Conversation Starters

1. Read Mark 6:1-29.

2. Think about a time you experienced opposition, rejection, or disapproval from others. How did that make you feel? How did you respond?

3. How does Jesus respond to rejection from his hometown? Why do you think he did that?

4. How does he expect his followers to respond to opposition and persecution?

5. What would need to be true for you to have a similar response?

Title: Jesus Commissions
Reference: Mark 6:1-13, 25-30
Speaker: Jacob Vangen, JacobV@cckc.church

– As a follower of Jesus, expect to be on mission.

In the early centuries of the Jesus movement, a witness and a martyr were virtually synonymous. For us in the democratic West, literal death is not an imminent threat, but there is a kind of death involved if we bear witness to Jesus’ gospel – a death to our reputation as cool or sophisticated or on trend, a death to others’ moral estimation of us, a possible death to our career ambitions, and more. ~ John Mark Comer, Practicing the Way

– As a follower of Jesus, expect it to cost you something.

When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

Non-discipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees everything in the light of God’s overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil. In short, it costs exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring (John 10:10). ~ Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines

– As a follower of Jesus, expect Him to be worth it.