Who Are You Becoming as You Follow Jesus

``But here's the question that I want to put in front of us this morning. Who are you becoming? Who are you becoming? Now, in one sense, that that sort of future orientation is something that we're familiar with. Right? We're we're used to asking questions like that. We ask ourselves questions. Well, you know, as we're growing up, other people ask us, what do wanna be when you grow up? I'm still trying to answer that question. I usually say, what do wanna be when you grow up? What what job will you have? What career will you enter into? [00:21:46] (33 seconds)  #WhoAreYouBecoming

But what's not always clear is who we will be. Right? And that's a very different kind of a question. What will I do? What will I be? It's very different than who will I be. Who are we becoming along the way? Who is it that's going to show up as a grandparent for my kids someday? Who is my wife going to be married to when she's 80? Who is it that my coworkers will experience tomorrow morning? Who is it that my neighbors experience right now? These are very different kinds of questions. They're a little bit deeper questions. [00:22:53] (43 seconds)

And I wanna suggest to you that the gospel of Mark is a very powerful lens for us because it helps us to look at our lives through that question, not just what we're becoming, but who we're becoming. So let me be very clear about the purpose of Mark's Gospel. Mark sets out to do two things, and he names them in chapter one verse one. He's very organized thinker. The first thing he says is I want to reveal who Jesus is. I want you to be able to see Jesus, he says. And the second thing is that he wants to reveal who we are becoming if we follow this Jesus. And those two things are inseparable. Who is Jesus, and who are we becoming as we follow this Jesus? [00:23:36] (45 seconds)

And then right there in verse one, Mark tells us where the story is heading. He says he is going to describe how Jesus is the Messiah, and he's gonna describe how Jesus is the son of God, and he's going to tell us why this is good news for us, why this is something we would be interested in knowing. But then there's this fascinating dynamic that unfolds. The whole rest of the gospel is about this this slow, sometimes painful journey of people coming to see that Jesus is the Messiah, that Jesus is the son of God, and that if we follow this kind of Jesus, that we will become different kinds of people. The journey is sometimes painful. It's sometimes two steps forward and three steps back, but it's one that invites us to be changed. [00:24:33] (50 seconds)

And so Mark structures his gospel in two parts. The first half of the gospel, he answers the question, who is Jesus? In the second half of the gospel, he answers the question, what kind of Messiah will he be? The first half of the gospel, the disciples and therefore the readers of the gospel are on a journey towards recognizing Jesus as the Messiah. [00:25:23] (27 seconds)

And then Jesus says, it may call you off guard. It may have seen a little ah, but Jesus says, don't tell anybody. Don't say any don't say anything about that to anybody. Why? Because they don't yet understand what that means. They they may have they have the title right, but not the content right. They don't know what kind of a messiah he will be. And so the second half of the gospel, Jesus begins to unfold the kind of messiah that he will be. He says he's gonna be the kind of messiah who suffers. He's gonna be the kind of messiah who doesn't come to be served and bowed down to, but he's gonna be the one who serves. He's not gonna be the kind of Messiah that comes in and takes the lives of others, but he's the one who will give up his life. [00:26:15] (44 seconds)

Mark says seeing Jesus clearly isn't a single decision that we make. It's not a one and done, but it's a process. It's a process that shapes who the disciples are becoming. And so in Mark, this process can be traced by the by the different titles that people give to Jesus. So example, early on in chapters one and two, everybody calls Jesus teacher or rabbi, and they relate to Jesus as a dispenser of wisdom. The disciples sit at his feet. Their job at this stage is to listen, to absorb, to learn what Jesus is saying. [00:27:45] (40 seconds)

In Mark, we have the crowds who say, this man teaches like nobody else. Like, he he teaches with conviction and authority. We've never been so moved by somebody's teaching. And so sometimes today, people will say things like, you know, I admire Jesus. Right? I admire the teachings of Jesus. And if if somehow we could, more of us, get our heads around the teachings of Jesus, our communities would be better places. He was a wise teacher. He lived a life worth emulating. And Mark will say, that is part of the journey and process. Right? That's not the end of it, but that's a beginning point. [00:28:25] (43 seconds)