6-20-21 Come to the Mountain: Mark 3:13-19
Notes
Transcript
Good morning! We’ll see how this goes today, but someone said they
wanted a joke last time, so here are a few. Who is the greatest baby-sitter
mentioned in the Bible? David -- he rocked Goliath to sleep. Why was Goliath so
surprised when David hit him with a stone? The thought had never entered his head
before. If Goliath came back to life today, would he like these David and Goliath
jokes?1 No, he already fell for them once. Terrible, yes, I know.
Let’s just pray before we start today. Father in Heaven, we ask you to bless
this time. We give You all the glory and honor and praise in this place. Jesus we
come to honor You and glorify Your Name. We say Jesus, that “You are worthy, O
Lord, To receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, And by
Your will they exist and were created.”2 Fall on us today, Holy Spirit, as we
surrender our hearts, our minds, and our wills to You. Help us walk the Holy-Spirit
formed pathway that you have for us, and help us grow in grace and maturity in
Christ. Thank you for Your love and provision for us, Father, and we invite you
here. Anoint Your word, we ask, in Jesus’ Name amen.
If you will, turn with me to Mark 3:13-19 NKJV and we’ll jump right in.
“And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted.
And they came to Him. 14 Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with
Him and that He might send them out to preach, 15 and to have power to heal
sicknesses and to cast out demons: 16 Simon, to whom He gave the name Peter;
17 James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom He gave
the name Boanerges, that is, “Sons of Thunder”; 18 Andrew, Philip,
Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon
the Cananite; 19 and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him. And they went into
a house.”
1
2
Culbertson, Howard. Clean Bible jokes, puns, humor and trivia. http://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/trivia.htm. Accessed 17 6 2021.
Revelation 4:11
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To give you the quick overview, Jesus has left the sea after preaching and
healing the multitudes, and He goes up a mountain and calls His disciples to come
to Him. He then sends them out to start preaching. Now, He was probably sending
them out with a similar message Jesus had, which was to repent of sins and turn to
God. That’s what Jesus was preaching before His death and resurrection. They
weren’t preaching the cross yet because Jesus hadn’t gone there yet. And then we
get a naming of the 12 disciples or apostles.
Now, verse 13 says that Jesus ‘went up on the mountain.’ I want us to talk a
little about mountains this morning. Mark 3:13 NKJV “And He went up on the
mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted. And they came to Him.”
Have you ever heard the term ‘mountaintop experience'?’ In Christianity, that term
usually refers to a time where you have a deep, life-changing personal encounter
with Jesus, where He speaks life to you, performs some sort of heart surgery, tells
you clearly what to do or how to do something, or gives you some other deeply
personal and deeply affecting interaction with Him. Some examples could be the
day you were saved, the day God called you to something specific, or a time when
you were refreshed and totally renewed in worship. There are a lot of possibilities.
These mountaintop experiences are important in our lives. Sometimes,
biblically, mountains symbolize struggles and obstacles, but they can also often
symbolize ‘holy places’ where significant events take place. God called Moses to
his work on Mount Horeb (or mount Sinai), which is sometimes called ‘the
mountain of God.’3 So Mount Horeb and Mount Sinai are the same mountain. So
this mountain that Jesus goes up and calls for His disciples to come with Him is the
same place where God met Moses before sending Him out as the deliverer of the
3
Brand, Chad, et al., editors. Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary, P1156. Nashville, Tennessee, Holman Reference, 2003.
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Israelites. It’s also the same place where God gave the Israelites the ten
commandments.
The disciples are about to have a mountaintop experience with Jesus. And,
as we’ll see, it’s similar to the one Moses had when he was on mount Sinai.
Moses’ mountaintop experiences with God are a type for us to look at. But Jesus
wants to give you mountaintop experiences with Him just like Moses had them
with God and just like the disciples had them with Jesus. You see, when Jesus goes
up on the mountain, He calls you and me (His disciples) unto Himself. He calls for
us to come and join Him there.
And Jesus calls you to join Him because He loves you and He wants you
with Him. Mark says that Jesus, when He was up on the mountain, called those
people to Himself that He wanted. God wants you! Jesus wants you! In
Foursquare, we take the view that God wants everyone . He wants every single
person on this earth to respond to His loving call, to come to Him on His terms by
way of the cross and to be received into a loving relationship and significant
purpose in Christ. Jesus wants you today. And He is calling you to come to Him on
the mountain.
God called Moses from the mountain, too. Exodus 3:1-6 NKJV “Now
Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian.
And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain
of God. 2 And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the
midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but
the bush was not consumed. 3 Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see
this great sight, why the bush does not burn.” 4 So when the Lord saw that he
turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said,
“Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5 Then He said, “Do not draw
near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is
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holy ground.” 6 Moreover He said, “I am the God of your father—the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for
he was afraid to look upon God.”
God called Moses unto Himself while Moses was working his normal job,
going through life, doing errands for his family, tending his sheep. And while he
was doing those mundane, daily things, he saw something strange, beguiling,
intense, and holy and he stopped to take a look at the burning bush. Last week, we
talked about taking a step back from our daily grind, or withdrawing, to look in the
face of Jesus, to get time with Him and to listen to His voice. God still puts burning
bushes in our pathway today if we’ll stop and look. By that I mean that Jesus is
here now, working in our lives day by day creating miracles, signs, and wonders if
we will choose to turn aside and look.
And God creates these burning bush moments in our lives so we’ll stop and
look at Him, so we’ll stop and listen, and so we’ll go out on His mission. And He
creates these burning bush, or mountain top moments for you and me because He
wants you. I need to stress this today, and if you remember one thing from the
message, remember this - Jesus wants YOU. Mark 3:13 NKJV “And He went up
on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted. And they came to
Him.” When it says that Jesus called to Him those He wanted, you are included!
Jesus wants you! This is a big deal.
I want you to try to understand the gravity of the fact that Jesus, the Supreme
Ruler of the Universe, the One who conquered death and hell, the One who rose
victorious from the dead and is all-powerful over everything and perfectly holy,
true, and righteous, wants you to come to Him and be with Him on the mountain.
As we realize all that God has waiting for us as we respond to His call, we gain the
strength and courage we need to carry on in every situation. Jesus bought the
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whole field with His blood to purchase each one of us. We are His treasure. We are
God’s inheritance as the riches of His glory and His inheritance in the Saints.4
Jesus is deeply interested in you and wants to be close to you. He has plans
for you, to give you a hope and a future, He knows you inside and out and cares for
you, He has accepted you already into His arms and joyfully supports you in your
christian walk. God is eager to give you everything you need to grow in Him and
enable you to fulfill His call, and He’s never absent or too busy for you. He’s never
mean, cruel, abusive, controlling, or manipulative, but He has come to set you free
from bondages of the world, the flesh, and the devil so you can make Godly
choices and grow in His grace.5 I’ll say it again because it’s very important you
understand; Jesus wants you.
Jesus goes up on the mountain. And He calls the people He wants to come to
Him because He loves them, wants to give them purpose, and wants them to be
fulfilled at a deep spiritual level. He wants them to come into a new life bursting
with spiritual energy and vitality that overflows into the physical realm as well.
And in the next simple statement the gospel writer makes, we see a response from
the people who know they are loved, who know they are wanted, who have heard
Jesus’ call from the mountain. They come.
Our response to Jesus is always very important. When Jesus calls, they
come. Mark 3:13b DLNT “And they went to Him.” Will we choose to go to
Jesus, to respond to His call in our daily lives, in our jobs, our work, our
relationships; will we go to Him with our pain, with our prosperity, with our
blessings, our questions, our lack and our overflow? Will we go to Him on the
mountain as He calls our names?
4
Hayford, Jack. “The Hope of His Calling.” Sermon #1122. Gateway Legacy Library, 11 September 1977,
https://app.gatewaylegacylibrary.com/legacy-library/4/sermon/2371.
5
Anderson, Neil T. The Steps to Freedom in Christ, P13. Bloomington, Minnesota, Bethany House Publishers, 1990, 2001, 2004, 2017.
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If you do choose to go to Him on the mountain, something will happen to
you. You won’t stay the same; you will be changed. You’ll be changed by looking
into the face of God, into the face of Jesus Christ. And after you’re changed by
looking into His face, you’ll be sent out on a mission in His Name, with His power
and His authority as you keep responding each day to His call.
If you remember the story, Moses was afraid at first to be with God, to look
towards Him on the mountain when the bush was burning. But after He knew God
personally, after His experience with the Lord, Moses changed and His relationship
with the Lord changed, too. Early in Exodus, Moses is scared to look at God.
Exodus 3:6b AMP “Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.”
But after Moses responds and moves forward in obedience, goes through the
plagues of Egypt and the trials and tribulations of the wilderness, he comes back to
the mountain with a changed attitude.
You see, we don’t actually live day by day on the mountaintop of spiritual
experience. If you do, great. But that’s not most of us. We actually live in the
valley of life with all of it’s difficulties and drugeries. But when we come back to
God’s mountain, after we have obeyed the voice of the Lord, we will be able to
speak to Jesus face-to-face in the same place where He called us in the beginning
to come to receive His new life and new refreshment. At the end of Exodus, we see
that the way Moses interacts with God is different; He’s not afraid to look at God
anymore. Exodus 33:11 AMPC “And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a
man speaks to his friend.” There's a progression illustrated here; God calls, we
respond. God sends, we go, God speaks, and we listen. God offers friendship, and
we walk with Him.
Let’s see how this spiritual progression takes place in Mark with the
disciples. Mark 3:13-15 NKJV “And He went up on the mountain and called to
Him those He Himself wanted. And they came to Him. 14 Then He appointed
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twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach,
15 and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons.” Jesus goes up
on the mountain and calls the disciples to Himself. And they choose to come. Then
Jesus gives them power to go out and help others have an exodus out of bondage;
in the same way God commissioned Moses to go help the children of Israel gain
freedom, Jesus commissions us, His disciples, to help others find freedom from
demonic, worldly, and fleshly oppression.
How do we help people get free? By preaching the gospel, the good news
(did you ever notice the first letters of gospel are GO?). Then along with the good
news, we pray for people so Jesus can heal them of their sicknesses and diseases,
and we cast out demons when we encounter them. As we interact with others, we
show them the love of Jesus by giving people what they need practically, both on a
spiritual level and a physical level.
Jesus does this for us. He fulfills us, He brings us to Himself where we can
have an encounter with Him, a mountaintop experience, and then He sends us back
down into the valley to continue the mission He started. And who God calls, He
equips. Just like He equipped Moses to speak to Pharoah by giving him Aaron to
help, He gives us the help we need to be fruitful in His mission. Hebrews 13:6
NKJV So we may boldly say: “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can
man do to me?”
Now, our mission in the valley isn’t always easy. Sometimes we encounter
resistance in ourselves. In others too, but discipleship starts with us. I don’t know
who said it, but I like it; you can’t disciple a demon, and you can’t cast out the
flesh. In other words, sometimes, there is demonic resistance to the gospel of Jesus,
but God has given us the ability to overcome it by the blood of the Lamb and word
of our testimony (Revelation 12:11). And sometimes our fleshly desires are really
strong and we need to just bite the bullet and do what God says in obedience. We
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need to obey and teach others to obey the word of the Lord. We use the fancy word
‘discipleship’ for that; but it simply means learning how to obey God in all things
the way Jesus obeyed His Father God in all things.
I think, just like the disciples, we sometimes get carried away with the fact
that we have all the tools we need to live a victorious life and bring others to Jesus.
What I mean is that Jesus gave his disciples power to heal and power over demons
in His Name. But having power itself was never the end goal. The goal is to let
everyone know that Jesus wants them, He loves them, and He calls them to
Himself on the same mountain He called you and me. That’s why Jesus told His
disciples, Luke 10:19-20 NKJV “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on
serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall
by any means hurt you. 20 Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are
subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”
Jesus puts the deliverance and healing ministry that disciples are able to
walk in now in perspective by directing their attention to the most remarkable of all
miracles; salvation. The greatest miracle of all is a changed heart that comes to
God at His call, that grows in relationship with and obedience to Jesus day by day.
This doesn’t minimize, negate, or take away miracles of healing or exorcism or say
they don’t matter in the lives of people - of course they do!
But the human preoccupation with power must always be balanced with the
priority of people. This takes us back to one of our themes in Mark - Jesus cares
about people, cares about their hearts, and cares that they come to Him and learn to
walk with Him. Having power to move in signs, wonders, and miracles is helpful,
needed, and is a major part of it, but it’s a byproduct of a close walk with Jesus.
Jesus wants you to come to the mountain with Him. He has called you and
me to Himself so He could fulfil our deepest human needs by way of relationship
with Him. Paul prays that we would know how amazing this is, the hope of His
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calling. Ephesians 1:18 NKJV “the eyes of your understanding being
enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the
riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” There's a lot here to unpack But I’m not going to go into all of it today. However, one thing the hope of His
calling means is that you can have high hopes for the future. The Amplified Bible
says that we now can cherish the fact that we have the divine guarantee, the
confident expectation that God will move us forward in His plans as we choose to
go to Him in obedience.
As we realize what God has for us and how He is working things out for our
good and His glory, we’ll want to obey Him more and more and walk with Him
more and more. As we obey Jesus in the little things, we’ll find all of the big things
fall into place and God’s great and glorious plans for us, plans to make us who we
were created to be, come to fruition in His timing. And so we have high hopes in
Jesus.
Paul prays for wisdom and knowledge for the church, for you and me, so
that we will know the ‘hope of our calling,’ that’s related to the eternal nature of
the great and precious promises you have in Jesus Christ! And also the greatness of
His power, which is available to us as the body of Christ in the world. And when
Jesus brings His disciples up to the mountain with Him, He wants them to
understand the promise, the hope, the future they have in Him as well as the power
that comes with full obedience to His word and His ways. The call and the
commission are walked out by the power and the promises. In other words, His
power and His promises enable us to fulfill His call and His commission.
And today I want to reiterate the point that you have been the one called by
Jesus Himself. You have been called up to the mountain with Him so you can be
His hands and feet down in the valley. You have been given His power and His
promises to share with others in need. And by His grace, like Moses, as you obey
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His word day by day, you will bring others into freedom, into His kingdom by
salvation, and come back to the mountain to speak with the Lord, Your dearest
friend, face to face as a man speaks to his friend. Proverbs 18:24b AMP “There is
a [true, loving] friend who [is reliable and] sticks closer than a brother.” That’s
Jesus. And He offers you His friendship with each new day.
And even here in the story, we’ll see Jesus start the process of turning His
disciples into people of the promise, people who become everything Jesus has
called them too. Mark 3:14 ESV “And he appointed twelve (whom he also named
apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach.”
Now apostles literally means, ‘sent out ones; special messengers, or commissioned
ones.’
People come to Jesus with their brokenness, failure, and pain, and Jesus
turns their lives around and sends them out as His ambassadors, His emissaries,
His representatives, empowered by the Holy Spirit. But I want to focus on the
word, ‘appointed’ right now. Because I think the meaning has been a little lost over
time. ‘Appointed’ here is also translated ‘ordained,’ but it really means to make
something, or to do something.
Why does it matter? Because it means that Jesus is the One making you and
me into His sent-out ones. It means Jesus is the One that does the heavy lifting as
we come to Him in simple obedience. To paraphrase with us as the object with
other greek definitions; Jesus makes us into people who can go out and preach the
gospel; Jesus is the author and the cause of us going out to preach and help others
in need, Jesus is the One who produces and shoots us forth as branches of Himself,
the True Vine, Jesus is the One who has declared us His children, His brothers and
sisters; Jesus is the One who has performed His promise to empower us to do His
will.
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God calls, God equips, and God brings the increase and does the healing,
casting out of demons - all of the hard work. It’s simply ours to obey, to come at
His calling, to surrender to His leading and His promptings, to look into His face
day by day and follow His example of love and service.
Hebrews says that God will “equip you with every good thing to carry out
His will and strengthen you [making you complete and perfect as you ought to
be], accomplishing in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus
Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” Hebrews 13:21 AMP And
the call today is to simply let Jesus do his work in you, making you complete and
perfect as you ought to be. God is the God who both shows us his will and equips
us to do it. He never gives us a task without also giving us the power to accomplish
it. When God sends us out, he sends us equipped with everything we need.6
Even Jesus’ own examples, perfect and powerful as they are, cannot in
themselves enable us to follow in His footsteps. We need more than an example.
The writer calls on God to make possible the outworking of this truth in the lives of
His people. To attempt to live the Christian life with the purest doctrine and the
best examples, but without God’s direct power, just won’t work. We not only need
to know God’s will, we need to have His power. We need the God of peace to
equip us in every good thing to do His will. And He gives us that power by His
Holy Spirit falling upon us. The thing we must contribute to the Christian life is
willing yieldedness, complete surrender, and a quickness to respond. All we have
to do is open and direct our wills and let God’s power work through us.7
Jesus is calling you and me today to simply come. Come up the mountain
with Jesus, come into submission to the Holy Spirit. Respond to His invitation and
receive His empowerment by baptism with the Holy Spirit. If you’ve never been
6
Barclay, William. The Daily Bible Study: The Letter to the Hebrews, P298. Edinburgh, Saint Andrew Press, 1976, 2002. Scribd,
https://www.scribd.com/read/367617098/New-Daily-Study-Bible-The-Letter-to-the-Hebrews#.
7
MacArthur, John. THE MacARTHUR NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARY, P691. Chicago, Illinois, Moody Press, 1983. Scribd,
https://www.scribd.com/read/314658681/Hebrews-MacArthur-New-Testament-Commentary#.
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baptized in the Holy Spirit to receive Jesus’ empowerment for ministry, that’s
available to you at any time. And as you follow Jesus in simple obedience, He will
send you out to others with the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the message
that brings hope, healing, and grace right in your circumstances, in your moments,
and in your days.
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