Repent and Believe
Notes
Transcript
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God,
15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
16 Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.
17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”
18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him.
19 And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets.
20 And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.
Pray
As we continue through the book of Mark, we have these two scenes that we look at today. Jesus is preaching and he calls his first disciples. As a parent, there are things that make me laugh. I look back to my childhood and think that I probably did the same thing. And I am sure that if you have raised children, you understand this. Your kid will be in their bedroom and you need them. So you call their name. Now, in a perfect world, you would hear their bedroom door swing open, and they would run out in the living room and they would say, “yes, father, what is it you need me to do”. But we all know that this is not how it goes down. What really happens is you call their name and the answer is always, “what?!?”
I know that it is something to make light of, but what if we answered Jesus like that when he calls us. What if we showed Jesus that he is irritating us when he calls. That he is an inconvenience to what we are doing. Today, we are going to look at two different calls that are made. One is a general call that everyone should hear. That one often gets answered with the “what do you want” mentality. The other is what we call the particular call of Jesus. This is when Jesus singles someone out for salvation. And the answer to that call is always “yes lord, I am here”.
By the end of this message, my prayer is that you see in scripture that when Jesus calls us to salvation, we drop everything and we follow.
The General call of Jesus
The General call of Jesus
Have you ever had to wait to find something out? In our world today, we find things out faster than we ever have been able to. No matter if it is mere hours or days or weeks even, when you are waiting on news that could change your life, the wait seems forever. Maybe you have a cancer scare and are waiting on test results. Maybe you have a child that has struggled with addiction for years. Maybe you have a parent or a loved one who is getting old and their days are numbered. And we are all just waiting on that phone call or that visit with the news that our lives will forever be changed.
Jesus had a message. His message was a message of hope and salvation for those who believe but for those who didn’t believe, it was a message of despair and condemnation. Let’s look at this message.
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God,
After the scene that we have earlier of John preforming baptisms, he is arrested. Mark says this because he moves forward a good bit with events that are happening. We find things that happen between the baptism of Jesus and the scene we have here in the other gospel accounts. The end of the public ministry of John sparks the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus. We will get into more detail later on in the book of Mark about the arrest and ultimate death of John. But today, I want us to focus in on Jesus in this passage. Jesus had previously been in the wilderness. Mark tells us that Jesus came into Galilee. Galilee is where we see the bulk of Jesus’s ministry up until nearly halfway through the book of Mark. And Mark tells us that he is proclaiming the gospel of God.
I want to take some time here to see what Jesus is doing. When it says that he is proclaiming, this means that he is preaching. He proclaims the gospel of God. Your version of the bible may say that he is proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom of God. It may say that he is proclaiming the good news of God. That is what the gospel is. It is the good news of the Kingdom of God. If we said that the gospel is just good news then it could be anything. It could be that phone call or that visit telling you that you are cancer free or that your child who is addicted to drugs has checked into rehab or that your parent who is in a nursing home or ICU has made a turn around. This is good news. But when we look at it from a kingdom perspective, it still isn’t that good of news.
With eternity in mind, there is only one good news. And that is what Jesus preaches.
15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
So Jesus has a message that can be broken up into 4 different pieces.
The time is fulfilled - Mark 1:7 “7 And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.” Jesus is saying that he is the one that John had spoken of, he is the one that the prophets had spoken of, he is the one that God had promised to send.
The kingdom of God is at hand - Many of the people then looked at this saying just as others do today. They are looking for something that they believe has not come. But Jesus said that it was then. And we can say today that the kingdom of God is at hand. This means that right now, you can come to be part of the kingdom. Yes, the kingdom will come, but the kingdom is now as well. And because of this opportunity that Jesus presents, he gives 2 instructions.
Repent - To repent means to change directions. It deals with us personally and it deals with our sin. It means to change the way that we view our sin in order to line up with God. This is the same call that the Old Testament prophets were giving. To return back to God. That is what we are to do, make a turn from the direction we are headed and go back to God
Believe in the gospel - Repentance focuses on the turning, belief focuses on what we are turning to. So not only do we change direction but we change what we believe.
Believe the gospel. What is the gospel? Thank you for asking that question. Gospel, as I have said, means good news. What is the good news of God? God himself is the good news. Pastor Andy Davis of FBC Durham said this about the gospel, “All of the lesser blessings of the gospel, all of them get us to God, who is good. They get us into a relationship with a perfectly good God. So that includes the blessings of forgiveness of sins, of justification, by faith alone. The healing of our souls through regeneration, being born again, the healing of our bodies, the perfect healing of our bodies through bodily resurrection from the dead. All of these things make way for the real blessing. And that is, we get God when all is said and done. God is the outcome of this gospel.”
So we have the statements that Jesus made. He said the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Then he makes a call to respond. He says, “You know the truth, repent and believe”. This is the call that is made to everyone. Repent and believe. This is the call that is made each and every week here from the pulpit. This is the call that should be made in conversation when we are sharing the gospel with others. This is the same call that was made when each and every one of us came to a saving faith.
When someone repents and believes, everyone will know. Now, we can’t see someones heart. But we can see the outward change in someone. When someone repents, they are a new person. 2 Corinthians 5:17 “17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” We are different. Maybe you come here week in and week out. And you hear this message of repentance being preached. But you have never changed. Now I am not saying that you can no longer struggle with sin, we all struggle with sin. But your soul hasn’t changed. Here is an indicator, let’s say that you have dealt with this particular sin for a long time. How does this sin make you feel when you do it? Do you just brush it off? Or do you hate your sin? Don’t feel like you are alone. I am not going to stand up here and make you think that I am some high holy roller that has it all together. There are sins in my life that I have struggled with for years. And I hate them. I love the quote by John Newton, “I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am.”
Repent and believe the gospel. To believe in the gospel means that you trust in it. Repentance and belief are not two separate events. They go hand in hand. If you truly repent, you will believe. And if you truly believe, you will repent. So you may be wondering, what is Jesus calling them to believe? I stand here every week and make the call to believe that Jesus lived a perfect life, died the death that we deserve, and rose from the grave. While he is preaching this, Jesus had not yet went to the cross and the resurrection had not happened. So what is he calling them to believe. Have you ever wondered how people were saved before the cross? Because it happened, there were people saved before. Everyone who has ever experienced salvation has experienced by grace through faith. We, today, can look back at the work of Jesus and believe. But the people before the cross were not able to do this. They had to look forward. Their faith was that it would happen, our faith is that it has happened. Jesus is telling them that he is the messiah. This is what they are to believe. Do they know exactly how he will do it? No, but they believe that he will. And just like Abrahams faith, it is counted to them as righteousness.
But we look back. We look back and see the substitutionary death of Jesus. That our sin is what sent him to the cross even though he was sinless. And that by doing this, his righteousness is what is put on those who believe. And when we believe that he did this for us, we are saved.
Jesus brought a message to everyone. That he is the messiah, now is the time, and everyone needs to repent and believe the gospel of God. This is the general call of Jesus. It is for everyone. Now we look at…
The Particular Call of Jesus
The Particular Call of Jesus
I want to make this distinction with our passage here. The general call is to everyone. It is to repent and believe. The particular call is to an individual. This is Jesus calling someone by name, to follow him, as we will see in these next verses.
16 Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.
Jesus was already in Galilee, now he goes to the sea of Galilee. Now it wasn’t like he went to the beach like we would do if we went to the beach. The Sea of Galilee would just be like a really big lake. At it widest point, it is about 7-8 miles wide. But apparently it was a good spot to fish. And it had enough fish, as we will see, to make a living off of it. When the Romans came to the area, one of the main things that they noticed was how the Sea of Galilee was good for fishing and was full of people fishing. So this was a pretty lucrative job. So he comes up to Simon and Andrew. These men were brothers. Simon is the one who we will know as Peter later on. We know that they were fishermen. They were having to fish from the shore. They were throwing their nets right into the water. Jesus sees them and says something to them.
17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”
This is the call that he gives, follow me. This is a call to discipleship. Did these men know what they were getting into by following him? Absolutely not. But they trusted. Why? Jesus had made this call to them and when he called, they went. Now to give us a little backstory on the brothers that we see in this story. We have Simon and Andrew who were brothers. We also have James and John who were brothers. In Luke 5, we are told that they were all in the fishing business together. So they know each other well. Simon and Andrew are disciples of John the Baptist. They had met Jesus around a year and a half prior to this. You can find this laid out in the gospel of John. (If you are taking notes, write this down) In John 1:35-42 we have Simon and Andrews first encounter with Jesus while they were with John the Baptist. This is where Jesus changes Simons name to Peter.
So, Jesus calls them and tells them that they no longer will be fishermen but he will make them fishers of men. Later on in the book of Mark, we see more of what following Jesus will look like. Mark 8:34 “34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” He is saying that you need to understand by following me, you are willing to die for me. So how did these men react to Jesus’s call to follow him?
18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him.
There wasn’t any questions. They didn’t ask, “well how long will we be gone”, “can we meet you tomorrow, we are kind of busy”, “but we have family counting on us”. There was no questions, there was no hesitation. Mark uses this word here that I said he really likes. Immediately. This is the same word that is translate to “at once”. Immediately they followed him. No hesitation, no second thoughts. It doesn’t say that they said “hold on a minute, let us pack our stuff up and we will go”. No, they left their nets. The tools that they would use to make a living with, to provide for them. Those tools were no longer important because they were going to be in a new line of work. But they are not the only ones that Jesus calls.
19 And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets.
20 And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.
Here we have the fishing buddies of Peter and Andrew. James and John are on their boat. So we know that they are in business together. James and John though are not on the shore line fishing, they are in the boat mending their nets. And as we see, they are with their father, so we can assume that it would probably be his boat. Think about this situation for a minute. In this time period, parents would rely on their children to help with the family business. John and James were helping their father fish. This was a family business. They were expected to take over and then to have kids and their kids to take over. How many of you followed in the footsteps of your parents with your career. I will be honest, I tried that. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Not what God was calling me to, although it was a good experience that I believe God used to shape me for ministry. We could really look at the text here and possibly infer that these were the only two sons that he had since it says that he had hired servants. If he had other sons, he wouldn’t need them.
But think about this. They worked for their father, Jesus calls them, and they just leave. Their father counted on them. He had a business to run, he had to make money to support his family. And now, his two sons are gone. If this is you, you read this out of context and you get a little upset. Especially as parents. You would think that the children abandoned their father. And they did. But this wasn’t just anyone that was calling them. This is Jesus Christ. They knew that this man was the messiah. And when Jesus calls you, you follow.
In this part of this passage, there are two things that I really want you to leave here today knowing.
We don’t seek Jesus but he seeks us - You may think this to be somewhat controversial. If we look back to the beginning part of this chapter, we have John down in the wilderness preaching and people were coming to him. Fast forward to our passage today. Jesus, no longer in the wilderness, now begins his preaching ministry. He did not set up shop somewhere and expect people to show up. This may be how church is done in a lot of ways today but this is not how Jesus did his ministry. When Jesus decided to gather disciples together, he didn’t put up wanted adds, he didn’t have interest meetings. He went to where the people were and he called them. He looked at them, and with authority said “follow me”. He sought them out. He does the same for us. This may be something hard to wrestle with. We live in a world where if anything good happens to us, it is because of something we did. We apply to a job, and we get it. We apply to a school, and we get in. We go hunting and fishing, and if we kill or catch something, it is because we did it. It is about our accomplishments. Not with Jesus. Romans 3:11–12 “11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”” No one seeks for God. But we have Jesus in this passage. Jesus sees these men, he knows these men. He knows that they are sinners, he knows all of the bad things that they have done. But he still calls them. He seeks them out. Maybe you feel unwanted today. Maybe you feel that your worthless. If you are saved, you have worth, you are wanted. You are a child of God because Jesus sought you out.
When Jesus calls, we follow - We see these fishermen in this story that are called by Jesus to follow him. They drop everything. They leave their tools behind and go. They are not concerned with what people will say. They aren’t concerned with what their family will say. They 100% follow Jesus. If you are a Christian, when Jesus calls, you can’t say no. In our passage, we are dealing with discipleship. These men were called to be disciples. There was no saying no. I had someone ask me this week how many people I thought that Jesus could call to make disciples in our world today with how sinful we have gotten. My answer was that he is Jesus, so he could call as many as he wanted. And the truth is, if you are saved by the grace of God, you have received the same call that these four men in the passage today did. We are called to be disciples of Jesus. When Jesus calls you to salvation, to discipleship, you follow.
Earlier, we saw the general call. This is the public call to everyone to repent and believe in the gospel. Everyone hears but not everyone responds. When we see Jesus’ call to these four men to follow him, we see what is called the particular call. The ones that respond to the general call are the ones who have been particularly called by Jesus.
Conclusion
Earlier, I said that if you get anything out of this message today that it is when Jesus calls us to salvation, we follow. But for those of us who are saved, what does this mean right now?
Think back to Jesus calling you to salvation. You said yes. But since then, have you continued to follow Jesus when he calls. Jesus not only calls us to salvation, but he calls us to service.
teaching
deacons
outreach
missions
preaching
These are all particular things that Jesus may call us to. But there is one thing beyond salvation that Jesus calls every one of us to. Just as he tells his disciples in this passage today, he makes us fishers of men. Each and every one of us are called to be disciples who make disciples. And the first thing that must happen in this is that we are sharing the gospel with others. I want to challenge you to write down 3 names this week of people that you know are far from God and begin to pray for them. And pray for God to use you to share the gospel with them.
But maybe you are here today and have never repented and believed in the gospel. Today is the opportunity for you to do that. I want to remind you what the gospel is. The gospel is that we are born sinners because of the sin of Adam in the garden of Eden. Because of this, we are not able to make our way back to God. So God sent Jesus, in the form of man, to live a sinless life and go to the cross to die in our place. This is what we call the great exchange. If you believe in Jesus as Lord and savior, this means that your sins were placed on him while he was on the cross and that his righteousness is placed on you. Your sin for his righteousness. And we are told to turn from our sinful ways and go to God and believe in the gospel. Do you believe this?
