Jesus has been preaching. His popularity has soared. He can barely go out in public without getting mobbed. He has healed the sick, cast out demons, calmed the storm and even raised a little girl from the dead. There is a frenzy surrounding His ministry and the growing following.
He is returning to His hometown. You would think there would be a ticker tape parade and maybe He would receive the key to the city if they did those kind of things. Maybe there would even be a Jesus street. That’s how we do things. Notice His reception from the people who mean the most to Him.
Mark 6:1-34 
1. The Cost: Rejection by those who mean the most (v. 1-6)
1Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. 2When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. (They have no problem with His message!)
"Where did this man get these things?" they asked. "What's this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! 3Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph,[a] Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him.
The people who meant the most in His life were offended.
4Jesus said to them, "Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor."
Familiarity always breeds contempt. They were not questioning His theology or His miracles even. They weren’t even questioning His power. Their question revolved around the fact that He was just a little too close to them for them to believe that God could do something through Him.
Isn’t this a truth today? The people that are often the hardest too reach are those under our own roof or our closest friends. It seems so difficult to bring up Jesus sometimes to those closest to us. You pray for them and long for them to come to know God. 5He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6And he was amazed at their lack of faith.
Do you understand that Jesus is not amazed by very many things but this even amazed Him. What’s the cost of following the Christ of the Bible? While there are times when you feel good about it too often the cost is rejection from those we love the most. It sometimes keeps us from standing up as strong as we should because we want to avoid the rejection. There was a woman that was married to a man that was not a Christ follower and she tried to do everything she could to reach him. She would leave the Bible lay around with verses highlighted. She would give him tapes to listen to. She would badger him about going to special things at the church. Finally after about three years he called her by name one day and told her he didn’t want to hear any more about this God stuff or they were going to have a problem. She began to pray for God to change her instead of her husband. He was hard to live with but she hung in there and prayed and finally after ten years he came to Christ. Do you know what he said brought him to Christ. There was no big event. He was a hard guy to live with and he said, “She just wouldn’t quit loving me, and I knew there had to be something to it.” He is now a dynamic Christ follower.
Steps to reaching those we love:
Don’t push
Do pray
Live it and love them: They need to see it and feel it.
Listen more than you talk.
If you are going to follow the God of the Bible it is not always about rejection or cost. There is a reward. You get in on living the way that our Creator intended for us to live. You get to experience things that many people will never experience. 
2. The Reward: Participation in things that matter most (v. 7-13)
Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. 7Calling the Twelve to him, he sent them out two by two and gave them authority over evil[b] spirits.
8These were his instructions: "Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. 9Wear sandals but not an extra tunic. 10Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. 11And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them."
Up to this point they have been Jesus buddies. He does the healing and they just hang out with Him. Jesus preaches and they listen. He is sending them out to be successful. He is revealing the reason that we are called Christ followers. It is very simple. Go and reach out to others. You will have My power Jesus is telling them. Spread the good news. Go from town to town. I don’t know where we ever got the notion that the church does it’s best work in here.
12They went out and preached that people should repent.
How many of you know that that is a great message for our day. They didn’t preach that people should feel good or that all you had to do was come to this guy Jesus and all your troubles would disappear. They never promised that they would catch more fish than anyone else or that their boats wouldn’t leak.
They said repent because you have a major problem with God. You’ve sinned, God is holy but He also has made a solution. Change your mind about Him and draw near to God. Look at their success.
13They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them
Put this in perspective. These guys have never done this before. Put yourself in their place. They’ve been walking around fairly disengaged enjoying the presence of Jesus and being a part of the inner circle. They’ve been listening to messages and watching Jesus heal people. All of the sudden Jesus says, Guess what? It’s your turn. They go out two by two and people start repenting and they are getting healed and they are amazed. They are in on the action.
They are saying to each other, “this is incredible, God is using me.” Being used by God is an incredible reward. There is nothing like it. That’s why we push the three C’s and encourage people to not stop with the just a Sunday morning celebration service or even small groups but get involved in the call that God has on your life. It could be in the church but for a lot of us it will be in our daily lives where ever God puts us for His use.
Have you ever been used by God? Have you ever thought of it as a reward? There is nothing like being used by God for His cause.
Illustration of God using someone
One of the greatest rewards of this life is that God will use you.
Let me ask you who you are bringing alongside you to help and to train to engage in the ministry that God has called you to? New Testament Christianity does just add it multiplies. This is a critical component to the future effectiveness of ministry in this church and really anywhere for that matter. If you are looking for a ministry find someone and ask them if you can just hang around with them and learn from them and do ministry with them. Everyone in this church should be in one of those phases with someone. With someone who is helping you or you doing it and helping someone else.
God will provide everything we need to succeed. You don’t have to be a superstar. He told them what to do, they did it and they succeeded. All we need to do is follow Him.
The passage we are studying today takes a dramatic twist. It was hard to understand why this would be in this passage at first. 
3. A Probing Parenthesis: The cost illustrated (v. 14-29)
14King Herod heard about this, ( he heard about the disciples and all their spreading ministry.) for Jesus' name had become well known. Some were saying,[c] "John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him." 15Others said, "He is Elijah."
And still others claimed, "He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago." 16But when Herod heard this, he said, "John, the man I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!" This is a most interesting insertion of a story into the flow of the narrative of Jesus and the disciples. In this passage there was rejection and then participation and then there is this story. It is definitely a parenthesis. Let’s ask ourselves what Mark is trying illustrate by putting this story in the middle of his narrative.
17For Herod himself had given orders to have John arrested, and he had him bound and put in prison. He did this because of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, whom he had married. 18For John had been saying to Herod, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife." 19So Herodias nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. But she was not able to, 20because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled[d]; yet he liked to listen to him.
21Finally the opportune time came. On his birthday Herod gave a banquet for his high officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. 22When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests.
The king said to the girl, "Ask me for anything you want, and I'll give it to you." 23And he promised her with an oath, "Whatever you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom."
24She went out and said to her mother, "What shall I ask for?"
"The head of John the Baptist," she answered.
25At once the girl hurried in to the king with the request: "I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter."
26The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her. ( he gave in to peer pressure) 27So he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John's head. The man went, beheaded John in the prison, 28and brought back his head on a platter. He presented it to the girl, and she gave it to her mother. 29On hearing of this, John's disciples came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.
Why did God place this parenthesis in this story? Here are some observations:
Feel good Christianity has this message. If you do a,b,c and d, God will heal you of all your diseases, give you great wealth, make you happy all the time and everything in your life will turn out wonderful. The Bible says that John did a,b,c,d,e,f, etc. . . and he did them better than any other human being and he was murdered for his faithfulness. God doesn’t play that game. If you want to really follow the God of the Bible you will be rejected by some of the people who mean the most to you. If you want to follow the God of the bible you will get to participate in the things that matter most in eternity. You can follow the God of the Bible and do a,b,c,d, and e and do everything according to His will and it may end up costing you your life.
This passage teaches to follow Jesus Christ is to come to grips at an extremely deep level that your life is not your own. This is not a game or a fad. This is not a spiritual self help way to get your emotions and life together. It is utter allegiance and loyalty to the person of God whose name is Jesus Christ and it will cost you your life. For some physically but for all of us it will costs us our lives spiritually. Mark doesn’t end on this note. He comes back with another reward. Do you notice the pattern of cost, reward and cost, reward?
God wants every one of us today to think about cost and reward and feel that tension because it is the tension of the genuine Christ follower. He wants you to weigh what it really means to follow Him, not just with your emotions but with your intellect and will say, God, I’m on board and whatever it takes I’ll walk with you. I’ll do it financially, emotionally or rejection I will walk with you. 
4. The Joy of Victory: The price of impact (v. 31-34)
30The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught.
They had not done this before. They were beside themselves with joy. There is no reward like being used by God to touch others. There is no feeling like being part of a win for God. There is a joy in victory when you give your life for other people, even in adversity.
(conversation with a friend from the past.)
Sometimes ministry will cause you pain beyond belief but there is still no greater joy than being used by God and being in the center of His will. Sometimes His will will not be understood by those around you. He may call you to do something for Him that only you and God understand but you will follow Him and do it because it is the pathway He has chosen for your life. What a win you will have when you do His will.
Do you know what happens when someone wins the super bowl or a national championship or a NBA championship? There are grown men with muscles on top of muscles some of which will strut around with their shirts off but there are others who will sit down and weep openly because they are overcome with the emotions of victory. They will talk about the dream at training camp and how they played hurt and they covered for each other and stepped up as a team. They love each other and paid the price and they are experiencing something that few people get to experience. They are so sincere. They are elated because they set a goal that took extreme commitment to execute and they have achieved their goal. They have given their lives for it and they are experiencing the joy of victory. Do you know what all that is for? Because they won a football game. Grown men running up and down a field carrying a little piece of a pig skin. They can walk around with a ring.
Do you know that that is just a microcosm of what God wants us to experience. He’s not wanting us to be excited about a game but a cause. To ban together, to be in a small group and to plan your life together.
The cost continues.
31Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest." 32So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. 33But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. 34When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion (Hebrew word: out of the womb) on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
There is always a cost and a reward. If you are answer the call to ministry it will always have moments of inconvenience. People will always need something when you don’t have time to give or when you have planned something. If you really want to have an impact for Christ your time will not be your own. People will always have their biggest hurts when it will seem like the worst time. ( There are times when you will have to say no but much of doing God’s will will feel like an inconvenience at times.) Your life will not be your own and in fact your heart will not be your own. Your life will be poured out for others. People will come in here with a boat load of needs and if we do ministry right they will grow and become more like Christ everyday and in a little while they will be reaching out to the next person that comes in here with a boat load of needs.
The price tag: Unlike feel good Christianity following Christ literally means to give your life away for the lives of others. The promise is that as you give your life away you will find it. You will find meaning, purpose, joy and fulfillment that cannot be found, purchased or gained anywhere in all the world. You need to count the cost look at the reward and then decide who are you going to follow and who are you going to give your life for.
Lord we want you to move among us in these moments. Show us what it looks like to follow you. Help us to understand what it means in our personal lives. Where it means to endure, where it means to sacrifice, where it means to be bold or where it means to take a step of faith.
Lord we pray that Your Spirit will come into our hearts to nudge us to say yes to you. I pray for the grace that will make us more than feel good Christians. Make us people of impact and intimacy. Make us people of authenticity and love. Do that and let it spread all over this county. Lead us Lord to me more like you.