Jesus In Galilee

Good Morning

Pray

This morning we are going to be in Mark 1:14-20. Last week we looked at Jesus being baptised in the Jordan river by John the Baptist. Now we are going to look at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.

It takes 3 main things to build a great organization. 1) A compelling vision. 2) a few good people who can be the foundation. 3) A Great Leader. We are going to see God bring these 3 essential elements together in building His kingdom. In verse 17 He presents His compelling vision, “I will make you fishers of men.” He is telling them that they will play a part in building His kingdom, the kingdom of God. Then we will see God calls a few good men, Peter and Andrew, James and John. And we can see the greatest leader of all time: Jesus Christ. The Son of God.

God is still using this formula today to further His kingdom.

Lets look at our verses. Mark 1:14-20

Mark 1:14–20 (NASB 2020)

14 Now after John was taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching 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 As He was going along the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I will have you become fishers of people.” 18 Immediately they left their nets and followed Him. 19 And going on a little farther, He saw James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John, who were also in the boat mending the nets. 20 Immediately He called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and went away to follow Him.

We see that first Jesus waited until John the Baptist was arrested before He started His public ministry. John was arrested for rebuking Herod Antipas for his incestuous marriage to his niece Herodias, his brothers wife.

John’s main mission in life was to pave the way for Jesus. He was the herald of Christ. He pointed people to His coming. He had to go, so that Jesus could come. So once John was arrested it was time for Jesus to begin His ministry.

Jesus came to Galilee. Galilee was the northern most region of Isreal. It was also the most populated area. As the great leader that Jesus is, it makes since that He would begin in the most populated area.

He came preaching God’s vision. The gospel of God, saying “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel”.

His message had 3 main points of emphases, the kingdom, repentance, and belief.

Jesus called the Galileans to believe in the gospel. He called them to believe the good news that the kingdom was about to happen. They were to believe that the Messiah was coming soon! In a short time Jesus would reveal that He is the Messiah that they had been waiting for.

This is the same message that we must preach today. We must be commited to preaching the message of salvation through faith alone, in Christ alone. In our churches today it has become to easy to give the status of believer to a person whether they are born again or not. If they display the right cultural traits and we will accept them. Lets look at a couple of them that are effective.

Vocabulary

In the OT when the Gileadites and the Ephraimites were warring, the Gileadites developed a password to detect the captured Ephraimites who were pretending to be Gileadites. The word was Shiboleth, which the Ephraimites (who had trouble pronouncing the “sh” sound) could only pronounce Sibboleth. It worked perfectly on the unsuspecting enemy. (Judges 12:4-7) We have our Shibboleths, but unfortunately they are easy to pick up. Use passwords like “fellowship” and “brother” and “born again” and you will fool most of the people most of the time.

Social Conventions

Share the same social attitudes about alcohol and tobacco, modesty and style of clothing, share the same likes and dislikes(especially dislikes), and you will probably pass as a believer. The ease with which you can adopt the behavioral attitude of professing Christianity has been greased by the gradual alignment of many believers withe the materialism of our secular culture. In short the church has let society in. The church is conforming to society instead of society conforming to the church.

Our churches are full of unrepentant “believers”. Belief is all that is necessary to become a Christian, but it must be a belief that changes the life. It must be a belief that is preceded by repentance. If you say that you believe, but there is not change in the way you act or live, you had better consider carefully whether you truly believe.

This is why in Jesus’ preaching and the preaching of the Apostolic Church, repentance and belief are so closely bound together. Repentance is like a musical refrain through the Book of Acts.

Gospel preaching involves preaching repentance! Today, repentance has been reduced to little more than a whisper. How sad is that. If repentance is not preached with belief, then there will not be true belief. They go hand in hand.

Next we see Jesus call the right people. The Rabbi’s of the time would never call a student to follow them. The students would apply to the Rabbi’s to be a disciple of theirs. Just like very thing Jesus did, he was radical. He called people to Him. Jesus is walking down the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and He sees Peter and Andrew throwing their nets, fishing. Jesus called to them and said” follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men”. See their response! Immediately, they followed! What amazing obedience! Just in case you think that was a one time thing. Just a few moments later, Jesus calls to James and John to follow Him, and Immediately they followed also!! In these few verses, we can see the most amazing obedience in history!

Jesus came with a radical message, then He gave a radical call to these men and the responded with a radical obedience!

What did their obedience mean? First it meant that they would have their life expanded. They more than likely had not been outside of Galilee, with the exception of the occasional trip to Jerusalem for festivals. The majority of their lives were spent in Galilee, fishing. If they were not fishing, they were not making money.

Their conversations were probably about trade, local gossip, family affairs, and Galilean politics. They could even be identified by there Galilean accent.

Then Jesus came and their world changed forever! Jesus is THE great leader! A great leader sees greatness in others when no one else does. A great leader has the ability to push people to do things they thought they could never do. A great leader is a great motivator. Not everyone is motivated by the same thing. A great leader recognizes this and learns how to motivate his people. Jesus did all these things. Galilee was replaced with the world. John became the Bishop of Ephesus, Peter went to Rome, and Andrew went as far as the borders of Russia. Jesus enlarged their hearts to take in the whole world. They used to only think about the simple things of their fishing lives, but now their minds overflowed with deep thoughts. They became theologians, thinkers, sociologists, psychologists, and strategists - all because of the gospel. They gospel changes lives! But only the whole gospel.

These men grew to undreamed of heights because they made themselves special objects of Christ’s love.

Christ has not changed! He still expands lives that follow Him. He has done so in my life. If I had not responded to His call on my life, I would still be scared to death to talk to crowds of people. I would not be thinking with the depth that I am diving to now. I would still be a surface level thinker. If He will do it in my life, I am no one special, He will do it in your life as well. It just requires you to repent, believe and obey! Sounds easy, it is! Jesus still changes lives today! He is the same today that He was over 2,000 years ago. The same He was when He created the world. He still extends His call to people! It is a call to repent and believe. It is a call to follow Him in obedience. Have you done these things, will you do these things? He is calling today, be like the 4 and immediately obey!

Lets pray