November
2007
“THE THREEFOLD CALL OF GOD FOR OUR LIVES”
Mark 1:14-22
Have you ever thought about this: No matter how large or small a building is, you enter through a small door? To go into my house or inside the church, you use the same size door. Once I visited a museum crammed with all sorts of cultural riches and valuable antiques, but I entered through a small door. Life is like that. Doors are opportunities. They are callings. Above each door is a word that describes what you are entering. Sometimes we read the name above the door and we are so overwhelmed with the magnitude of what is inside that we shy away. Many opportunities are lost because we are reluctant to enter into the places God has prepared for us.
In our passage today, John the Baptist has finished his preparation work and Jesus comes on the scene. John was imprisoned for preaching against King Herod’s marriage to Herodias. Jesus comes to Galilee, the very territory of King Herod. Like John, he came preaching. John preached that the Messiah was coming. Jesus arrived and said, “I am the Messiah.” We learn from the story of John that you can stop the prophet, but you cannot stop the word of God.
I. Jesus Extends A Public Call For Salvation
A. Jesus came preaching the Gospel of the kingdom. John’s preaching was full of warning, announcing the coming judgment. Jesus preached the “Good News” about God. His message sounded a joyful note. Isaiah 52:7, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that brings good tidings, that publishes peace; that brings good tidings of good, that publishes salvation; that says unto Zion, Your God reigns!”
B. What is the Good News Jesus came preaching? There are four parts
to His message.
1. The time is fulfilled. The decisive hour of God’s saving action has now come. Galatians 4:4 tells us, “But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son…”
2. The Kingdom of God is at hand. The Kingdom of God refers to the reign and the divine sovereignty of Christ. Everything already belongs to God. Even the Jews sang, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1). However, Satan is regarded as the prince of this world and many nations and people are subject to his power and control. All devout Jews knew that one day God would defeat the power of Satan ultimately and destroy evil forever. Jesus’ message is eschatological. He is referring to the end time. The ultimate defeat of Satan begins now as Jesus begins His earthly ministry. Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come.” When Jesus said the Kingdom was at hand, he meant that it was breaking open before their very eyes with His coming to preach the Good News.
3. Repent. We all know that to repent means to change one’s direction or change one’s mind. Jesus links repentance with belief here. We must change our mind about which kingdom we belong to and which King we now serve
4. Believe the Gospel. Both words “repent” and “believe” are verbs that call for continuous action rather than a one time event. We are called to altar our lives radically and accept a whole new lifestyle. Salvation means we are converted. We become a new person with a new set of values and standards of living.
II. Jesus Extends A Personal Call For Service
To speak of the reign of God in a general sense is followed here in Mark’s Gospel by a reign in the hearts of real people. The call is personal. The Sea of Galilee is about eight miles wide and thirteen miles long. Its fresh water just abounded in fish. That was the livelihood of most people. Jesus calls four of His disciple here. Andrew and Simon were casting their circular net into the sea hoping to draw in a heap of fish to sell and eat. That was their trade. The Bible does not say they went fishing. It says they were fishermen. It was who they were.
Next he calls James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They had a business with hired servants. Again, this is their occupation. It is their way of life. So radical is Jesus’ call that all four men leave their nets and follow Jesus. “Straightway” Mark tells us. This word that means immediately and without delay appears eight times in the first 31 verses.
You talk about repentance. These men changed their direction. They left jobs, business, and family. From that day in their lives everything changed. What would happen if you dropped everything that kept you from following Jesus and immediately changed your direction? It isn’t hard to imagine. People in the Bible did it – like Saul of Tarsus. Missionaries today do it.
This does not mean that they abandoned their families and jobs. They still fished and went out on boats and their families are still mentioned hereafter – like verse 29 shows us. What changed that day was their loyalty. God became the priority of their lives. Family and making a living were still important, but not most important. Financial security gave way to service for Christ. Catching fish gave way in priority to catching men. And learning about the fishing business gave way to learning about Jesus Christ. No longer would these four men use the excuse of family or fishing or anything else for the reason they were not sold out to God. They did not sit around and debate it in their minds or with their families. They just followed Him – immediately.
III. Jesus Extends A Particular Call For Sanctification
Perhaps the most neglected call of God on our lives is this one. How many people get saved, start giving the tithe, attend worship, and get put on a committee, but never really grow spiritually to be what God wants them to be? Do you see the very first place Jesus took his disciples and they followed him? He led them into the synagogue. The Bible says “immediately” in verse 21. When I got saved, I immediately went to church. I immediately got baptized. I immediately got in to a small group Bible study called Sunday school. Why do some Christians hear the first two calls and neglect this one.
This is the call to sanctification. To be sanctified is to be made holy, to be separated or set apart for service. It means you are made different. The change that begun in you at salvation continues as you study and pray and serve. The Holy Spirit sanctifies us. But the process of sanctification is made possible as we learn and grow in our faith. Salvation is a process. You are saved when you accept Christ into your life. The Bible says we saved to do good works. All of our lives as Christians, we are to be in process – growing in our faith, learning about Jesus Christ and what it means to be His follower, digging deep into the truth of His Holy Word. That is how we grow. It is a call that so many Christians miss. I ask why? Why would we ignore or refuse a step in the process that Jesus made His first priority after he called men to follow Him?
The Bible says they were astonished at His teaching. Who is the “they”? Verse 21 says they went into the synagogue. The subject does not change. “They” refers to everyone in that room that day, but especially the four disciples. They were astonished at his teaching. All the other teachers they heard told only what they had learned. Nothing was original with them. But Jesus taught with originality. He had something to say. He spoke as authority. He was the one who came up with the thought. “You have heard it said of old”, Jesus said in His Sermon on the Mount, “But I say unto you…”
When was the last time you studied the Scriptures or sat in a Sunday school class and heard something that opened your eyes? I do almost every time I get into the Word. God speaks to me. I say, “Wow! I never thought of it that way before.”
You cannot possibly be what God wants you to be if you do not grow. It is a threefold call – to salvation, to service, and to growing. Shame on us if we do not grow. Shame on us if we don’t know scripture by heart. Shame on us if we don’t use the Word of God to speak to what we are going through in our lives day to day. What is the point of knowing Jesus if you don’t listen to Him, grasp what He days, and obey Him. Most of all – Shame on us if we don’t repent and start doing something about it. You should not be a Christian for years and still be ignorant of the Bible. You should not be a member of the church for years, but never shared Jesus Christ with anyone. You should not be a part of the Kingdom of God most of your life, but never took a step of faith, never accepted a challenge to do something out of your comfort zone.
Jesus called these men to drop everything and follow Him. No excuses. Andrew and Simon, James and John could have said, “NO!” “We don’t have time!” “That’s not for me!” “I have all this work to do and money to make!” I wonder when it was all said and done years later, how much of that money these disciple would have taken with them when they died.
Many times I have chosen to watch hours of television and ignore the Bible. I have busied myself with so many good activities that I do not spend time in prayer. Many times I wake up on Sunday morning and make every excuse in the world for not being in church and Bible study. In a given week, I wonder how many hours I watch television and go shopping or go to ballgames, but can’t find an hour to spend soaking up the eternal truths of the Holy Word of God. Shame on me for missing the third part of the call of Jesus. I will never make disciples of others, as the Great Commission says, if I do not become a disciple myself.