Mark 1:14-28
Welcome back to Grace Outpost, I am glad to
have you join me today. Last week we
finished up our study in Jonah. When my
wife and I visit her parents as we are doing this weekend, we pass an IKEA
during our drive. Passing IKEA always
brings up mixed feelings in me, because I love going to the store and looking
at the showroom. The things they have
are so innovative in the realm of space management; they can make a 400 sq. ft.
place feel bigger than my house.
Inevitably, we end up buying something while we are there. Now if you have never been to an IKEA, this
is how it works. They have a showroom floor, where they have mock apartments
and rooms all designed with their products, so you see kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms,
bathrooms, etc. etc. You walk through
and find these things that you have to have, so you scribble down the location
number on your little sheet of paper with one of the 3,000 mini golf pencils that they have strewn
throughout the store. You have to walk
through this labyrinth to get to the warehouse, which feels like a giant
shipping depot, where your fantastic swag is located. Let’s pretend that you have selected a
dresser that you want, now you would think that all of the pieces are located
together in the massive warehouse, but no each drawer component will be in a
different area, as will the frame of the dresser, and even the foot posts will
be somewhere else. You lug these boxes
off the shelves and onto your flatbed dolly and slog your way to the
checkouts.
Fast Forward past the struggle to get the items to fit in
your minivan and get them home. Now that
you are home you open the many separate boxes only to find that the directions
are not very clear and there are no words to describe the process. Even being the handy guy that I am, I often
find their directions confusing and unhelpful.
Also if it is a larger item such as a dresser you will need a coworker
to help hold the pieces in place until you assemble the many small individual
parts. What should only take a small
amount of time can end up taking hours.
However, it always looks nice when it is done, but man the process is a smӓrta, which is swedish for pain.
So anyways I was driving up here to my in-laws with no clue
as to where God wanted me to go this week.
He ended up leading me to the book of Mark. Today we are going to look at Mark
1:14-28. And there are three things I
want you to notice in the passage; the Message of Jesus, the Partnership
presented, and the Articulation of the message with Authority.
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.
21
And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the
synagogue and was teaching. 22 And they were astonished at his teaching, for he
taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. 23 And
immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he
cried out, 24 “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to
destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” 25 But Jesus rebuked him,
saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” 26 And the unclean spirit, convulsing
him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him. 27 And they were all
amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new
teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey
him.” 28 And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding
region of Galilee.
(Mark
1:14-28 ESV)
So we are picking up in Verse 14 which takes place after
Jesus is tempted by Satan after his baptism, verse 14 is the beginning of
Christ’s ministry. It starts by saying
that Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God. While the author is referring to this
specific message, it is likely indicative of the message of his whole
ministry. So what is the gospel of
God? Gospel means good news, so Jesus is
preaching the good news of God. Verse 15
goes on tell us what that good news is; Jesus preaches that the time is
fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand, then he challenges them to repent
and believe in this good news. While
many of us understand what Jesus is speaking of, there are likely those of us
who do not understand. The author of
Mark was intentionally cryptic on the identity of Jesus, revealing more of the
divine nature of Jesus as the narrative unfolds. In the Gospel of Mark, we take a trip
discovering Jesus as the Messiah through his actions, much like the disciples
did. In the Old Testament, the prophets
told of the coming Messiah who would restore the people, who had shattered the
covenant. The time is fulfilled refers
to the coming of the Messiah, Jesus is saying the time is NOW, I have
come! The Jewish people were
anticipating the coming of the Messiah and the redemption that he would bring,
the coming of his kingdom. The message
that Jesus shares is simple, it is not complex, which may come as a shock.
Continuing in verse 16… we see that Jesus is going about
Galilee and comes across four men fishing.
He calls to them and invites them to join him, promising to make them
fishers of men. The author doesn’t bog
us down with extra details of conversation, telling us that the men followed
him. So they heard the message and were
invited to join Jesus on his mission.
Not only that, but Jesus promises to train them in sharing this message -- a message that
transforms lives.
In verse 21, we see that Jesus and the new recruits head to
the synagogue and Jesus begins to teach.
Now keep in mind that the synagogue is different than the temple. The temple is where the priests would offer
sacrifices on the altar, in the synagogues you would find scribes who would
teach from the Law. The scribes who
taught were regarded as experts in the Law and also as good teachers. We see that when Jesus begins teaching, that
something is different. It states that
he taught with Authority in a way that the scribes did not and it astonished
people. As if that were not enough, we
have a demon possessed man present and the demon begins speaking to Jesus. The demon knows who Jesus is and is fearful
of what Jesus will do to it. Jesus
commands the demon to be quiet and come out of the man which he does. So we Jesus use this perceived authority that
the people noticed, he demonstrates that it is authentic and in reality points
to who he really is.
So we see in our
passage that Jesus comes preaching a simple message that is profound, he
desires to share this with people and train them in what it means, and lastly
that he can articulate his authority through word and deed. Unlike the typical IKEA Pictionary
instructions, the gospel comes with clear and concise directions, a person not only to help, but a
person who is an expert with the ability to accomplish the task.
The simple message of Jesus is still simple for us
today. The good news is that though we
are sinners, the Messiah has come. He
lived a perfect life, died in our place, and rose to live again and by
believing in him and following him we are saved from sin. His invitation is in the message, to follow
after Jesus is to learn at his feet, we become his disciple which is a fancy
word for student. Lastly we can trust
that he has the authority to save us and to change us from the inside out.
Maybe you are not a follower of Jesus today, but you are
curious. You have heard the simple
message, the simple truth, I challenge you to really see if you are ready to
take that step today to believe and follow Jesus. If you are I would love for you to shoot me
an email and I can walk you through those next steps and/ or connect you with
someone to walk those with you.
If you are already a believer, you may be glazing over, but
remember that the Gospel is not something we graduate from. We need it daily; we need to press further
into following Jesus. He has brought you
into his mission, he has invited you to become a fisher of men. This message that we hear today has come to
you through the people who Jesus selected, they passed it down to a new
generation, so on and so forth until it has reached you here today. We have a role in this great message that we
have been told. I challenge you to press
into that, to build relationships with those who do not know Jesus and share
the gospel with them.