Leave The Crowd (Mark 3:7-19)

Like, if it's pass or fail, we all fail. That's what Romans three twenty three says. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All means all. Do you know what all in the original Greek means? All. Everybody. All have sinned. But the good news, the reason the cross is important is Romans three twenty four, the very next verse. But we are freely justified by his grace through the redemption of Jesus Christ. All have sinned. We all fail, and we all can have hope through Jesus. [00:16:21] (36 seconds)  #AllMeansAll

But the problem with that mindset is that God does not grade sin the way a teacher grades a project. God does not look at our life and say, hey. Good job. You get an a. You're doing alright. Hey, sorry. You're kind of a b minus over here. You guys over here in the back, you're like right on the borderline, man. Like, do some extra credit. You might you might get over into a passing grade. God does not grade sin like a teacher grades a project. If he grades sin at all, here's how he grades it. Pass, fail. That's it. And here's the here's the bad news. We all fail. Happy Easter. Welcome to Arrow's Church. [00:15:31] (50 seconds)  #PassFailFaith

Look at verse 11. Whenever the evil spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, you are the son of God. We call that worship, by the way. Bowing down before Jesus, you are the son of God. The demons understood Jesus' authority. They understood he who he was. Listen. The demons had right theology. They just didn't have a relationship. The crowd had the proximity to Jesus. They just didn't have the understanding of who he truly was. Proximity to Jesus is not the same as pursuit of Jesus. You can be close to him and not be changed. You can be around him for a long time and it not actually change your life at all. [00:13:22] (55 seconds)  #ProximityNotPursuit

I think it's interesting that Mark includes in this passage two locations that kinda represents two different types of people, the shoreline and the mountainside. Jesus leaves the shoreline, and he goes to the mountain. He leaves the crowd. The shoreline had the crowd. The mountainside had the calling. The shoreline had spectators watching Jesus, seeing what Jesus could do. The mountainside had disciples, those willing to follow him. The shoreline was comfortable, safe. The mountainside required sacrifice. Which one are you willing to go towards? Are you satisfied being on the shoreline, or do you wanna go to the mountainside? Every one of us faces that same question that I think that crowd faced that day. Are we satisfied, or are we looking for something more? [00:34:17] (61 seconds)  #ComfortOrCalling

No theatrics, no hype, no religious games. Just an honest question I want you to ask. Are you satisfied being in the crowd? Are you satisfied with your life being in the crowd? Is being in the crowd working for you? Or are you ready to step into something bigger? Easter is not just a story of an empty tomb. It absolutely is the story of an empty tomb, but it's not only the story of the empty tomb. It's also the story of Jesus asking ordinary people like you and like me to take our natural spots as sons and daughters of God next to the risen king and to fight the battle that we have been called to fight. That's the story of Easter. So how do we do that? How do we leave the crowd? [00:33:17] (60 seconds)  #StepIntoSomethingBigger

Maybe for you, leaving the crowd is not fitting Jesus into your life, but building your life around him. Not sprinkling a little Jesus on your life like black pepper or bacon bits, but building your life around him. If I looked at your calendar, would I be able to say, man, this joker's following Jesus? Or would I be able to say, it looks like they're following everything except Jesus? What about your interest? What about your money? What about your time? What about your relationships? Are you saying I wanna be in proximity to Jesus and also acting out, but I'm gonna make all the calls and decisions about who I see, who I date, who I listen to? [00:27:36] (45 seconds)  #BuildYourLifeOnJesus

And that's why every single day, I choose to leave the crowd because nobody in that crowd is cheering me on to fight against sin. Everybody in that crowd is saying, Robert, you're fine. You're good enough. Don't worry about it, man. It's not that big of a deal. Everybody does it. That's why I choose to leave the crowd because the crowd keeps me from being the person that I know Jesus is calling me to be, wants me to be. He's calling me from that shoreline to that mountainside. Maybe you guys never do that. I certainly do. [00:32:32] (41 seconds)  #RejectCrowdPressure

Well, what do we do? In those cases, we go to an outside source to tell us what is capital t true. Because if it's in here, it's capital t true. And some people are like, yeah. I get that it might have been true at one point, but culture changes and and what was true back then is not true still today. Listen. If it's not true today and it said it was true, then none of it's true. If it said it was true and it's in here, then guess what? It's still true. Doesn't matter if our culture has changed. If we ever disagree with what this says is truth, I promise you this much. It's not this that's incorrect. Why? Because we're not the experts. We bow to the truth. We don't have to understand it. We don't have to agree with it. We just have to speak it. [00:22:17] (56 seconds)  #CapitalTTruth