Time to Repent and Believe Mark 1:14-20

-Jesus invites us to follow Him, now.

The other day I ran across the story of a man who had a great opportunity that he missed. His friend took him for a ride one day way out in the country. They drove off the main road and drove through groves of trees to a large uninhabited expanse of land. A few horses were grazing, and a couple of old shacks remained. The friend, Walter, stopped the car, got out, and started to describe with great vividness the wonderful things he was going to build. He wanted his friend Arthur to buy some of the land surrounding his project to get in on the ground floor. But Arthur thought to himself, Who in the world is going to drive twenty-five miles for this crazy project? The logistics of the venture are staggering. And so Walter explained to his friend Arthur, "I can handle the main project myself. But it will take all my money. But the land bordering it, where we're standing now, will in just a couple of years be jammed with hotels and restaurants and convention halls to accommodate the people who will come to spend their entire vacation here at my park." He continued, "I want you to have the first chance at this surrounding acreage, because in the next five years it will increase in value several hundred times." "What could I say? I knew he was wrong," Arthur tells the story today. "I knew that he had let this dream get the best of his common sense, so I mumbled something about a tight-money situation and promised that I would look into the whole thing a little later on." "Later on will be too late," Walter cautioned Arthur as they walked back to the car. "You'd better move on it right now." And so Art Linkletter turned down the opportunity to buy up all the land that surrounded what was to become Disneyland. His friend Walt Disney tried to talk him into it. But Art thought he was crazy.

I. Time to Repent and Believe vv. 14-15

In our passage this morning, Jesus is at a critical point in His ministry, the beginning of what we call His Galilean ministry

Prior to this point, He had largely ministered in conjunction with the ministry of John the Baptist

Now, John has been arrested, Jesus has returned to Galilee, and He is proclaiming the Gospel of God

What is the Gospel of God that Jesus proclaims?

The Good News is that Jesus is Himself the promised Messiah

God has interceded in the course of human events by sending His Son to us

Though it had not yet been completed, the Good News was at hand; Christ has been born and He will die, be buried, rise again, and return

This kind of good news always carries with it a response!

How should we respond to the Good News of Jesus? He tells us:

Repent:

The presence of a Messiah, a Savior, ought to bring some recognition

It tells me that I need a Savior

It tells me that I cannot rescue myself

I have to stop going my own direction, living according to my own wisdom and will

I have to turn around and move in a new way

Believe:

This is the critical piece of this puzzle, the call to repent is not just a call to turn from my own way, but to turn to a particular way

We are invited to believe Jesus:

In a personal way, we are invited to relate to Him and trust Him

I believe Him when I listen to His teaching and trust what He has to say about life, death, God, and truth

Getting this right is critical:

We need to be shaken out of a slumber that says that everything is “basically ok”

We need to recognize our basic incapacity to change ourselves and our circumstances

We need to believe, but to believe in the right news; the good news of God

We need to redirect our faith, from self, from culture, from personalities, to Christ!

Last night, we were leaving Eastchase, heading to I 85 in the turn lane. Unfortunately, at the last minute, we realized that traffic was at a standstill on the interstate and we were stuck! Out of the blue, we saw someone ahead of us take a quick left turn. There was a small break and one last opportunity to turn around before hitting the off ramp. It was the last chance, it was the only chance and we had to take it, believing that it offered a better way. That’s what the life of faith looks like.

II. Time to Follow and Become vv. 16-17

Mark goes on and offers a clarifying picture of what Jesus describes, even a simplification:

We see Jesus at the Sea of Galilee, right along the water front

I don’t want us to miss the power of this; He goes to where people are

There is an element of seeking that is present here. Jesus is seeking out people with this message to repent and believe, but now He distills it a little further

When Jesus comes to Peter and Andrew, He issues an invitation: “Follow me”

These two simple words have the power to change everything for these men

The command to “Repent and Believe” really gets summed up in this invitation:

They must repent, leaving behind home, family, possessions, and even a profession

They must believe Jesus, committing themselves fully to Him and His wisdom and ways

This invitation offers a word of promise that we must not overlook:

Jesus says, “I will make you become fishers of men”

This promise is a staggering thing:

If we follow Jesus, repenting and believing the Gospel, we will become something fundamentally different

This picture of fishers of men demonstrates a redirection of purpose; they will no longer fish for fish, they will fish for people

They are going to join in with Jesus as participants in His supernatural work of redemption

These men will be radically redirected:

They will have a new purpose, a new character, and a new power that is far beyond themselves

This work will be the work of the Lord in them, not the best of their own efforts

We cannot miss the power of this promise: If you follow Jesus He will change you into the man or woman that God intends for you to be

This work could only be accomplished through the Gospel:

God sent His Son as a Savior, born into our world

He lived without sin, but died to pay the price of our sin

He rose victorious over death so that we could be freed from the power of death and enjoy the promise of an abundant and eternal life with Him

He empowers us for obedience by the presence of His Holy Spirit

He sends us to be a part of His ongoing work, until He returns

All of this is yours, if you will repent and believe the Gospel by following Him

Three years ago, Josiah Jackson, then 18, was at Chicago O'Hare International Airport when he spotted a public piano near Gate C17. As a pianist since the age of 4, Jackson couldn't resist trying it out, but after a few notes, he was disappointed.

“When I [originally] sat down to play, I was so disappointed,” says Jackson, 21, in a recent video. “This piano sounded terrible, and the keys felt really sticky. … I made a mental note of it and decided, if I was ever flying through that airport again, I would take some time to fix it for free. So I purposely booked an eight-hour layover.”

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. (ESV)

III. Time to Act with Urgency vv. 18-20

Mark uses a word twice here to describe the character of this action that I don’t believe we ought to miss:

Immediately, Jesus called James and John in v. 20

Immediately, Peter and Andrew responded in v. 18

I think this comes across as a little shocking to us:

Was Jesus a stranger to these men? Were they just a little impulsive, or possibly crazy?

Not at all! When we piece the Gospel accounts together, we find that these same men had encountered Jesus earlier, in the ministry of John the Baptist:

John directed them to Jesus and Jesus invited them to “Come and See”, getting a sense of His character and teaching

They had spent some time observing Jesus, but now a different invitation is coming: “Follow me”

There may have been as much as 18 months from their first encounter with Jesus to this morning

However, the time for them to make a commitment has come: Jesus invites them now!

I’m afraid that this is the space many of us are living in:

You observe Jesus, you are interested in Jesus, you may even find the principles of Jesus helpful or comforting

However, you have never really followed through on a commitment to follow Jesus, by repenting of your sin and believing the Gospel

You may be afraid and you probably have good reasons, if you are taking this seriously:

It might cost you some relationships (even family!)

It might cost you a profession or some possessions

It might cost you a culture or a place to call home

It might cost you everything

However, what Jesus is offering you is better: He is offering us a life with God in His Kingdom!

If you were to wander around the second floor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, you might come across a painting of Christ that would catch you off guard. The name of the work is Salvator Mundi, by Albrecht Durer. He began the painting in 1504 and the level of care is clear. However, it will strike you as odd because it is unfinished. At the hands and the face, only a sketched outline is in place. What happened? While we will never know all of the reasons why, the initial reason seems to have been a plague in Nuremberg. Sadly, Durer kept the painting with him for the rest of his life but never finished the beautiful work that he started. Don’t miss out on your relationship with Jesus!

-Do you need to take a step forward in faith to follow Jesus?

-Do you need to remember your walk with Jesus and reengage?

-Do you need to follow through on some previous commitment to Him?