Jesus: His Message and His Mission (Part 2 of 2)

Bob Lepine: Ever feel like you don't have enough talent or you're not sufficiently trained or you don't have the right personality for God to use you? Well you might be surprised. Today on Truth For Life we're going to take a look at the first disciple Jesus called to accompany him on his mission. Alistair Begg is teaching from chapter one in Mark's gospel.
Alistair Begg: The disciple of Jesus has no basis upon which to behave in any other way than what Jesus demands. And that's why Jesus says, "Here I am, the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is near, the King is present. Now I want you to repent and to believe the good news." And when we do, the promise of God is that we enter into life that is truly life. We make sense of life, we make sense of death, we make sense of human frailty, we just make sense of things. And that of course is what people are trying to do one way or another, just trying to make sense of life. Who am I, where do I come from, where am I going and does it matter? What should I do as all these bits and pieces start to fall off of me as I begin to disintegrate with age? What shall I do? How can I fix this? Death is the fear of all fears. That is what everyone is afraid of. And the question is: is there anybody who has conquered death and made a way for me to conquer it? And Jesus stands on the stage of human history and he says, "Listen, the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is near, I want you to repent and believe the good news." John summarizes it in memorable words: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have," exactly what these architects are looking for, "everlasting life." But not as a result of putting the windows beyond arm's length, but as a result of bowing down and acknowledging that my life is a disintegrating shambles, that my best endeavors to put it back together are frankly hopeless. I can't believe this amazing story. Are you telling me that Jesus has done for me what I cannot do for myself? Yes. Now what do I have to pay for this? Oh, you don't pay. It's free. Oh, but it can't possibly be a gift. Yes, it is. That's Jesus' message. Then in verse 16 and following, we have Jesus' mission. What's his mission? Well, his mission is to take forward his message and to see the message then established in the lives of people. If the kingdom of God is near, as he proclaims, then what are the people to expect? Well, in Old Testament terms, they knew what they should expect because they knew that when the kingdom of God dawned, everything would be different for them. So they might anticipate the overthrow of the Roman authority, the idea of the establishing of one who will sit on David's throne and reign forever and ever. They might anticipate that all the promised blessings that were attached to Abraham would now be showered upon them. And if that is in any sense the expectation, then frankly by that standard, verse 16 has got to come across as somewhat anticlimactic, hasn't it? Here's the message of Jesus: "The kingdom of God is here, repent and believe the good news." Well, then how is this going to work? And then we read: "And Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee. Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen." Cue the violins. It's just a kind of sleepy little story it would appear, isn't it? Ah, isn't that nice, Jesus and the fishermen. It's actually not nice at all. It's frankly outrageous. Who is this person who disturbs men like this? Who is this person who thinks he can walk down the street and say to people who are gainfully employed, "I'd like you to stop that and just start following me right now"? And after he got the two behind him, he went down a little further and he saw some other fellows in the boat with their dad and a few of the hired workers and he said, "And the two of you, let's have you right along here." Who's this? Who do you think you are? Do you think you're the King or something? Have you got a kingdom? Have you got a throne? Where's your throne? "Oh, I have a throne. It's your heart, Simon. It's your heart, James, John, Andrew." Now what Mark is telling us here, it would seem, is that the kingdom of God as it comes is going to be established in a most unexpected way. There's no fanfare, there's no pomp, there's no pageantry. We might anticipate that if it was a religion that was invented, if we had created this kind of thing, if we'd written the Bible, if we'd made it all up, then after the great announcement, "the time has come, the kingdom is near" and so on, it would have been something really dramatic. Maybe the building of a big palace, maybe a big display of something. But not: "And then he walked along the seashore and saw a couple of guys fishing and said, 'Hey, let's go.'" I love it when people tell me that the New Testament is an invention. Who would invent this story? You're not going to invent this story. This speaks of eyewitness accounts, doesn't it? This doesn't read like a legend, this doesn't read like a myth. If you're here saying, "Oh, I never want to read the New Testament, I don't read the Bible, it's a legend, I know it is, I read it in Newsweek magazine." Listen, don't worry about Newsweek, read the Bible and tell me. You're sensible, figure it out. Read it. You'll find that it doesn't read like myth, it doesn't read like legend. It reads exactly as it is, like history. And indeed, the little description here is so compelling, isn't it? He saw Simon and Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. Why are they casting a net into the lake? Were they trying to get rid of it? Had somebody thrown a net in their back garden and they decided they don't want that in here, so they threw it in the lake? No, he says they were casting a net in the lake for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "I want you to follow me and I'll make you fishers of men." And look at verse 18: "At once, immediately, they left their nets and followed him." It's amazing. And when he got a little further, he saw James the son of Zebedee and his brother was in a boat and they were preparing their nets, folding them, fixing them, getting them ready for another voyage. And without delay, he called them. And they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, so it was obviously a pretty good business. They had enough to employ others, and they followed him. Now the call that Jesus issues is a clear call. "Fall in behind me," he says. "Become what I intend for you to be, fishers of men. Be totally committed to my cause." Do you see what he's asking them to do? He's asking them to make their commitment to him take precedence over their livelihood and over their family relationships. The average approach to Christianity at the end of the 20th century and into the 21st is: "Why don't you come to Jesus, he'll help you with your livelihood and your family relationships." That's the compelling motive. You know, if you really want to get your business going, you ought to come to Jesus. If you really want to get your family going, you ought to really come to Jesus. Jesus says, "I want you to come to me, it's going to make a severe dent in your income and it's going to change your family relationships. Let's go." How does that play? It doesn't play in a narcissistic culture. It doesn't play in a world where I am the center of my universe, where Jesus exists for me, where the gospel is something that adds to the sum of my total happiness. It is completely counterintuitive. It is completely upside down. But it's the Jesus call to discipleship. Oh sure, Jesus will have an impact on our business. He will have an impact on our family. But that's not the issue. No, Jesus says I want you to face the cost that's involved in repenting and believing the good news and in following me. And the abandonment of their nets represents a radical change in lifestyle. There was going to be an immediate change in all of their circumstances. Now we've only a moment or two to go, so let's just try and wrap it up with a couple of observations. His message is clear and his mission is equally clear. The danger for some of us is our familiarity with the story. We've known it for a very long time. Some of us grew up singing "I will make you fishers of men if you'll only follow me," right? At least some of us did. And so we have cast this in a way that actually blunts the outrageous nature of what is happening. Because we're so familiar with it, we don't see how outrageous it is. We miss the audacity of Christ's command, and we miss the immediacy of the response of these four men. And the only explanation for his outrageous call and for their equally unbelievable response is the authority of Jesus, is the identity of Jesus, is the personhood of Jesus. That Jesus is not like any other person. That Jesus is not any other person. That this is not a religious guru who's trying to put a group together. That this is not somebody who is starting a religion. That this is not a guy with a bunch of bright ideas about how he's going to transform the region of Galilee. This is the incarnate Son of God. This is the one about whom the Bible has been speaking. This is the one who comes in fulfillment of prophecy. This is the King who comes to subdue all of the rebellions, and when he speaks, there is divine authority in his word. How else do you explain what happens in the next section? When the people were amazed at his teaching, he taught as one who had authority. And then a man in the synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit cried out, "What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God." You see that the demons know what others miss. The demons realize what they're up against in this great supernatural conflict. "Be quiet," said Jesus sternly. "Come out of him." The evil spirit shook the man violently and he came out of him with a shriek. Now people read their Bibles and they say, "What is that about?" What it is about is about the one who is King and Lord of creation giving indications of his kingly authority. If he is sovereign over all of the earth, if he is the Lord of creation, if he is the King of kings, then do you think he's going to be unsettled in his mission by a man with a violent demonic spirit? No, he'll deal with it. When the winds and the waves threaten to capsize the boat, at least from the disciples' perspective, a few chapters on in Mark chapter five, he stands up and he tells the winds and the waves to be quiet. People say, "Well, what is that about? I mean, you don't believe that, do you?" Well, of course you do. If he is the Lord of creation, if he created H2O, then what's the deal about telling it to sit down and be quiet? And on that occasion, the men in the boat looked at one another and said, "Who is this that even the winds and the waves obey him?" And one of them might have said, "He's the one who, when we were having a nice time in the fishing business, came down the street and looked at you, Simon, and said, 'Simon, fall in behind me. We're going on a mission.' And Simon, you fallen in behind him." Why did you do that? Wasn't that audacious? I mean, go home this afternoon and wait for somebody to come down your street. If you're out in your yard somewhere and some chap comes down the road and says, "Hey, hey, let's go, follow me right now." You'll be like, "Hey, sure, yeah, like fun I'll follow you. I won't follow you anywhere. Who are you?" How do you explain this? You see, his authority is related to his identity. That's why C.S. Lewis was so clear when he finally bowed the knee to God. He figured it out. A man who was merely a man and said the things that Jesus said would either be a lunatic on the level of someone claiming to be a poached egg, or he would be a demon, or he would be exactly who he claimed to be. But we cannot come to him with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great moral teacher. He has not left that option open to us. He did not intend to. But I don't think that that's the most staggering aspect of it. I think the most staggering aspect of it, beyond the divine disturbance created in the minds of these four men, is the fact that the mission of the incarnate God is launched in such a strange place. Now you get that, don't you, in Godspell or Superstar? In that song, you know, "Why did you come now? Why did you come to this place, it ain't got no mass communication." You know, "Why don't you come at a sensible time, Jesus? What are you doing coming to a socially insignificant bunch of people in an unnoticed corner of provincial Galilee?" I mean, Jesus, are you trying to start a worldwide movement here or what? I mean, come on man, you did the time is fulfilled, the kingdom is near, repent and believe, and then you start with a bunch of fisher guys. I mean, they're good fellows, no question. They've got their own business, they know how to make a buck, you know, but goodness gracious, is this it, Jesus? "Oh, we'll be adding others along the way. I've got my eye on a tax collector called Matthew. He's, I think he's good for the group. I got him. I got another guy, Philip. He asks a lot of questions, but I think he's probably all right. Thomas, there's a fellow... yeah, this is pretty well it." "Well, Jesus, you better know what you're doing." "Oh, believe me, I know what I'm doing." "Can any good thing come out of Galilee? Can any good thing come out of Bainbridge?" You see how upside-down evangelicalism has had it for almost 50 years in this country? And it is a complete, total, moribund failure. It is the attempt to take on the world by letting the world know that contrary to all perceptions, we really are the brightest, most powerful, attractive, politically strong group of people that has ever dawned on the face of the earth. And when you realize just how wonderful we all are, you will want just to get on our side of the equation. How's it working? Well, because it's not the Jesus way. If that had been Jesus' way, then when Paul preached to the Corinthians, he would have said, "I'm so glad to be dealing only with intellectuals here at Corinth. I've been some other places in the past and the people are really quite facile, they're really not very smart at all. But you're such a wonderful group, you Corinthians, so articulate, so bright, so handsome, so athletic, so wonderful. I'm just so excited about Corinth, I really am." Now what does he say? He says, "Think about it, brothers and sisters, when you were called to be a disciple of Jesus. Not many of you were noble, not many of you were high-born, not many of you were profoundly influential." He doesn't say not any, he just says not many. No, by and large the movement in Corinth, as the movement in Ephesus, as the movement today in South America, as the movement today in Indonesia and Sub-Saharan Africa, as the movement in the 18th-century awakening, was not a movement that happened at the level of the cultural influencers. It was a movement that happened in an unlikely way with an unlikely group of people so that the very unlikelihood of it would cause people to say, "They could never pull this off on their own. There must be somebody behind this." But as long as the church continues to do stuff that people look at and say, "Well, they can obviously pull this off on their own," there is no reason to look beyond us. That's why he did what he did. Think about it. Why start with fishermen? Why start your whole deal as a Galilean carpenter with a bunch of guys from the fisher folk? Why? Well, he puts his treasure in earthen vessels or old clay pots so that the transcendent power might be seen to belong to God and not to us. So we don't have to go out and tell people how powerful we are, how clever we are, how much authority we have. They know that's not true anyway. We just have to go out back into the equivalent of our own fishing community and tell everyone the news that the kingdom of God has come. Just go tell everyone the news that God's kingdom has come. And this King, who reigns from a cross and wears a crown that is made of thorns, will come and subdue their rebellion, forgive their sins, and make sense of their lives.
Bob Lepine: You're listening to Truth For Life with Alistair Begg. He'll return in just a moment. As we learned today, Jesus often uses unlikely people and unlikely means in unlikely places. That way it's clear that it is God who is working and God who is to be glorified. And here at Truth For Life, we're continually amazed at all God makes possible through this ministry. It is by his grace that we've been able to participate in prison ministry, do book translation projects, pastor training conferences, and a whole lot more, sharing God's word with as many people as possible. On our website, we provide free access to a vast library of thousands of Alistair's sermons, along with many biblically sound resources. And God keeps this work going by prompting listeners to join our Truthpartner team. These are individuals whose collective monthly support makes it possible for us to participate in these gospel-sharing projects. While countless people around the globe listen to Truth For Life each day, it's a surprisingly small percentage who have stepped up to become Truthpartners. So if you have been blessed by Alistair's Bible teaching, would you join this vital team today? You can determine how much you want to give each month. And when you sign up, be sure to request Laura Story's brand-new book titled *Stand in Awe: How Reverence Transforms Our Worship and Our Lives*. It's one of the ways we'll say thank you for supporting us. This book shows how a biblical view of worship will shape both your daily life and your participation in weekly church services. You'll come away with a richer understanding of worship and practical ways to honor God's greatness. Request the book *Stand in Awe* when you become a Truthpartner or you give a one-time donation to Truth For Life at truthforlife.org/donate. To sign up, visit truthforlife.org/truthpartner or give us a call at 888-588-7884. Now here is Alistair to close with prayer.
Alistair Begg: Father, thank you for the Bible. Thank you for your Word. Thank you for the clarity that pervades it. We confess that when it gets murky and cloudy, it's due to our ineffectiveness or the fact that we are obtuse, disobedient, uncaring. Look upon us, we pray, so that those of us who as yet have never repented and believed the good news might come to do so. And that those of us who have may, in the place of your appointing—in the arts, science, home, medicine, banking, carpentry, flower arranging, car repair, in whatever place you put us—that we might live to the praise of your glory so that unbelieving people may become the committed followers of Jesus Christ. And may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit rest upon and remain with all who believe, today and forevermore. Amen.
Bob Lepine: I'm Bob Lepine. Have you ever noticed how some people find great comfort in the gospel message while others are offended or challenged? Tomorrow we'll find out why. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth For Life, where the learning is for living.