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March 18/19, 2017
Jason Meyer | Mark 1:14-15
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”—Mark 1:14–15
Introduction #1
Next week we have an opportunity to hear from Steven Lee, who is our candidate for the role of North Campus Lead Pastor. The job is too big for Dan Holst to be both worship pastor and campus pastor. Dan has done both for more than a decade, and he has loved doing both, but his first love is as a worship pastor—so he will continue to do that (I am personally VERY thankful for that!). That means that we needed to search for a new North Campus Lead Pastor, someone whom Dan and the whole team of pastors and elders North would be excited to follow. We think the Lord has brought us such a man.
You should have received an email from me in which we introduce Steven to you. I met Steven Lee in my first year as a professor at Bethlehem College & Seminary in 2010. I remember being struck by the fact that he was not only one of the smartest students, but the wisest in terms of applying the truths he was learning. It was not hard to see that this gifted servant of Christ would make a big impact upon a church. That has happened and then some. After graduating from Bethlehem College & Seminary in 2012, Steven was called as the pastor for small groups and community outreach at College Church in Wheaton, Illinois. The Lord used Steven to build a thriving small group ministry from scratch. He would be quick to give God the glory for the fruit borne there, which is yet another reason why I love this man.
Steven was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Northern California. Steven met his wife, Stephanie, in college and they have been married since 2006. Steven and Stephanie have four children (Noelle, Malakai, Ezekiel, and Charis) and one on the way. I have been blessed to observe the Christlike way Steven loves and shepherds his family. Stephanie is an amazing wife and mother and would be a gift to the North Campus.
It seems important to note that we had a fairly extensive search process. We narrowed the field down to three candidates and the search team was split in terms of who the frontrunner was. By the end of a full day of interviews, there was no question mark left in any of our minds. We were stunned by the remarkable alignment we see between who Steven Lee is and what this role requires. It appears to us that God has done a special work of grace in bringing us to this point in the process. We look forward with faith and anticipation to how he will continue to guide us as we prayerfully seek to follow the leading of our Chief Shepherd in the days ahead
Introduction #2
This is our third sermon in our series through the Gospel of Mark. The first two sermons covered the introduction of the book (1:1–13). There are four testimonies that Jesus is the Son of God (the author, the prophets, John the Baptist, and God the Father). Then we witnessed the Son submit to the plan of the Father in the power of the Spirit to face Satan in the wilderness (verses 12–13). We celebrated together the great Trinitarian Triumph over Satan in the Temptation story. Now we come to the body of the narrative. Most everyone divides Mark into two sections with Peter’s confession in chapter 8 as the watershed moment. The first half establishes that Jesus is the powerful Son of God with divine authority over everything. The second half establishes that he is the suffering servant come to give his life as a payment or ransom for sin.
These two verses are incredibly important because they serve as the springboard for the entire body. There is a reason they appear at the beginning. These two verses work both backward and forward. When one looks back, these verses give a powerful transition from the Temptation story. Some commentators wonder why Mark did not finish the narrative the way Matthew did with Jesus commanding Satan to flee. Why didn’t Mark make it clear that Jesus won? Why didn’t he say more? On the one hand, the ministry of Jesus is bracketed by temptation in the wilderness and then temptation again in the Garden of Gethsemane. But there is another reason. These verses do declare Jesus’ victory. Jesus is heralding the Good News. There would be no good news to proclaim if Jesus had given into sin. How could the kingdom of God be proclaimed if the King had fallen into sin and became a sinner? Yes, Jesus triumphed. He is heralding the Good News; he did not lose. The world is under a new form of government that has broken into the present evil age.
But these verses also work forward. The rest of the narrative will talk about Jesus preaching (e.g., Mark 1:38–39; 2:2), but it will not give a summary of the message. Why? Because these verses give the summary of the message. There is a natural two-fold division in these verses that we could call the rhythm of revelation and response: God reveals and humanity responds. The main point is the culminating call to repent and believe in the gospel.
1. God Reveals (vv. 14–15)
2. We Respond (v. 15)
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.
When I was growing up, my favorite toys were Transformers. My favorite Transformers were called Combiners. Five Transformers would join together to form a giant warrior. This point is like four points that combine into one great kingly point: (1) the arrest of John, (2) the gospel of God, (3) the timing of God, and (4) the kingdom of God.
It is not surprising that Mark highlights the end of John’s ministry before moving to the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. There is a natural progression. The time of preparation is over. When he moves out of the way, that is the signal for Jesus to begin. When the opening band is finished with their music, it is time for the main event.
Mark does not give us any editorial information to let us know what happened to John the Baptist. We have to wait until Mark 6:17–29 to find out what happened. So rather than ask “Why not say more?” let us answer that question by asking a different question, “What does he say and why does he emphasize that?”
Mark says what he says for the sake of foreshadowing. It is a literary device that is a sign or warning of what is to come in the future. It anticipates a plot twist yet to come. You might look at this and say, “future plot twist—foreshadowing?” What? No one else is thrown in prison? The term translated “arrested” is really the word for “handed over.” I wish translators would keep the words translated in similar ways so they can see these connections. John was handed over and Jesus will be as well (9:31, 10:33, 14:41). Mark 9:11–13 makes that point explicit.
And they asked him, “Why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?” And he said to them, “Elijah does come first to restore all things. And how is it written of the Son of Man that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt? But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him.”
The kingdom of God comes into present evil age, but the people do not respond with an enthusiastic embrace, but stiff, hard-hearted opposition. But God is not taken by surprise so that he has to scramble and move to plan B. It is part of the outworking of his plan foretold in the Scriptures. It is the Father’s plan to have John and Jesus “handed over” as it is written of them. There is a dark undercurrent, a foreboding shadow that passes over the preaching of Jesus. (How do you think the people will respond?)
What is the first thing Jesus does in his public ministry? He heralds the gospel of God (probably meaning the glad tidings that come from God). This point is so significant because the book of Isaiah in particular prophesies in three places that an end time preacher would come (Isaiah 40:9, 52:7, 61:1). I’m going to read two (Isaiah 40:9, 61:1) of the three and save the third text (Isaiah 52:7) for reasons that will be obvious in a little while.
Go on up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good news;
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good news;
lift it up, fear not;
say to the cities of Judah,
“Behold your God!”—Isaiah 40:9
I hope the connection between this text and Isaiah 40:3 is clear. God announced comfort for his people in Isaiah 40:1. Before that comfort came, God would send a messenger to prepare the way (a voice crying in the wilderness). What is the message of the comfort, the salvation that is coming? God is coming! The messenger is going to point to the very coming of God. There he is!
John the Baptist came as the voice crying in the wilderness and he called the one to come the “Mightier One.” The next verse of Isaiah, verse 10 is where John got this description:
Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might,
and his arm rules for him.
Here is the conclusion thus far from Isaiah 40: The good news from God heralds the arrival of the Mighty God himself. Jesus is God come to earth in the flesh!
The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God—Isaiah 61:1–2
Here we learn that the end time herald is the Messiah and the Spirit comes upon him in order to bring the good news to the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, the bound. But who are they? Is he going to overthrow the power structures of the Romans so that the Jews are now rich and no longer in prison, but the Romans are poor slaves in prison? It is essential to keep this question in front of us.
The time (kairos) is fulfilled means “time as seen from the divine side”—the time fixed on God’s calendar. Luke 3 marks it on our human calendars (the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee … and during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas.” The time is fulfilled means that the long-awaited prophetic hope from Genesis 3 on has come.
The time is fulfilled is a reference to the new beginning—a decisive moment on God’s calendar has come. John the Baptist emphasizes that something will come; Jesus emphasizes that it has come. The plan of God, announced from Genesis 3, but planned before the foundation of the world, is starting now!
The expression “kingdom of God” appears 14 times in Mark (also 4:11, 26, 30; 9:1, 47; 10:14, 15, 23, 24, 25; 12:34; 14:25; 15:43). Why does Jesus connect the gospel of God with the kingdom of God? As we go through Mark, you are going to learn to answer most of my questions with this answer: “I bet Isaiah said something about that.”
You are right. Here is the second text I skipped earlier …
How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness,
who publishes salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”— Isaiah 52:7
Who cares? I am glad you asked. The reign of God is really the category that brings all the pieces of the puzzle together. Many expectations developed over time concerning what the coming of the kingdom would look like. Many brought their own earthly expectations and pre-conceived notions of God’s kingdom. Many thought of the kingdom of God as something that would come and make right all the wrongs—vanquish evil, tear down the rulers of the earth from their thrones, banish sickness. Everywhere we turn in Mark, we will see people who reject Jesus because he does not conform to their expectations of who the Messiah should be and what the kingdom he brings should look like.
The kingdom of God is such a broad category. It is confusing because when we hear the term “kingdom,” we tend to think of a place (a geographic realm). But the Bible presents the kingdom not as a place, but as a climactic event when God intervenes in human affairs to achieve his purposes and accomplish his plan.
Therefore, the good news of God’s reign or the gospel of the kingdom is the good news that the living God is on the move on the earth. He has come and invaded history (remember the tearing of the heavens) in order to save humanity. The kingdom has drawn near because the king is here, proclaiming the good news.
What does it mean that the kingdom has drawn near? This word is used in Isaiah 46 for the drawing near of God’s salvation (46:13, 51:5, 56:1)
“Listen to me, you stubborn of heart,
you who are far from righteousness:
I bring near my righteousness; it is not far off,
and my salvation will not delay;
I will put salvation in Zion,
for Israel my glory.”
The Gospel of Mark has a very wonderful illustration to see what draw near means.
“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates.”—Mark 13:28–39
Drawn near means “summer is the next season and it is right at the doorstep.” The rule and reign of God has not come in all of its fullness (unmistakable, big, overwhelming displays, yet …), but it has drawn very near, knocking on your door, the time to respond has come. God himself has come to where you live and is ringing the doorbell. What should you do?
The King has come and made his proclamation. We will either be for him or against him. Jesus now tells us what the right response would be to this message.
One commentator understands the nature of God’s kingdom. We should not think in terms of a democracy in which we are all invested with authority to make something happen. We are not electing a ruler. We are also not building a public relations campaign to build Jesus’ approval rating. We are not saying something like “so-and-so has become king, if it pleases you, then accept him as king.” He is Lord. One day every knee will be forced to bow, but right now people are given time to bow. Jesus is coming to provide a way to be right with God: Repent and believe. Turn from something (our rebellion) and to something (submission and joyful embrace of what God offers). The kingdom will not be good news without repentance and faith. Paul gives the same summary of the response to the gospel in Acts 20:21, “… testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Repentance is a response of total realignment. It confesses that your whole life has been out of alignment with God. Your whole life is marked by rebellion—trying to be your own king. Do your own thing, in your time, for your pleasure and honor. Repentance goes deep, it cuts to the heart and says, “I have been wrong at the core” as a rebel against God.
Sometimes people confuse repentance for the things that sometimes accompany repentance. For example, it is hard to imagine repentance without tears, but you can have tears without repentance.
See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; 16 that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.—Hebrews 12:15–17
Esau fell short of the grace of God. He did not rightly prize and value his birthright. Later he realized he was wrong, but he found “no place” for repentance, even though he sought it with tears.
Illustration from Huck Finn
The old drunk cried and cried when Judge Thatcher talked to him about temperance and such things. Said he’d been a fool and was agoing to turn over a new leaf. And everyone hugged him and cried and said it was the holiest time on record. And that night he got drunker than he had ever been before.
So how can we possibly change the core of who we are? How can such a deep work happen? Remember that repentance is something we must do, but we cannot create. It happens in us, but it does not originate with us. Listen to 2 Timothy 2:24–26 …
And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.
This setting free is a release from one power by a greater power. Listen to Acts 26:18 …
… to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins.
Repentance is running from your former life—former things you pursued and trusted in and gave your life to. You run from something and run to something (faith).
Jesus’ preaching frequently calls for faith (5:36; 11:22, 24) and Jesus rebukes for unbelief (4:40, 6:6, 9:19). Jesus also frequently commends faith (2:5, 5:34, 9:23, 10:52, 11:23). A one-word definition of faith is reliance. You rely upon what God has done to save you. There is something to stop giving your allegiance to and putting your trust in—and there is something that demands your allegiance and your trust, the only thing that can save. Repent also means to turn away from competing salvation stories or agendas that you rely upon.
This also means laying down your agendas about the main thing you devote yourself to (the Zealots would have to stop putting their trust in violence to overthrow the Romans), people devoted to political parties, people devoted to agendas or movements (feminism, etc.). People in Jesus’ day were trusting in many things (ancestry, land, the Temple). Today, people can put their trust in many different things (being well read, well bred, well traveled, good looking, etc.). We will see in two weeks what radical claims following Jesus makes. Repentance and trust will mean leaving and cleaving, just like a marriage relationship. The totality of one’s life changes.
This faith is also a gift. Listen to Ephesians 2:8–9 …
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
How does this happen? When people hear the word about Christ, faith comes. How does faith come? The Lord opens the heart to believe and receive the things that are proclaimed. Listen to Acts 16:14 … The Lord opened [Lydia’s] heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.
Application
The King makes provision for people to repent, but there is no time to delay. If one delays, it shows that he or she does not understand the reality and gravity of what is happening. (If your house is on fire, you would not wait and say, “Well, let’s see how much of it burns down and how long it takes for the flames to reach me”). The same would be true if someone yelled there was a shark in the water. You would not wait and say, “Well, let me see how big the shark is and how fast he is swimming toward me.”
Has the Lord opened your heart to receive these things? Do you see and savor the full glory and beauty of Jesus? The gospel is not a series of propositions, it is a Person. The gospel is all that Jesus is for us—given for us to save us. Jesus is a complete Savior. He doesn’t just preach the good news; he also purchases it. Many theologians have used these three categories to describe the greatness of Jesus and his victory over sin: Prophet, King, and Priest/Sacrifice. Jesus as Prophet saves from the ignorance of sin. Jesus as King to save us from the dominion of sin. In salvation, we are transferred from the dominion of darkness into the dominion of his beloved Son (Colossians 1:13). As King, Jesus sets us free and makes us citizens of his gracious kingdom. In order to do all of that and bring us to God, Jesus as Priest saves from the guilt of sin through offering the sacrifice of himself.
Conclusion: The Glory of God and the Sending of the Son
Do you see the plan of God in the gospel of God? It is the Trinitarian work of God to save. We are told that God made Christ sin for us. God imputed the guilt of our sins to Christ. God punished our sins upon Christ’s body on the tree. It is the Father’s plan. Why emphasize the Father’s activity in the gospel? No one would ever understand the sending of the Son apart from the infinitely valuable glory of God. It is the gospel of God because the sending of the Son has a God-centered purpose and object. Listen to this from Martyn Lloyd-Jones (God’s Way of Reconciliation, pp. 110–11):
If I may so put it, God would never sent His Son from heaven to earth and to the cross of Calvary to solve a social problem. The problem to God was His own glory, His own majesty, His own everlasting greatness. This had been queried and questioned by the devil and all who belong to him. And what is salvation? Salvation, the whole purpose and object of salvation in the first instance, is to vindicate God, is for God again to manifest the truth concerning Himself. The devil is described in the Scripture as ‘a liar and the father of lies’; and the apostle John tells us in the third chapter of his first Epistle that God sent His Son into this world in order to destroy the works of the devil. That is the first object, that the whole character of God should be vindicated. Of course, the devil in an ultimate sense did not, and cannot and could not, affect the being and the nature and the character of God, but in the sight of created beings he could, and he most certainly did. He succeeded in the case of all the fallen angels; he succeeded in the case of Adam and Eve and the whole of their posterity. And the whole problem in the world today is the attitude of man towards God. So God has initiated this great movement of redemption and of salvation primarily in order to declare and to manifest and to vindicate again His own glory, His own greatness and the truth about Himself. Why has He done it? He has done it ‘that in the ages to come he might show (display) the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
This is the greatest answer to Satan’s lie told to Adam and Eve and all of their descendants since—that God is not good and loving. He withholds things from you. He is stingy and withholds good things from you.
God the Father’s answer is the fullest display of his heart: He doesn’t give more stuff—more figs and fruit trees—he gives us all of himself and does not withhold anything to save us. Christ loved us and gave himself for us—and the Father sent him. The cross is not something the Son does to get the Father to start loving us. The cross does not bring about the love of God; the love of God is what brought about the cross of Christ. Were it not for his love, we would all be hopelessly lost with only a fearful expectation of fiery judgment. It is the ultimate answer to the character assassination slander of the devil. The children of God taste and see and savor and trust the goodness of God. They are witnesses to the truth of Romans 8:32 …
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
Sermon Discussion Questions
Outline
Main Point: Repent and believe the Gospel!
Discussion Questions
Application Questions
Prayer Focus
Pray for a grace to live an ongoing life of repentance and faith in the gospel and celebrate the vindication of God in the gospel of God.
For Further Reflection: See Pastor Jason's Biblearc of Mark 1:14–15.