Sunday Sermon
sunday morning 31st Jan 2010
Mark 1v14-20
John is betrayed then the ministry of Jesus gets all attention – v14. The focus is on Jesus.
1) general introduction about what Jesus preached v14-15
a) The headline is that He proclaimed the Good News of God v14.
Mark introduces his gospel as the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Jesus then goes out telling people the Good News of God.
And the first area to hear the news is Galilee – Jesus goes to his own people first.
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The work of Jesus the Evangelist!
He goes out telling the message.
He has done this for us! He evangelised to save people, to save us.
Note the timing of it too. John had been betrayed.
Perhaps discouraging events stop us from telling the message. But we have to be prepared no matter what the situation or the season to speak a word for the Lord.
He was for us!
b) what was the content of the Good News? V15
I. the time is fulfilled – the time is now!
II. The Kingdom of God is near – available – at hand
III. Repent and believe in the Good news!!
So what actually is the Good News there?
That God’s Kingdom was near right now, the time of waiting was over!
What had the people to do? Two things:
I. Repent – change their way of thinking, presumably about God and His kingdom.
Perhaps they had come to think that there was no hope, they had been abandoned...
II. believe – the Good News, that God had not abandoned them, that He still was in control etc.
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A) The Good News of God is that He is near!!
That God is available to all who will reach out to him.
But to enter into that offer of life with God we need to radically change the way we think.
We need to repent!
We need to stop thinking that God is some distant figure, unconcerned about our lives.
And we need to come to the place where we actually rely on his daily presence with us.
That is the Belief part of the good news.
We have to believe God is near, shown by relying upon Him.
That is the Good News, that God is near, and he is near to help and bless us.
The offer of the Gospel is: submit your life to God for he wants to be with you to bless you.
B) and there is no need to wait! The time is now. Now is the day of salvation, this moment.
The message is that God cannot wait to bless you. God is impatient to save!!
2) how did Jesus administer the kingdom v16-20.
A) V16 he walked and he observed.
He saw two brothers, Simon and Andrew fishing.
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Mission work involves a lot of basic ground work! A lot of hard work.
Walking about and observing people and places is part of the whole process in eventually coming to speak to people.
Sometimes we think there is a special “supernatural” thing that must happen in evangelism.
But often that is really just looking for a loophole to get us out of the work.
The attitude that says “all we can do is pray” is wrong, if we think that we then don’t have to get out and do the work!
Or we think that praying for revival is all we can do and until God sends it there is no point in trying!!
B)V17 then He spoke.
Command and Promise – come & I will make!!
· “follow after me” – come in behind me. “come here”- imperative
Note: Jesus says follow “me” – OT prophets call people back to following God, Jesus calls people to himself and say follow me!
John gives us more detail to what is going on here (John1v35f).
Basically the men knew that Jesus was the Messiah, they had come under the teaching of John the Baptist and heard him say that Jesus was the Lamb of God.
They knew who Jesus was so they responded immediately to the Command.
V18 and immediately they left their nets and followed Jesus!!
· “and I will make you fishers of men” – there was a promise!
Jesus offers an apprenticeship, if they followed him they would become skilled in catching men.
A fisherman was a hunter, seeking fish to eat and sell, for a living.
A fisher of men was a hunter of another sort! Not after Dover Sole but Human Soul!!
Seeking not his own well being but the good of others. The hook was the Gospel, the Good News. Jesus was promising to train them in such a great work!!
The promise though was not as immediately important as the command and the need to obey. Which they did.
Why? The power of the command.
It was a command, not an offer. They follow “immediately” – it was irresistible.
The Messiah asks them to follow, they do it!
(Next we see Jesus call James and John the sons of Zebedee v19-20.
The pattern is the exact same. Jesus is walking and observing and sees these two guy, gives them the command to follow and they drop everything and follow immediately).
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In speaking to people our aim should be to get them following Christ immediately!
How do we do that?
I. By exemplifying obedience to Jesus as Lord and Master over our own lives.
Our decisions and priorities have to be governed by the fact that Jesus is Lord.
The immediate obedience of the first disciples should be ours as we see the Lamb of God, the Messiah too.
II. By remembering this is great Good News that we have to tell people!
Calling people to obey Jesus is the best opportunity this life has to offer.
There really is nothing to lose in following Jesus.
Fishing net, boat, careers etc are all worth giving up if it means we get to follow Jesus!
sunday evening 31st Jan 2010
Mark 1v21-34
So far we have seen Jesus, the Good News of God, come into public ministry through, baptism of water and Spirit, worship of the Father, tempting in the wilderness.
Then this morning we saw Him preaching the Gospel of Gods availability and calling people to repent and believe, then we saw how he called the first few disciples to himself.
Tonight we see Jesus continuing to administer the Kingdom but now with his apprentices around him, learning from Him.
· Again note the rush of Marks narrative:
V10 immediately baptised v12 immediately sent to the wilderness v18 immediate following v20 immediate calling
For Mark, this is such good news that he has to get on with it. No hanging about, no unnecessary detail. So the detail that he does give us, must be of great importance.
1) immediate teaching v21-22
The important detail that Mark gives us here is that Jesus focuses on the work of teaching.
Jesus was a travelling preacher, v14. He went out to tell the Good News.
Here he is in Capernaum on the Sabbath, teaching in the synagogue.
And his teaching is “astonishing” the listeners were struck with amazement!
Why? Because of His authority!
The usual teachers, the scribes, had no authority of their own.
They would quote the great teachers of the past to show their teaching was based on a recognised authority from of old. Jesus had his own authority!
What he said, from his own understanding, was the Truth. It was God’s Word.
The scribes spoke about God, Jesus spoke as God!
All this of course points to who Jesus is. He was remarkably different!
· Remember to that the disciples were now with him.
Jesus is not just teaching the people who happened to gather in the synagogue; His special role was to train up the disciples, and this was done primarily through teaching!!
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Discipleship growth today must always have this component of coming to Jesus for teaching.
Thus the Lords day services should be seen by us as great opportunities to learn as disciples so that we can put into practice during the week.
Come to church then with a desire to learn from Jesus.
Our relationship with the Lord is obviously that he is our Saviour and Master, but also fundamentally He is our teacher!
We are his students, we approach Him as Teacher.
2) immediate overthrow of evil spirits 23-27
Next we see another encounter with the demonic world. Jesus has already been in the desert being tempted by Satan, now another demon comes to Jesus.
It seems there was a man in the synagogue who was demon possessed. The man though is out of control, he is like a puppet to the demon. The demon spirit is using the physical body of the man to speak to Jesus.
The demon knows:
Where he is from : “Jesus of Nazareth”
What his mission towards demons is: “have you come to destroy us”
Who He is: “the holy One of God”
But knowing all this makes no difference; Jesus simply shuts him up and cast him out!
Then the response of the people is noted again v27.
And again they focus on the fact of His teaching authority. His authority to teach and command extends even to the demonic world!
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“What is this”? v27.
Is a great question to ask again and again.
What is this teaching of Jesus, what is this authority.
The story of Jesus is utterly remarkable! We should never lose this sense of wonder.
Maybe the challenge here is that we need to get back to praying that God would shock and amaze us with his power and authority.
To become over familiar with God and his ways, is a problem that we have to do constant battle with.
We probably come close to blasphemy and dishonouring God when we are no longer stunned at the Good News of Jesus Christ!
3) immediate fame v28
V28 gives a kind of progress report on the work so far.
Jesus has been ministering in Galilee, and the outcome? He is famous in the area!
The whole area is abuzz with the word about Jesus.
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The application here again is to our own hearts.
Jesus is not famous in our region, yet! But what about in our hearts?
How much love and amazement is there in our lives over Jesus?
4) immediate healing v29-34
The final section here concludes with immediately leaving the synagogue v29
Immediately being told of Simons sick mother in law v30
And then immediate healing v31!
Then at night all the sick and demon possessed come to Jesus for healing 32-34.
Why at night? Because they were keeping the Sabbath!
The Sabbath ended at sunset, then the people were free to go about their business!
Jesus again would not allow the demons to speak because they knew him.
Their testimony would not be helpful to the work of Jesus.
The picture that we see of Jesus is that he is a man of power, authority and action.
And all this is him bringing the good news.
Who he is, what he does, what he says all add up to give us a picture that says this man is the Christ, Gods Son.
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The effect of Jesus’ ministry was to bring widespread good!
Spiritually people were taught of God, physically people were healed and the work of the devil was being destroyed!
People were getting their lives back!
Isn’t that what the Good News is all about for us today?
It is our duty to bring widespread good, as we minster the work of God today.
Shouldn’t our prayers be for peoples good, should we not aim all the time to do good for people?
And that right away!!
We can so easily put things off, wait for what seems like a better time.
But Jesus worked immediately, the moment there was a need, he was there to help.
If there are good things that we can do, we should simply get on and do it!
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