Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Maturing Followers of Jesus

Freed to Serve (LP)

Alright, if you need a bible, go ahead and raise your hand and we'll get one to you.

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Page [846].

Big Idea: Live a life worthy of Him

Well, good morning Near North!

For those of you I haven’t met, my name's Dan Osborn and I serve as one of the pastors here at Near North.

It’s good to be with you all again!

Alright, if you need a bible, go ahead and raise your hand and we'll get one to you.

We'll be in tonight.

Page [846].

We've been in the book of Mark for the last several months now as a church.

And if you’ve been tracking with us, one of the things you’ve noticed is that right in the middle of the book, Mark makes a HUGE shift in his focus.

See, the first half of the book has been about showing Jesus as the King, but around chapter 8 in the book, Mark focuses on telling the story of Jesus’ journey to his death.

From chapter 8 onward, on several occasions, Jesus will sit with his disciples and tell them what will happen to him…that he will be condemned to death, handed over to the Roman authorities, tortured, killed…and then rise again after three days.

If you have a bible, would you open with me to and we’ll be looking at verse 9-14. .

If you’ve got one of the house bibles, it’s on page 983.

If you need a bible, go ahead and raise your hand and we’ll get one to you.

Courtney, my wife and I, are getting ready to go on vacation next week to spend some time with her family in Georgia…and so the other, we sat down to have what I like to call, “the expectation conversation”.

Tonight, we are looking at a particularly relevant conversation that Jesus had with his disciples that flows out of his third prediction of his death and resurrection.

A conversation about what makes somebody great.

Which is an interesting discussion for us, seeing as our culture is almost obsessed with figuring out how to be great.

If you don’t believe me, you can google, “How to be Great” and find links to thousands of articles…from Time, Forbes, Fortune, Buzz-feed, and myriad of other sources…promising to give you the 10 steps to greatness.

And what’s perhaps most interesting about these articles is that almost none of them will tell what it means to be great…which is odd since they’re trying to tell you how to get there…rather, they assume that what you really want to know is how to be ‘on top’…the best in your field…at the top of your game.

But what if that’s not true?

What if being great is NOT about being on top at all?

So if you have a bible with you, would you open with me to Mark chapter 10.

And we’ll start in v. 35.

Let’s pray before we get started.

[PRAY]

You know what I’m talking about, right?

The expectation conversation?

You might not have it with your spouse, but we all know what that kind of conversation is like where you sit down and pretty much lay out what you’re expecting to happen.

You might have something like this with a roommate…or with your boss—that’s a pretty important one to have it it with—I try and have them with Courtney pretty often.

And it’s not because we have a perfect marriage and are just on point with all that kind of stuff…but we have that conversation because we need it…

I learned how important the expectation conversation is the hard way after a few years of not having it with her…I’ve learned it’s particularly relevant before we go on vacation.

We usually head out to the beach once a year with her family and we always have a great time.

I love being with my wife’s family—with all of my nieces and nephews and my in-laws…but the problem is, we vacation very differently.

Her family is all about spending time with everyone and sitting out on the beach or by the pool…the kinds are running around having fun and we do that everyday.

And it’s not like I hate doing that.

But the thing is, I’m like the only introvert in that family.

I’m perfectly fine being alone and sometimes I prefer it and even need it…so when EVERY ONE decides for the third day in a row to go and lay out on the beach for a few hours, my first thought is…we’re in South Carolina…it’s July…it’s a hundred degrees outside…you all have fun!

There’s air conditioning in here and I’ve got my book, I just need some alone time.

Great by Power ()

The way that Mark begins to tell us this story is by showing us what the disciples believe, and if we’re honest, what we believe too, about being great and how to get there.

And this takes up most of the text tonight, so we’re gonna hang out here for a while.

This, I have learned…is not the correct response.

And it has led to some…additional conversations between Courtney and I.

But see the real issue was that I really didn’t know what expectations Court had for our vacation…the things we’d be doing as a whole family and things like that…and frankly, she didn’t know what I expected!

When we don’t know what’s expected of us…we don’t really know how to act!

When we don’t know what’s expected…it makes it really heard to know what to do.

Look with me starting at v. 35.

It says this, “And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to Him (Jesus) and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’

And he said to them, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ Now, let’s pause right here for a moment because we need to remember who James and John are…that will help us understand what they’re about to say.

So now, pretty often, we have the expectation conversation.

Because knowing what the other party expects, wants, or desires helps bring clarity for what we should or shouldn’t do, right?

Knowing what the other party wants has a huge influence on how we live, doesn’t it?

It helps us understand what were supposed to be doing and what we’re shooting for, right?

The expectation conversation is incredibly important in relationships!

It doesn’t really make things easy…but it helps set the boundaries of what we should be doing…and how we should be living!

See, they’re not some random pair of brothers, they’re actually two of the people who know Jesus best.

You’ll remember that Jesus had a close circle of 12 followers, or disciples.

But within that group, there were three of them who made up this kind of inner-circle; Peter, James, and John.

And I think that begs a deep question…if we’d even ever want to ask it…what does God expect from me?

Does He have expectations for me?

Is there a standard And even more of a dangerous question…how am I doing?

How’m I measuring up?

Where do I fall?

What does God want from us, if there is anything at all?

Two weeks ago Steve Coble was here talking about Jesus revealing his glory in Chapter 9 in the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus.

Who did Jesus have with him at that point?

It was only Peter, James, John!

They are the only one’s who’ve actually seen the glory…the greatness…of who Jesus really is.

And so as we look at this conversation between James, John, and Jesus, we need to remember that they’re the one’s who have the clearest understanding of who Jesus is and what he’s doing!

This morning, as we look at the first chapter of Colossians, and we’re going to have that expectation conversation with God…and we’re going to see what God expects of us…that he does have a desire for the way we live…there is a standard…we’re going to see that God’s desire…his expectation…is that all followers of Jesus would be maturing followers of Jesus!

And we’re going to spend the majority of our time this morning looking at what it means to be a maturing follower of Jesus.

Sound good?

So if you’re not there yet, open with me to Colossians chapter one.

Let me pray, and then we’ll get started.

And here’s what they ask for, look with me at v. 37, “And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”

Now, this might not sound like a big deal to most of us, but we need to understand that in the ancient world, to sit at the right or left hand of a ruler was a HUGE honor.

It said you had power!

[PRAY]

And if we look for it, we still see this today I don’t know if you saw president Trump’s congressional address on Tuesday night, and whether or not you agree with him, you would’ve seen the same idea.

At any given time during the speech, if you saw the President, you also saw two other people…Mike Pence, and Paul Ryan (or the Vice President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives), there they were…sitting right behind him on his right and on his left.

Any time the president was seen, they were seen.

And these seats aren’t just open to anyone…Pence and Ryan did not get there early to get good seats…but only to people who are in great positions of power or authority, right?

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Do you get what’s going on?

James and John are asking Jesus to place them in these two positions of power…essentially, they’re asking Jesus to make them great.

But let’s see if we can get a better idea of why they ask Him to do this.

Let me give us just a bit of context that will help us makes sense of what were reading this morning.

Paul, who was a leader in the early Church and wrote a lot of the new testament, heard about a started a church in the city of Colossae [SLIDE]—you can see where that’s at on the screen behind me, on the bottom right, by the red star.

And what we’re looking at tonight is the prayer Paul starts his letter with.

Ultimately what we’re going to see that Paul’s desire, and really God’s desire, is that followers of Jesus would be maturing.

And Paul does two things in this prayer that are really helpful for us in understanding what it means to be maturing followers of Jesus:

Remember, they’ve spent the most time with Jesus now, so they’ve developed a set of expectations for why Jesus came and what he plans to do!

1.

The first thing he tells us is that God expects us to be maturing.

This is what he desires for us…this is the expectation for every follower of Jesus.