Called from the Crowd: Jesus’ New People (Mark 3:7-19)
Called From the Crowd
Mark 3:7-19
Introduction
Have you ever asked yourself the question, “Why did Jesus choose me? Why am I here and my brother or sister is not? Why does one of my kids trust Jesus and the other reject him? Why am I here?” Such a question skirts the edges of the mystery of God’s will. Such a question runs right up to the edge of the precipice that is God’s wisdom and stares into the abyss of his fathomless will and is overwhelmed by thankfulness.
Deep down, we know that there is nothing different about us. We are the nothings. The nobodies. The weak and foolish. Sinners and tax collectors. We are the same as everybody else. So, why would we be here? What drew us to plant the flag for Christ? Why do we still trust him, in spite of the difficulties of life and the weightiness of sin?
The answer is fathomless and deep. But Peter says it most concisely. 1 Peter 2:9-10. He chooses us. He makes us holy. He possesses us. He calls us. He creates us. He has mercy on us. It’s the same truth that Paul gives us in Ephesians 1:4, “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world.” Or again Romans 9:16, “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy…he has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills.” The answer to the question is, “God. God is the reason I’m here. He’s what makes the difference. I was dead, and now I’m alive. I was on the broad and easy path that leads to destruction, but now I’m on the narrow and hard path that leads to life. I was part of the crowd, but now I have been called out by him.
That is the main contrast in this story. On the one hand, you have the crowds, on the other you have the Twelve. The crowds are flocking to Jesus. They desire healing and freedom from demons. They are seeking him out, looking for him from the farthest reaches of the area—even people from Gentile areas were coming to see him. And the crux of the story in 3:13 is the fact that Jesus calls out of that crowd “those whom he desired.”
As such, this is a turning point in Mark’s account of Jesus’ ministry. From the beginning, Mark has been working to establish through a litany of examples what he says explicitly in the first verse: Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. As all the gospels teach, if we believe that, we will have life in his name. So, The one who comes in the spirit and power of Elijah precedes him. He is baptized in the Jordan as the beloved Son of God. He is tempted in the wilderness like his people. He comes preaching the kingdom and calling for repentance and faith from his people.
The fact that Jesus’ kingdom has arrived is proven uniquely by his exorcisms. Mark has repeatedly shown that, while Jesus was willing to heal the crowds because of his compassion, it was his exorcisms that uniquely showed that the kingdom of God had arrived. His kingdom is greater than the kingdom of Satan, and when Jesus’ kingdom arrives he “treads all the powers of darkness down and wins the well-fought day.” And this proved his authority to teach, even as his healings further proved his authority to forgive sins.
Naturally, the crowds begin to form around such an amazing figure. Mark’s account begins with just Jesus, then with four disciples. Then it grows to influence in Capernaum as the whole city crowds at the door. Then his fame spreads to all Galilee as he goes from town to town to preach the good news and cast out demons. In 1:45, it gets to the point where Jesus can no longer enter a town openly because of the crowds. The “crowd” is first mentioned in 2:4 and by 2:13 has grown to “all the crowd” who could only fit along a seashore to be taught. By the time of our story, three times Mark says that there was a “large crowd” (3:7 (2x), 8). Jesus’ fame and popularity is growing exponentially.
All the while, as Jesus fame has grown, an understanding of who he really is has not. True to his ironic style, Mark repeatedly notes that it is the demons who know who he is, all while the crowds and the Pharisees do not. While Jesus came preaching a message of repentance and faith, the people rarely come to him in repentance and faith but only to be healed. As many are today, they are drawn to the spectacle with no real saving faith—even as demon after demon cries out before him, “You are the Son of God!”
This is why Jesus commands the demons to be silent—he wants Israel to trust him because of his message and his acts. He wants them to see with the eyes of their hearts. He does not want them to come to him on the word of a demon. In other words, when Jesus silences the demons, he is appealing to Israel to trust him. Yet they never do. They do not make the same confession. They miss who Jesus is.
As such, this story marks an important shift in Mark’s account. Up to this point, the focus has been primarily on Jesus, his authority, his identity, his miracles, and his teachings. After this point, the focus will shift away from Jesus exclusively to Jesus and his disciples (namely, the Twelve). Jesus now begins pouring himself into these twelve men who will be the foundation of his church. And as he does, there is a growing distinction between the Twelve and the crowd.
But here is the important point that we must take away: what makes the difference? What makes the difference between the crowd and the Twelve? What makes the difference between coming to Jesus in repentance and faith and coming to Jesus for the spectacle? What makes the difference between seeing him, hearing his message, and feeling repentance in the heart and being blind, deaf, and hard-hearted? Answer: Jesus does. Jesus makes the difference. 3:13: “He called those he desired, and they came to him.”
Let’s see this unfold in the account as Mark lays it down for us in two points: The Great Crowds and the Twelve Apostles.
I. The Great Crowds (3:7-12)
Jesus withdraws. The immediate context is the confrontation with the Pharisees. He has made his point about his identity—the Lord of the Sabbath—he has won the crowds to himself, and has violated the Pharisees’ man-made commandments. This has left them hot with anger and set to destroy him. So, Jesus withdraws. Yet what appears initially as a move of self-preservation also has an ominous tone. Jesus is withdrawing not only physically, but he is withdrawing himself from his unbelieving people. He has presented himself to them, and the response has been the unbelieving rejection of enthusiastic interest without repentant faith—or it has been the seething hatred of the leadership. So, in judgement on their unbelief, he withdraws from them.
And he withdraws to the sea. We are not told why specifically, but it is very interesting to note that the sea is where people misunderstand Jesus. He calls his fishermen by the sea—an OT symbol of judgment on Israel. He calls Levi by the sea—something which stumbles the Pharisees that Jesus would eat with sinners and tax collectors. He begins teaching the people in parables by the sea—something which is intended to confirm the blindness of the people of Israel. Even his own disciples fail to understand him on the sea. When he calms the storm, they ask “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (4:41). And when he walks on the sea, they think he is a ghost and yet even when they know he is not a ghost, they still do not understand (6:52). The sea is the place of ignorance, of mystery, of misunderstanding.
And this is where the great crowds follow him. The crowds now are from all over the area. Galilee is the region on the west side of the Sea of Galilee. Judea is in the south of Israel by the dead sea. Idumea is Edom of the OT, which would be further south and east of Judea. Beyond the Jordan probably refers to an area known as Perea, which was just across the Jordan from Jerusalem. Tyre and Sidon are in the north. So the idea is whether north, east, or south (but not west b/c that’s the Mediterranean) the crowds were coming to Jesus. International fame.
They came to him because they heard what he was doing—they heard of his works. And those who had diseases were coming to him (v10) and “pressing around him to touch him.” Literally, they fell on him. The crowd had become so large, so dense, and so urgent that they were pushing and shoving, falling over one another to get to Jesus in order to be healed. Something like this can be quite dangerous. It’s easy to get suffocated or to get trampled. Jesus was concerned enough about this that he told the disciples to have a boat ready for him to get out on the lake so that they and the crowd might be safe—as well as to teach them, as he did on multiple occasions.
Among this press are certain people with unclean spirits. Interestingly, Mark here does not focus on the fact that Jesus cast out these demons. We assume he did, but Mark does not say that. He omits that detail to draw attention to the fact that the demons recognized him. They recognized what Israel to this point has failed to recognize—the very thing which Mark has been trying to prove since 1:1—that Jesus is the Son of God.
Yet Jesus censures them—a strong rebuke. He silences them. He does not want them to make him known. Even as we have already said, Jesus does not want to be accepted by his people because a demon has made him known. He wants to be received by faith and in repentance. He does not want a demonically inspired faith. He wants a faith that rests upon his identity, upon his works, upon his teaching, and upon his eventual sacrifice. He wants to build his kingdom not upon the cold-hearted but true confession of a demon but the warm-hearted obedience of a repentant, trusting sinner.
Yet how many today follow the same path? I had a conversation with someone this week who found out I was a pastor, and they said, “I’m a Christian too, I think.” They go to a large church in the area. Crowds follow Jesus. They pack out large church facilities and stadiums. They raise hands and weep at powerful music. They sometimes even experience supernatural phenomena. Most youth groups are built off this approach, and many larger “adult” churches. But do they come to Jesus for Jesus? Do they seek him in repentance and faith? Do they want to be with him? To preach him? To obey him? Even among all the evidence of Scripture, the weekly preaching of the gospel globally in faithful local churches, the weekly and daily witness of the lives and evangelism of Jesus’ church, they still don’t see.
And it’s easy to become exasperated at these things and start to ask, “Why can’t you see!?” Then we can become hopeless and give up, thinking that there is no way to help. What will help such people? What will open their eyes? What can we do in order to bring them to saving faith? What will make the difference?
The answer is in the next verse: He calls those whom he desires. Jesus makes the difference.
II. The Twelve Apostles (3:13-19)
Jesus goes up to a mountain and calls those whom he desires. The parallels to Sinai cannot be missed. Moses ascended a mountain and called the 12 tribes of Israel to the Lord. Jesus also ascends a mountain and calls 12 Apostles to himself. The number 12 is important to Jesus, and to the subsequent apostles. Its significance would not have been missed by any Israelite alive in that day, and certainly not by the religious leaders. It was so important that after Judas died, they felt the need to replace him. They saw his absence not as an unfortunate but unimportant reality, but as a vacancy to be filled. When Paul was later added to the number of the Apostles, he considered himself in a somewhat different category—“as to one untimely born” (1 Cor 15:8)—an apostle primarily to the Gentiles rather than the Jews (Gal 2:8). These 12 were sent, at least initially, only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt 10:16).
These twelve were named Apostles. The Apostles are Christ’s foundation for his church (Eph 2:20). These 12 Apostles were a unique way of Jesus maintaining his commitment to renew the house of Israel. You are seeing a down payment of Israel’s salvation. These are the beginnings of the remnant of Israel, the ongoing token of the fact that God has not and will not abandon his people. Yet the Apostles also included Paul who was himself a Jew but was the apostle to the uncircumcised. In other words, the church is composed of Jew and Gentile in one new man.
Yet, notice what was so important about the call to Apostleship. The first thing Mark says is “that they might be with him.” The uniqueness of the original 12 is that they knew Jesus personally. 1 John 1:1-4. They were eyewitnesses. The preaching of the gospel to us rests upon their eyewitness account and the training they received directly from the Lord. It is therefore imperative that they were “with him.” For it was in being with him that they learned who he was.
How true of us as well. Is not Christianity nothing more than being with him? We are with him in prayer, in the word, and in his body, are we not? Isn’t the highest joy of our lives to be with him? And do we not become more and more like him when we are with him? Can others in your life tell that you have been with Jesus? Do you regularly seek time to be with him? The greatest training for discipleship is being with Jesus.
Not only were they to be with him. They were also to be sent to preach and to cast out demons. In other words, the apostles were an extension of his own ministry. Their ministry was joined to his, sharing in Jesus’ authority and preaching Jesus’ message. In other words, Jesus’ kingdom expands through the preaching and ministry of his people. Our ministry is only valid in so far as we abide under Jesus’ authorized authorities.
And he appointed them. Literally, he “made” them. They are his creation. He appoints them to his service. All the leaders of the church are appointed by Jesus. Ephesians 4:11 makes that clear. Jesus gives Apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Jesus appoints leaders—we just receive them. And who were these men?
Simon Peter – The Rock. The first called of Jesus as a disciple. The married fisherman from Capernaum, son of Jonah. Rough around the edges. Always putting his foot in his own mouth. Always pursuing the wrong course with zeal. Yet he was chosen by Jesus to be the Rock of the foundation of the church—a leader among the Apostles, the foundation of which Jesus himself was the cornerstone. And, we must remember, he betrayed Jesus, even after swearing that he wouldn’t. He disavowed him with high-handed sin. Peter, the one who Jesus pursued to restore him as the Rock, who had learned the important lesson of humility under the mighty hand of God and of tender love for the flock of God.
Andrew, Peter’s Brother – The First to Jesus. First follower. Brings Peter to Jesus. Brings the boy with the fish to Jesus. Brings the Greeks to Jesus.
James, Son of Zebedee, brother of John – The Impetuous. Calling down fire on ungodly Samaritans. Angling for places of power in the kingdom. Drank Jesus’ cup upon the sword of Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:2).
John, Son of Zebedee, brother of James – The Beloved. Called from fishing. Part of the inner circle—present at Jairus’s daughter, transfiguration, Gethsemane. He is the “disciple which Jesus loved.” He was the only of the 12 to see the crucifixion. He was entrusted with the care of Jesus’ mom on the cross. He was the first to the tomb (makes a point that he beat Peter there). In Acts, John is accosted by the Sanhedrin, confirms the work of Philip among the gentiles, and is considered a “pillar” in the Jerusalem church. Writer of 5 NT books, the gospel that bears his name, 1-3 John, and Revelation. He was the discipler of many important first-generation church leaders.
Philip – The Evangelist. One of the first disciples of Jesus. Invites his friend Nathanael to see Jesus. Helped introduce Greeks to Jesus alongside Andrew. Yet he also doubted Jesus’ suggestion that he feed the 5000 and was worried when Jesus said that he would go away from them.
Bartholomew – The Inconspicuous. Only ever mentioned in the lists of the 12 apostles in the gospels. Never outside.
Thomas – The Doubter. He was a twin. Ever the Pessimist. “Let us go with him that we might die with him.” “We don’t know where you’re going. How will we know the way?” He doubts Jesus’ resurrection until the Lord appears to him. He ends up in India as a missionary according to tradition.
Matthew – The Publican. Also named Levi. He doesn’t appear anywhere in the gospels apart from his call. He is an emblem of the kind of person that Jesus can save. Writer of the first gospel.
James, the Son of Alphaeus – The Unknown. We don’t know anything about James, apart from the fact that his mother’s name was possibly Mary (not the same as Jesus’ mom) and a brother named Joses.
Thaddeus, aka Judas son of James – The Theologian. “How will you reveal yourself to us, but not to the world?” (Jn 14:22).
Simon, the Zealot – The Zealot. It is difficult to know if he was a politically motivated individual. The zealot movement did not originate until long after Mark wrote his gospel. But he was full of zeal and enthusiasm, whether for Israel or the law or for Jesus. Whatever the case, his zeal did not get in the way of his faithful following of Jesus who ate with tax collectors and sinners.
Judas Iscariot – The Betrayer. Always last. The treasurer. The fake. The money-lover. The outwardly sincere. The demon possessed. The betrayer of Jesus to his death. The one who hanged himself. The eternally condemned to his own place. From the southern town of Kariot (hence, “Iscariot”). Oh the tragic story of Judas. His story is an ever-present warning to us who sojourn in this world, that physical closeness to Jesus is no guarantee of a saving interest in his blood.
As John MacArthur is famous for having made the point: these are ordinary men. We see them as famous, regal, exalted, unusually talented. But that’s because we didn’t know them personally. They were normal people. All these names are common. We might get a better sense of them if we called them Pete, Jim, John, Andy, Phil, Bart, Matt, Tom, Jimmy, Thad, Simon, and Jude. They were fishermen and government employees. They were family and friends. They were married and single. They were normal people. They were called from the crowd. That is comforting to us, because that is precisely who Jesus uses. As it says in verse 13, these are the ones he calls, desires, and appoints to serve him. You don’t need to be spectacular to be useful to Jesus—you just need to come to him.
You also notice as you unfold this what a wonderful fellowship these men must have had. They gave each other nicknames (The Twin, Sons of Thunder, The Rock, The Zealot). They spent night and day for three years together. They had an acquaintance with Jesus and his teaching that no other human being has had since. They were witnesses of him, and that bonded them together in such love that it is hard to express.
Conclusion
We like them are called from the crowd. What makes the difference between you and your unsaved spouse? Jesus. What makes the difference between you and your unsaved coworker? Jesus. What makes the difference between those who are caught up in a false Gospel, worshiping a false god, and following false apostles? Jesus. All the crowd may gather to him, but the only reason we have repented and believed is because Jesus called us to himself. He calls those he desires, and they come to him.
Jesus takes the initiative. Peter and Andrew, James and John, were fishing. Jesus calls them, and they follow. Levi is collecting taxes. Jesus calls him, and they follow. The crowd comes, and Jesus calls those whom he desires.
And those whom he calls, he sends. We are not apostles. There are no apostles today. Yet in the same way as the apostles, we have been summoned by him. We have come to him. And he sends us out to declare his excellencies as the one who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.