Identity Formation and Mark 1

Almost 3 weeks ago Pastor John started a series on Mark.  I was out of town this past weekend, so I missed the sermon, but I think he (in the interest of time) skipped one of my favorite early passages of Mark: the calling of the first disciples.  So last night we talked through this passage in youth group.

 

First we read the passage together.

 

Then we discussed this point together.

This is the point I hoped to make with this second slide.  Often when we think of the calling of Simon and Andrew, with think that Jesus is telling them that he is going to make them into evangelists.  That they will cast their nets and bring humans into the fold.  And I think this is part of it.  But I think that there is something even more fundamental going on here.  Jesus is telling them that he will reform their very identity.  They will no longer be fisherman, but now they will be what Jesus will make them into.  Jesus is the one forming their identity, which will no longer be found in the work, but in him.

The brothers are leaving everything they know behind, including the very things that define them.  They are leaving behind even their identity in order to follow Jesus.  Following Jesus is costly!  It is not easy, and there are parts of you that you deem important, perhaps even defining, that Jesus will call you to leave behind.  How do you identify yourself?  Are you so and so’s boyfriend or girlfriend?  An athlete?  Student? Actor?  Jesus is calling us to first and foremost find our identity in him.  We are not primarily even a race or gender or ethnicity or sexual orientation.  We are called first to be followers of Jesus, and he will make us into whom he wills us to be.

Jesus doesn’t have time to wait around for James and John to decide if they want to leave behind their father and work and identity–Jesus has got things to do!  A world to change!  A people to redeem!  He is all action.  

It is costly.  It cost James and John their family and their homes and their work.  They left behind everything they knew and everything they had worked for.  Get the point?

The students were interested in talking about “fearing the Lord” but I didn’t want to get sidetracked this week (I have gotten sidetracked significantly the last two weeks!).  

The students were astute on this one.  They recognized right away that most of us serve things other than Jesus.  School, friends, sports, music–and none of these things are bad, until you get to a point where you are serving them rather than God.  And should we decide to choose these things, even just for a period of time, it will be costly.  We talked about some of the costs of serving school first, or friends first.

Choose this day (as Joshua commands) whom you will serve.  Will it be Jesus?  Think through the costs–are you willing to go all in?  It won’t be easy, but the best things in life rarely are.

~ by Mike Seawright on September 19, 2008.