spirit from the purpose of the Spirit. If your heart feels a little cold, a little lifeless, a little dead, if you— maybe those devotional times just feels like nothing's happening, may I suggest suggest it may be that if you want to experience the nearness of God, be about the work of God.

16 · Pastoral anecdote demonstrating the principle that engaging in evangelism produces immediate experiential knowledge of the Spirit's power through heightened prayer and fellowship with God

One of our pastors was counseling, kind of with a wink and a smile, somebody from the church years ago. It wasn't me, but they were— the member of the church was just pouring out their heart that, look, you know, Pastor, I just wish we could see the Holy Spirit move the way that I saw him move, you know, in the '80s, or these different times where these powerful expressions of the Spirit. And the pastor, kind of with a smile, looked back at them and said, I know one way for sure you'll be able to experience the Spirit's power.

And they said, well, what is it? And they looked back at him and smiled and said, walk across the street and tell your neighbor about Jesus. And he says, I guarantee you, on the way over, you'll be praying in a deeper way than you have in a while. And I bet you when you leave, you'll be rejoicing and fellowshipping with God more than you have in a while. Right?

When we are on mission, we experience more of God.

17 · Second benefit of mission: experiencing more unity

Second, when we are on mission, we experience more unity.

The disciples here are utterly different from one another. This is a motley group that is sent out by Jesus to these surrounding villages. Some of them were fishermen. One was a former tax collector working for the corrupt Roman government. Another one was a zealot trying to overthrow the Roman government.

Can you imagine when Jesus is pairing people up, like Simon and Matthew are just praying that they don't get paired up together? Like, "Please not Simon, please don't, like, not the insurrectionist, no, not the tax collector, the collab," you know? And thankfully, Jesus wisely probably didn't put them together in that first assignment. Assignment, but they are on the same team. These are not guys that would just get together and hang out apart from Jesus.

What unites them? What unites the 12 apostles so that they stand together after Jesus ascends, they stand together and with one voice proclaim the gospel and proclaim Jesus? What unites them? It is their encounter with Jesus and their mission to tell others about Jesus. Jesus.

They are united despite all the differences that they have by the mission to go out and declare and demonstrate the reality of Jesus.

18 · Applies the unity claim directly to 2020's divisive issues (masks, protests, government authority, elections)

When I was working on the message earlier this week, I had no idea how relevant this would be, but this past year has brought constant challenges to unity among Christians and even unity in some forms in our own church. I think, if I could be frank, I think one of the kindnesses of God through 2020 is that he has shown us our immaturity in the area of unity as Christians.

Normally, in a normal church year, we might have one or two major issues that people would disagree over, right? And there's some disagreement, we work through that, but in the last year, We have faced issues like masks versus no masks, the Black Lives Matter protests, government authority and rules and overreach and appropriate use of authority and contentious elections, contentious elections all the way from the president down to the mayor. I mean, I was just watching like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and the mayoral ads. I was like, ooh, like, man, this is getting punchy in here, right? And let me be frank, I don't think we as Christians or even we as a church have passed the unity test with flying colors.

I think there is work to do. But I think one of the ways we do the work is this, is the more that we are together on the mission of God, the more unified we will be. Because it reminds us that there is something so much bigger than our opinion about government overreach or appropriate use of vaccines whatever.

19 · Film illustration from 'Miracle' showing college hockey players learning to prioritize Olympic team identity over college rivalries

You know, recently I was skimming through the movie Miracle, which is about the famous American hockey team that beat the Russians, and there's this great scene where early in the movie these college players from all different colleges are playing and scuffling, and, you know, their rivalries from college continue in this new Olympic team for the United States. And so So the coach wisely makes them line up on the ice and he asks them, "Who do you play for?" And so they start sharing, "Well, I play for this university, I play for this, I play for this," and they're all real proud.

You can tell, they're all, "I mean, I play for Michigan," or whatever. And the coach just shakes his head and makes them, you know, just pounds them into the ice with drills until finally one of the players gets it. And he answers the question, "Who do you play for?" by saying, "I play for the United States of America." And the coach says, "You're dismissed." Right, he finally got it. He finally got that he was no longer playing for his college team, he was playing for a much bigger purpose. And this is what I think has happened over 2020.

20 · Extends the Miracle illustration to direct congregational exhortation: take off political/cultural tribal jerseys and put the Jesus jersey back on

The events of 2020 have pushed us to put our old college jerseys back on in some sense, right? It's like, yeah, well, where's the libertarians in the church? I'm gonna find them because, yeah, we're all mad together, you know. Like, where's the people that, that are like angry at the people not wearing masks? Yeah, with the pro-medicine people, pro-science, man, you know.

And, and we've got our science jersey on, we've got our liberty jersey on, and we're like, yeah, yeah. And, and, and meanwhile, I think I think there's more and more— and it could be funny, it could be subtle, it could be big, it could be small. But I think subtly what begins to happen is we all kind of come into church or come into the church spiritually wearing our college jersey, trying to find people like us and match up with people like us. And I believe what the Lord would call us to do today, church, maybe right now at the beginning of 2021, is to take the college jersey off and put the Jesus jersey back on and say that there is nothing, there is no conviction greater than this, Jesus is Lord. And there is no need in our world today greater than the need for sinners to hear about a Savior, for the hopeless to hear about hope, for the broken to hear about healing.

I'm not saying any of the differences that we have are unimportant. What I am saying is this, none of them are near as important as lifting up the name of Jesus in our generation in the brief blink of an eye between now and eternity that we have.

And church, in 2021, I believe that our unity will be a unique and vibrant witness to the world where everybody's got their old college jerseys back on and is swinging and throwing punches, we walk in, all different backgrounds, all ethnicities, some people whose parents never voted for a Democrat, some people whose parents never voted for a Republican, together singing the same song, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain." The mission brings unity.

21 · Third benefit of mission: experiencing more joy

All right, briefly, briefly here, 2 more and we'll be done. Briefly, when we're on mission, we are more marked by Joy. I got to give you these two because I think it'll be helpful for you this week. When we're on mission, we're more marked by joy.

One of the most unique things about the Bible is, in the New Testament especially, the people that were most on mission, sacrificing the most, experiencing the most hardship, are often the most joyful people, right? Paul and Silas sing in a jail cell. Paul writes the happiest book in the Bible from prison. Why? Because the mission leads naturally to countercultural joy.

Look, why is that? Because when we are about the mission, we are constantly retelling the story of what God has done for us. It's a constant reminder. I was lost, now I'm found, right? I was blind, now I see.

That's amazing. All of a sudden, my day feels a lot better, right? Declaring Jesus. Us is a reminder to ourselves, not just to those who we declare it to, of who Jesus is, and that creates countercultural joy. The good news is good to us too.

And then as we go out and demonstrate the reality of Jesus, man, Jesus is faithful to show up and work, right? Jesus provides when we need provision, right?

22 · Recent church example of a missionary family receiving unexpected provision, demonstrating the pattern of God showing up when believers step out on mission

Just the story of the, the Villatoro family that we took up the offering for. In December, and the effect that them living on the edge of mission, just thinking, man, Lord, what are we going to do? And then unexpectedly a church randomly in the United States gives them a big gift so they can find treatment for being sick this week, right?

That's the way the Lord works. The Lord does that stuff all the time, and that creates joy in us.

23 · Direct pastoral prescription: lack of joy may be remedied by getting on mission rather than by more intense personal devotion or circumstantial change

And so here's what I want to encourage you. If you're not real joyful, maybe the solution is to get on mission. And see the Lord work until you find yourself full of joy again.

24 · Fourth benefit of mission: living with a sense of purpose

And last, last thing, when we're on mission, we live with a sense of purpose. Look, one of the things that 2020 did as well is I feel like it knocked a lot of us out of a sense of purpose. We just sort of became, at least for me, there's some weeks in 2020 I just felt like a zombie. I'm like, I can't go anywhere, I can't do anything, I guess I'll just wake up again. I guess I'll just check, you know, eat the same breakfast cereal, check the Netflix queue, it's empty again, you know, just like, you just go through the motions, you get up and do it again, get up and do it again.

I remember somebody posting something online like, you know, all these things I can't do, and they were like, what do I live for now? And I remember thinking, what were you living for before, right? Like, because if something like a pandemic can knock us off our sense of mission, I think it means that our mission may not have been what we thought it was.

The pandemic cannot, the quarantine restrictions cannot, all of these challenges cannot change our mission to demonstrate and declare the gospel of Jesus Christ to those around us. And when that burns in your heart, you suddenly wake up with a sense of purpose. You're suddenly ready to go to work another day of, I know a lot of teachers. Another day of fruitless Zoom instruction to children I cannot see or control, right? What gives you faith to show up and do that?

A sense of purpose that you are there to declare and demonstrate the reality of Jesus in a dark time in some kids' lives, right?

25 · Signals the conclusion by returning to the running metaphor and restating the main thesis

All right, let me end by saying this. I'm going to encourage you. This is what we're going to be talking about all month, so I don't feel like I have to say all of this right now. But this is the main idea for today.

We were made to run. We were made to run. Sitting on the couch of the Christian life is not what we were made to do.

26 · Clarifies the running metaphor to prevent misunderstanding — the call is to spiritual motion in mission, not to a particular intensity level

Now, please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying everybody in here needs to become a runner, right?

You can swim. You can walk. You can do whatever. You can walk back and forth in your house, like my dad does with his little pedometer, until he hits the right number of steps. Whatever you want to do is fine.

I'm not talking about physical fitness. I'm talking about your spiritual life. You were made to run. You were made to be in motion. But don't think you've got to be an Olympic class Christian to see any impact.

27 · Staff fitness challenge story where the least athletic person (Becky Gale) outperformed everyone by simply walking consistently every day rather than running sporadically

Let me just share one last story. Our staff did the 915— the Run 915 Challenge thing, if you guys saw that going on. Some people— basically what we did is we got our staff together, we committed to walk or run 91.5 miles in 2 weeks. And so we all got together, and I for one was feeling like, yeah, this is good, you know, now the staff will see how good of a runner I am. Not really, 'cause Vince is a much better runner than me.

And Todd swims like every day, twice a day, 3 times a day, I don't know. He's super fit. So I was curious to see who's gonna put the most miles on the board, right? Who's gonna put the most points on the board? And after 2 weeks, you know who it was?

It was Becky Gale. And Becky would not say she is like a collegiate athlete or something like that. But you know how Becky did it? Because we are all looking at the numbers Becky's putting up and we're going, that's impossible. That's not— like, she's lying.

Like, I love Becky, but that's a lie. And so we asked Becky, what are you doing? And I remember her sheepishly, but with a smile, just looking back and saying, I'm just walking every day. And I would sort of look, oh yeah, I run like Well, every other day, every 3 days, every 4 days, right? Becky just gets up.

She's just walking every day. Just boom, boom, boom, boom. Every one of the 14 days, she's walking. And you know what? It beat all of us.

28 · Concluding application translating the Becky Gale illustration into concrete instruction: don't pursue intensity but daily faithfulness

And so here's what I want you to hear at the end here. It doesn't mean that the effect of this message is you got to, like, get revved up and be like, all right, now I'm going to run the fastest 200 meters in history, you know, like Usain Bolt. The world's got nothing, let's go! And you run and you're like, whew, January was great. Now I'm gonna take February through December off.

No, be Becky Gale. Just get up tomorrow and do one thing that declares Jesus to somebody. Do one thing that demonstrates Jesus to somebody. Do it again and again and again until Jesus comes back, amen?

29 · Closing prayer acknowledging the congregation's likely resistance to the call to mission, asking God to speak and reveal what he's calling each person to do

Let's stand and pray.

Lord, as we close here, Lord, I just, I just feel led to take a minute and pause and ask you to just speak to us. Lord, this, this reality is attractive, but there's also something in our hearts that puts up some resistance. Maybe something that you're calling us to do that that we are hesitant to do, a prayer you're calling us to pray that we're hesitant to pray. Lord, I pray that as we begin this year, we would not do it— we'd not begin this year in fear, but we do it with a sense of openness of, Lord, what are you calling me to do? Of excitement of what could the Lord do in my life this year?

And I pray that, Lord, you would reveal those things. So we're going to sing real briefly and then end, but I just want give us a quick moment to do some business with the Lord as Jon leads us, and then we'll close.