Sermon Brief Andre Riendeau October 28, 2018 Text: Mark 1:14-20 Title: Radical Subject: Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom of God. Complement: Repentance and belief are crucial for entry into God s kingdom and this message is to be proclaimed by committed followers of Christ. Textual Idea: Jesus message was focused on the kingdom, based in repentance and faith and is to be shared by committed followers of Christ. Sermon Idea: A radical call requires a radical response. Interrogative: Does my life display a radical commitment to Jesus? Key word/transitional sentence: What is needed to live out a life radically committed to Jesus? Key Points: 1. A radical announcement - the King is here NOW! 2. A radical call say yes to Jesus training program for you NOW! 3. A radical response commit totally NOW! What do I want people to know? I want people to know that the call of Jesus is a radical one requiring a total commitment to obedience and the pursuit of kingdom priorities. Repentance and faith are the natural rhythms of this life. What do I want people to do? I want people to (1) live a repent/believe lifestyle, (2) reaffirm their Net 3 commitment and (3) leave behind anything that hinders them from following Jesus wholeheartedly. What need am I addressing? I am addressing the need to live a life that is in sync with the radical call of discipleship to Jesus. 1
Radical October 28, 2018 Mark 1:14-20 A radical call requires a radical response. Pray over Ayans/Daniele baptism 1.6 BILLION dollars!! Are you kidding me? Did you see that one person in South Carolina won that in the MegaMillions drawing last week? That s insane! What would you do if you suddenly fell into 1.6 billion dollars? (talk) Let me ask it another way. Would your answer change at all if you knew the world was going to end in 24 hours? If so, why? What we value and live for is directly related to what we believe is true. In our passage this morning, Jesus turns everything upside down and people have to decide if He s nuts or if He s telling the truth. Our response to Jesus message will then determine what we believe to be true and, consequently, what we value and how we live. Everything hinges on where we stand with Jesus. We ve begun a sermon series on the Gospel of Mark which I ve entitled, (LCD) Jesus, More Than Enough, because no matter what you re going through Jesus is more than enough! I ve entitled my sermon today, (LCD) Radical, because Jesus is going to make a racial announcement and some radical calls requiring a radical response. Am I willing to be radical for Jesus? Please open to Mark chapter 1, verse 14. Last week we considered how Jesus was introduced to Israel as her savior through His dramatic baptism. He then went out into the wilderness for 40 days to be tested and approved as the long-awaited deliverer. And with this preparation behind Him, Jesus now begins his public ministry with a radical declaration. Verse 14, After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 The time has come, he said. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news! 16 As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 17 Come, follow me, Jesus said, and I will send you out to fish for people. 18 At once they left their nets and followed him. 19 When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. 20 Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him. Note that Jesus began preaching this message in Galilee after John the Baptist had been put in prison. Mark will tell us about this incident in chapter 6, but for now, as we ve seen, He is rushing by it to get going with the urgent message of Jesus which he calls the good news or the gospel of God. Notice that it doesn t simply say good news of God, it is THE good news of God. In other words, there is a specific message that is from God that is right and true. We call it the gospel message. It is exclusive. Not all messages about God are true. That doesn t play well in our politically correct culture but that s what the Bible teaches, THE good news, THE gospel of God. Now we all know and love (LCD) the gospel, right? You ve probably seen this Bridge Illustration before that simply explains it. We re all sinners, this results in separation from 2
God, only Jesus can bridge us to God, we have to accept Christ as our Savior to be saved and go to heaven. Right? Well compare that with Jesus message in verse 15, The time has come, he said. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news! What s the good news to Jesus? Simply put the kingdom of God has come near. We don t even mention the kingdom of God when we present the Bridge Illustration. Is it wrong to share the Bridge? Is the simply gospel we share really the gospel? What does Jesus mean that the gospel is that the kingdom of God has come near? Now let me warn you we re about to head into some deep waters here. I may lose you but don t worry. Try to follow as best you can, okay? A lot is on the line here the radical message of Jesus demands a radical response, so we need to get His message right. In summary, Jesus message here has (LCD) two declarations and two commands. Let s look at the declarations first. The time has come. What time? To Jesus hearers, they know what time. In the Old Testament, there were many prophecies about what was called the day of the Lord. Here are (LCD) two of them: From Zechariah 14, The Lord will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name. From Malachi, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come, says the Lord Almighty. When Jesus says, The time has come, the Jews understand it to be the coming of the Day of the Lord. Judgment Day when everything is going to be made right, the brutal Romans are going to be destroyed and God will reign with His people in Jerusalem. That s why this message is so radical. Jesus is saying that cataclysmic day has come which is what He means by His second declaration. The kingdom of God has come near. And this is where it all gets very sticky and messy. Just like the Jews are going to be confused when all they re expecting Romans vanquished, sin destroyed, God reigning in Jerusalem doesn t happen; so are we over the last 2000 years confused when we try to understand what this kingdom of God actually is and when it s coming. Let me try to explain it to you. Now when we look at the details about the Kingdom of God in the New Testament, we find that it is a complex concept. There are (LCD) three main ways that the concept is used. First, it is generally used to describe God s reign or authority. Second, it is used to describe a present place or realm in which God reigns. Third, it is used to describe a future place or realm in which God will reign. Here is a verse that shows that the Kingdom is a present realm, (LCD) Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, Here it is, or There it is, because the kingdom of God is in your midst. In your midst or as some translations have it: among you, or within you. Any way you slice it, the kingdom is here but it is not observable. But then we have verses like this one that seems to say that the Kingdom is a future realm yet to come, (LCD) For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. Is it present or future? 3
The leading theologian on the kingdom of God, George Ladd, summarized this concept called inaugurated eschatology in (LCD) this diagram. Now not everyone accepts what I m going to explain here but I m personally persuaded by it. You re free to disagree but I think it s worth sharing. We start here at Creation. Creation ushered in this present age which the Jews called The Present Age. This timeframe is human history and it is filled with death and decay due to human sin. But the Jews also talked about The Age to Come where God would send His King to inaugurate a new reign. Now the Jews thought that the Day of the Lord would move us straight from The Present Age to the Age to Come. But it is more complex than that once we look at the details. What we see is that The Age to Come, or the Kingdom of God, overlaps The Present Age. First with this dotted line which is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. When Jesus rose from the grave, he defeated the enemies of God, death and sin and the kingdom was present yet not observable just yet. This is called the Church Age the Church lives between the two comings of Christ but the powers of the new age have erupted into the old age we are now ambassadors of the kingdom of God clothed in His IMMENSE power! The Church Age will end when Jesus returns to rule on the earth for a thousand years an observable kingdom! In Revelation 20, we read that there will be two resurrections. At the first one, Satan will be bound and Christ will reign, but the kingdom won t come in its completion until at the end of the thousand years when Satan and death are thrown into the lake of fire forever. At this point, heaven and earth are reconciled, and we live in eternity with God in The Age to Come or, aka, the Kingdom of God. So the Day of the Lord is much more complex than the Jews ever imagined! The Jews thought that all the good stuff would happen the DAY that Messiah appeared, not over centuries. They misunderstood Jesus message and that would cause them to reject Him. It is crucial to get His radical message right. Ladd goes on to summarize the kingdom like this, (LCD) The Kingdom of God is God s reign defeating His enemies, bringing men into the enjoyment of the blessings of the divine reign. Are you catching what he s saying? The powers of the Age to Come have arrived NOW! You see how radical this statement is?! Not in their fullness, there is still sickness and sin, but God s victory has begun and is unfolding. And those who submit to King Jesus become clothed with power from on high. Say it with me, (LCD) I am an ambassador of the kingdom of God clothed in His IMMENSE power! The Kingdom of heaven is here now but not in its fullness, it is already but not yet. However, we can enter that kingdom now through the (LCD) two commands Jesus gives us: repent and believe. Moving away from something and towards something else. To (LCD) repent is to change directions. The word is in the present tense meaning it is a continual turning away from sin. It s in the active voice, I have to do something myself. And it is an imperative, a command to be obeyed. It is to admit that I ve been going my own way and I m now committing to go God s way. It is a full-life change. Everything. In light of the reality of the nearness of the Kingdom of God and His coming judgment, I will change my values and my priorities to align with that reality. Like how we started this morning. If we really believe this Kingdom has come, then that should change how we live. Does my life reflect a radical commitment to this unseen Kingdom? Along with repentance comes (LCD) belief which describes what I m trusting in. It s also a Present Active Imperative a lifestyle of faith that I choose in obedience. Jesus is 4
commanding people to trust in Him. To trust in His message that the Kingdom really is near, that we need to get right with God, that we really are sinners we need to trust that He died on the cross for our sins. Everything that I shared earlier in the Bridge Illustration, but as you can see believe means more than just saying you believe it in a prayer; it s a lifetime commitment to Jesus. Imagine a groom who says yes at the altar and then leaves to live his own life thinking he s got the marriage thing all sown up! No! It s a radical commitment to a new life. That s our first point this morning, (LCD) A radical announcement - the King is here NOW! Will you believe Him? These two commands, repent and believe are basically simultaneous. For example, a drowning man who is clinging to a scrap of wood needs to do two things when a lifeguard reaches him. He needs to release the wood and entrust himself to the lifeguard. Same with us. Have you done that? Are you radically trusting in Christ? That s the question Jesus then asks two sets of brothers. Verse 16, As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 17 Come, follow me, Jesus said, and I will send you out to fish for people. 18 At once they left their nets and followed him. 19 When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. 20 Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him. Here s a (LCD) picture of the Sea of Galilee that I took last year. We actually went out on the water on a boat and worshipped Jesus out there. It was awesome to think He walked on these waters! It s really a lake, not a sea. It s about 14 miles long and 6 miles wide and was prime fishing ground in the time of Jesus. Here s (LCD) another picture of a fishing boat from the time of Jesus that is on display there. It was found in 1986 and is called the Jesus boat. Here s (LCD) another picture of it close up. We were told that it was made from ten different wood types. Finally, here s (LCD) a picture of what it might have looked like in action. Notice the net being used here. There were three different kinds of nets used by fishermen and this was the smallest: a casting net. An individual casting a throw net which was about 15 feet in diameter with a rope in the center and lead sinkers on the circumference. Cast by one person standing in a boat or on a rock near the shore and pulled up by the rope. It did not catch many fish so it was very hard and long labor. Hard work but worth the effort. To these ordinary guys Jesus said, Come, follow me, and you ll fish for people. Note that He didn t call out to men of high influence or huge bank accounts. Ordinary people. That s who God uses. Supposedly, Abraham Lincoln once said, God must love the common people, he made so many of them! Jesus calls these guys to follow Him. The word here is interesting. It is (LCD) akoloutheo and it is the combination of a (one) + koloutheo (road) one road. The idea is to be in the same way with; to follow behind, to follow (a leader) to accept and follow the leadership, command, or guidance of; usually literal walking and following were involved as well. The literal Greek is come behind me, meaning, Come and walk in my dust. Follow my way of life. Leave all you ve known, all the comfort, all the security, and throw yourself on me. 5
And when they follow, Jesus is going to make them into something that they re not right now fishers of people. It will be a process, a training program, but they ll get there. I think it is significant to note that Jesus sees something in them that they probably don t see in themselves. When Jesus sees Simon the fisherman what He really is seeing is Peter the Apostle. When Jesus sees you and me, He sees much more than we can see and He calls us up to that kingdom destiny. Our second point, (LCD) a radical call say yes to Jesus training program for you NOW! Simon and Andrew say yes. They abandon their nets and follow him, notice, at once. Now! Do they understand all that Jesus is calling them to? No! Probably a good thing, right! Remember, you don t have to understand everything about God to commit to Him. And once you do, it s a process. At Wintonbury, we call this process the (LCD) Discipleship Pathway. You work your way from searching to following. At no point do you have it all figured out but you don t need to. Simon and Andrew step out in faith and so do their business partners a little way up the shore, James and John. In their case, they re working in a boat and there are hired men which means that they re most likely fairly well-off. Following Jesus call is going to be even more costly for them but not just because of finances. What else are they leaving behind? Their father. This is absolutely shocking to Jesus hearers. Look at this cultural note, (LCD) Many Jewish teachers in Jesus day felt that the greatest commandment was to honor one s parents. To abruptly leave behind one s family and the family business was a great sacrifice that went against everything the culture taught Disciples usually sought out their own teachers. Because discipleship often involved temporarily laying aside one s livelihood and being apart from one s wife and children, the decision to choose a teacher would have normally been made only after much deliberation Everything about Jesus is radical. Instead of having men pick him like other rabbis, He commands people to follow Him. He s either arrogant or He really does have authority. He expects them to come NOW! No deliberation. He calls these men to leave their families behind. Again, counter-cultural. These guys do it. They response radically. How about us? The third point this morning is (LCD) a radical response commit totally NOW! There s no hesitancy in any of the brothers response. The presence and the call of Jesus are urgent and overwhelming. Have you heard it? Are you following it? Listen, the Kingdom of God is HERE! NOW! If you really believe that, there s no time to waste. I remember when I heard Jesus call on November 11, 1982. Andre, come follow me. Leave your life behind and throw yourself on me. I said yes that day with no idea what I was embarking on and I m glad I did. Along the way, I ve had to continue repenting and believing not to be saved, that is once for all; but to experience and walk in the power of the kingdom of God so that I can serve Him radically. How about you? A couple applications. First, if you ve never trusted in Christ as your Lord, please pray a prayer like this one, (LCD) Dear Father God, I know I am a sinner and need your forgiveness. I believe Jesus died in my place and paid all the debt for my sin. I believe He rose again to forgive me and give me new life. I am now trusting Him to be my Life Leader and to redirect the course of my life in every way. Thank you for calling me into Your Kingdom. In Jesus name, Amen. If you pray something like that 6
and mean it, repenting and believing, you become His child forever and enter His Kingdom and His training program. I hope you do. Second, if you re His child, are you on mission with God fishing for people? A few weeks ago, we all committed to our (LCD) Net 3 friends people we are praying for, looking to care for and hoping to share Jesus with. How are you doing with that? Lastly, can you honestly say that your life displays a radical commitment to Jesus? I opened this sermon with some provocative questions, let me close with some from a guy named William Anderson. (LCD) If you were doomed to live the same life over and over again for eternity, would you choose the life you are living now? The question is interesting enough, but I've always thought the point of asking it is really the unspoken, potentially devastating follow-up question. That is, if the answer is no, then why are you living the life you are living now? Stop making excuses and do something about it. The only life worth living is the life of Jesus. Commit to Him totally NOW! Amen. Baptism of Daniele after second service. 7