I watched a television show recently where someone who was driving along the freeway at night looked into their rearview mirror and said to the person riding along with them, “I think I’m being followed.” To which the passenger responded, “Why would anyone be following you?” Right about then the dog barked and distracted me and I didn’t hear the answer. But I remembered the question. It was such a good question I’ve adapted it and restated it to stimulate our thinking: What motivates people to follow?
Going along with the crowd is one reason. Often people get caught up in some movement of a great multitude and get swept along in the energy of it all. They find themselves going along with the crowd to such an extent they can’t even tell you where they’re going but just know they are on the way to somewhere.
They want what someone else can offer them. Have you ever seen someone following some political candidate because of promises that have been made? People who are discontented can be vulnerable to this deception.
They don’t want to miss out on anything. These are the people who are envious of what someone else receives and because of their self-centered lifestyles they are driven by their desires to not be left behind.
They want to be with the person they follow. Like a puppy following a little child, some people follow other people because of their desire to be with that person. This can be found in the perverted desire of the stalker.
They want to be like the person they follow. This is one of the highest forms of admiration. To follow in one’s footsteps is a figure of speech that expresses a desire to demonstrate the utmost respect and reverence for another. So now we get to the so what of this introduction:
Why are you following Jesus? And if you aren’t following Jesus, why not?
The Gospel of Mark is the gospel in action. Jesus is described in the narrative as actively ministering in the midst of the people. So to keep up with what Jesus is doing in the first few chapters, we see Him moving about in many different locations and many multitudes are following. After the first eight verses introduce Him, we see that He came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized. From there it is the desert, where apart from the angels, He is alone in His temptations. After John’s arrest, He returns to Galilee, preaching the gospel of God. Walking by the sea, He calls some disciples to follow Him. They left everything, the nets, the boats, their father and friends. He passed by the booth of a tax collector who left his ledgers and livelihood and followed Jesus. What was the powerful motivation for people to follow? From the seashore to the synagogues and from the private homes to the public places, Jesus interacted with the people of the land. Today’s passage may help us understand why people followed Jesus in that day and what motivates them to follow Him in our day. Let’s hear now the word of the Lord:
Jesus withdrew to the sea with His disciples; and a great multitude from Galilee followed; and also from Judea, 8 and from Jerusalem, and from Idumea, and beyond the Jordan, and the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon, a great number of people heard of all that He was doing and came to Him. 9 And He told His disciples that a boat should stand ready for Him because of the crowd, so that they would not crowd Him; 10 for He had healed many, with the result that all those who had afflictions pressed around Him in order to touch Him. (Mark 3:7-10)
Jesus rejected the motivation of the multitude who followed only to have their earthly needs met.
I. A FAVORABLE FOLLOWING WILL SEEK THE ONE WHO CAN GRANT THEM FAVORS.
…a great multitude…a great number of people heard of all that He was doing and came to Him…
People throughout history have followed their gods because of what they could gain. Pagan religious superstitions abound in antiquity. The gods of the lands in which God’s people resided were territorial and limited in their power and protection. One could gain the favor of a god through a combination of the right kind of sacrifice, or if the god was in a good mood, or if the stars were aligned rightly, or if they were worshiping the god of the land. Whether you were hoping for a good crop or a large family, appeasing the gods was no small task to take on. Then the Great God of the Hebrews began to reveal Himself not only to His people but to the people surrounding His people. By the time of Jesus, the Hebrew or Jewish people had been scattered from their homeland and had influenced many of the different nations around them. So we read in the text that Galileans, local people, began to follow Jesus. From Jerusalem, the capital of Judaism, to Idumea, the ancient land of the descendants of Esau, people came to follow Jesus. From beyond the Jordan, the people of modern day Jordan and Iraq, and perhaps even Iran, came to follow Jesus. From the ancient seaports of Tyre and Sidon, idolatrous strongholds, they came to see what Jesus was doing. Jesus…the hope of the nations.
People who do not follow Christ as God have more hope to lose than anything they could ever gain. The multitudes were more interested in what He was doing than why He was here. The favors they sought were centered on themselves and their need. The what’s-in-it-for me attitude drives many to follow in our day as well. But people will find that following a self-centered agenda only makes them losers. They lose the peace that comes by knowing Christ personally. Christ does not call people to follow Him so their lives will be financially prosperous or holistically healthy. When a person follows Christ they surrender their life as they have known it. They no longer live to please self but desire to please God. Christ did not come so we could be comfortable in this world. He came to deliver us from hell in the next one. If a person never turns to Christ and follows Him as God, he will lose his soul, even if he gains the whole world. Why would someone do that? Why chase after earthly favors and lose eternal favor with God? Maybe because they confuse favors from God with favor with God.
Christ extends His favor to His favorites. The disciple is the favored follower of Christ. Does Christ love all men? The Bible tells us …For God so loved the world… So does the whole world find favor with God through Christ? Not unless they are His disciples. Not unless they believe and trust God with their lives. Not unless they repent from their sin, receive and believe in the gospel. A disciple is a learner who follows Christ to learn of Him and learns of Him to follow Him. God has chosen the chosen followers of Christ to show them His favor, or His blessing. This is what Christ is doing in this passage. He is living out the promise that God promised to Abraham. Through Abraham all nations would be blessed. Jesus, the seed of the woman, Son of God, descendant of David, child of Abraham, came to bless the nations and shed the favor, or the grace, of God upon all mankind.
Christ followers find favor in His personal presence. It is enough that God is with them in any circumstance. Whether we are in danger of losing our life, our health, our property, our families, our friends, God is with His people. Have you followed Christ long enough to know that He really doesn’t care about your SUV? He cares about your SOUL. And He comes to commune with us. He wants to be with us. And Christ followers find favor by spending time with Him.
The church runs the risk of wrongly reacting to the social gospel. There is a difference between the social gospel and the gospel that Jesus preached. The gospel is God’s good news for man’s bad condition. Jesus did not come to heal as much as He came to save. The social gospel is our man-centered belief that we must first attend to people’s physical needs before they will give the gospel a serious hearing. Well, tell that to Legion in Mark 5. He was a self-mutilating maniac who was a demoniac, homeless in a graveyard because it was not safe for him to live among the living. Imagine a team of people going out to him to assess his physical needs. Imagine them seeing him in his natural and by the way, naked, condition. They would have thought he needed shelter, medical treatment, psychological counseling, social interaction, clothing and possibly a shower. Then Jesus came by night to invade the pervasive darkness of his life. After the confrontation with the Christ, the man called Legion was sitting at the feet of his master, clothed and in his right mind. When Jesus went to get into the boat to leave, Legion wanted to follow. This is the gospel. It is the power of God in Christ to save.
II. A FAVORABLE FOLLOWING WILL BE FICKLE IN THEIR LOYALTY IF THEY DON’T CONTINUE TO FIND FAVOR.
Great multitudes have followed a Great God for trivial reasons. There is nothing trivial about the account of the Exodus. God brought judgment on the land of Egypt and directed Moses to lead His people out of slavery. They followed God to survive. You would think a slave would be ecstatic over his freedom. But amazingly enough, within just a few days of beholding the power of Almighty God, they began to grumble about their condition. When your life is self-centered, your god will be very trivial. This Great God Jehovah is worthy of following. Why do you follow Jesus? What is your reasoning? Do you follow Him because of who He is or what He can do for you? You will never be disappointed with who He is. You will often be let down because of what He has done for you. God does not exist to meet our expectations. We are not the focus of what God is doing. Deliverance from sin is the focus of the work of Christ. Jesus is not God’s gift to us to please us. He is God’s gift to us to save us. We follow Him to survive.
Followers who fall away usually have failed to find their heart’s desire. I think it was Benjamin Franklin that said, “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” Some modern day preachers would add that following Jesus does the same thing. Well, I can agree with one out of three. Following Jesus makes one wise because the Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. When you follow Jesus you will fear God. Some have tried to follow Jesus without knowing He is God. And they have been disappointed because they think they are following some mere man who was a good teacher and a moral model. When life has gotten difficult, they have fallen away because they never understood that following Jesus is the wisest thing a human being can do. To follow Jesus is to seek wisdom. It is a fool’s choice to reject the gospel of God. A fool is disappointed with God.
The authority of Christ is on display for those who can recognize it. Not all who attempt to approach Christ understand who He is. Not everyone who pursues Him knows how to approach Him. Often we presume too much in our pursuit. The passage says that …all those who had afflictions pressed around Him in order to touch Him. The language of the text says that they literally “fell upon Him”. They pushed their way into God’s presence because they wanted to “touch” Him. It is not right to crowd in on God. Contrast how the demons reacted immediately following our passage:
Whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, they would fall down before Him and shout, “You are the Son of God!” (Mark 3:11)
The spirit realm knows what is hidden to the physical world. The unseen, but ultimate, authority of God can only be known spiritually. There is a difference in falling upon Him and falling before Him. Shouldn’t people who know Christ have at least as much reverence for His authority as the demons demonstrate? Do the people who are not following Christ see the followers of Christ living as though Christ is the authority in their lives? Our very lives should be a testimony of Christ in charge. Does the authority of Christ affect how you treat your wife? Does the authority of Christ reflect how you respect your husband? Does the authority of Christ shine through how you lovingly discipline your children? Do you work for a paycheck or work under the authority of God? Do you follow Christ as one who is under authority? The love of God in Christ is God’s basis for kingdom rule.
Disciples come to Jesus out of need and will follow Him out of love. Peter’s answer to Jesus in John 6 is a proper response. Many of the multitudes were falling away because Jesus began teaching some hard concepts. When Jesus asked the disciples if they were going away, Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” When I came to Jesus it is because I answered His call to come and because I realized He was my greatest need. I continue to follow because of love. Not so much my love for Him. But His love for me is steadfast. Do you continue to follow Jesus because He continues to love you?
People will not follow Jesus unless they receive the gospel. Our challenge as a church is not to take lightly the needs of humanity. Our challenge is to keep it balanced with what we are to be about as the church. Our mission is to proclaim the gospel. We are not to get so entwined in meeting people’s physical needs that we never get around to presenting the gospel. This is why Jesus told His disciples to have the boat standing by. His mission was to preach the gospel of God. This is the mission of the church. Make disciples by presenting the gospel of God and continuously learn how to be disciples by living out the gospel of God. Following Christ because we want to be like Christ is one of the best reasons I know.
The “so what” of today’s message:I would rather be in the “favored following” category.
God has favored me by calling me to follow.
Are you following Christ for all the right reasons?
Have you decided to follow Jesus? If not, why not?
There is a difference between deciding and following. Let us follow Jesus.
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