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22 September 2024

6:30pm

The gospel in a nutshell

Thanks, Megan. Well, as Pete said, if you’re new, it’s great to see you and if you’re new as a student, I hope week one has gone OK. I remember asking a student here how his first week had gone and he said; ‘Good and bad.’ ‘So I said, ‘What was bad?’ And he said, ‘Setting fire to the kitchen in halls so the fire brigade had to come.’ So I said, ‘What were you doing?’ And he said, ‘Cooking pasta.’ So I said, ‘Don’t tell me you let it boil dry?’ And he said, ‘No, I didn’t know you had to put water on it in the first place.’

How do you get to be 18 and at uni, without knowing that? Well if you weren’t here last week, we began a series in Mark’s Gospel, so that we can get a fresh look at Jesus – the person at the centre of Christianity. In last week’s verses, Jesus had appeared in the story, but not yet spoken and this week we come to his very first words in Mark. So to get your minds working on first words, up on screen are the first words of the main character, or one of the main characters, of a book or play or film. Your job is to turn to the person sitting next to you, introduce yourself, and try to put the names of the characters to those first lines that they speak. Over to you:

1. ‘So fair and foul a day I have not seen.’ (Play)

2. ‘Please sir, I want some more.’ (Book)

3. ‘Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this.’ (Play)

4. ‘Yes, Aunt Petunia.’ (Film of the book)

5. ‘You’re late!’ (Film of the book)

6. ‘Where are those transmissions you intercepted?’ (Film, voiced by James L Jones)

7. ‘Welcome Peter, son of Adam.’ (Book)

OK let me call us back together. And the answers are:

1. Macbeth in Macbeth
2. Oliver in Oliver Twist
3. Juliet in Romeo and Juliet
4. Harry in the first Harry Potter film
5. Frodo (to Gandalf) in the first Lord of The Rings film
6. Darth Vader in what in my day was just Star Wars, but is now Star Wars Episode 4 – A New Hope
And finally,
7. Aslan in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe

So before we look at Jesus’ first words in Mark, let’s pray:

Father God,Please help us to understand what your Son Jesus says about himself, his kingdom, and his call on our lives; and please give us the ability to respond.Amen

So would you turn in the Bibles in the seats to page 836, that will get you to Mark 1 and look down to Mark 1.15 – which is the gospel in a nutshell. Jesus said:

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

So Jesus is saying: There’s a kingdom we need to become part of – his kingdom. And that until we do, we’re part of another kingdom – a fake one. And that he came to get us out of that one and back into his. So point 1 tonight:

1. Jesus came to defeat the fake kingdom (Mark 1.12-13)

Look down to Mark 1.9-11, to remind ourselves where we left off:

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

So we saw last week that the God who’s really there is three-personal – Father, Son and Spirit. And Mark’s claim is that God the Father sent his Son into the world to put right what’s gone wrong. And at this point, he empowered Jesus with his Spirit to do for us what we’re powerless to do. So read on, Mark 1.12-13:

The Spirit immediately drove [Jesus] out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.

Another thing we saw last week is that we can’t understand Jesus without the Old Testament: the part of the Bible written before Jesus, that pointed forward to Jesus. And here’s another example because we can’t understand Satan unless we go back to the very beginning of the Bible, so here’s Genesis 1-3 in 30 seconds:

i. God created all things – visible and invisible – and created them good

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ii. Some heavenly beings rebelled against God and became personal forces of evil – the leader of whom the Bible calls Satan, which means ‘adversary’ – he’s God’s adversary.

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iii. Satan then tempted the original human pair, Adam & Eve, to rebel against God themselves – which they did, bringing the future human race, including us, into the same rebellion. We’re now like them by nature.

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And Satan’s central temptation to them, and to us in their footsteps, is this (Genesis 3.5):

you will be like God, knowing good and evil

Which means, “you will be able to play ‘god’ by deciding for yourselves what is good and evil.” You won’t have to live under a God who gives you things like sex, but then restricts you by telling you how and how not to use them. You’ll be free of him. And to Adam and Eve (and us in their footsteps) it looked like Satan was offering them not just freedom from God’s control, but from all control: freedom to be fully myself – ‘expressive individualism’ to use today’s jargon. But it’s not freedom from all control. It’s actually coming under Satan’s control – becoming part of Satan’s ‘kingdom’, as Jesus calls it later in Mark – which is a fake kingdom that offers us fake freedom, and that lands us under God’s judgement and evil’s control. I wonder what you make of that. You may be saying to yourself, ‘I didn’t think anyone believed in a literal, personal devil any more – this just seems completely over the top, out of date, unbelievable.’ Well here are two reasons to believe it:

One is that Jesus taught the reality of Satan. So, if you reach the conviction that Jesus is the Son of God, you have to accept the truthfulness of what he taught. But the other reason is that the reality of Satan explains our experience of evil. Which came home to me, talking to a student who I’ll call Ben. Ben started coming along his 3rd year as a medical student. He used to sit up there in the gallery right at the back, and would often slip in and slip out without wanting to be noticed. Anyway, one day Ben found me after the service and he said, ‘I think I’ve just become a Christian.’ So I said, ‘That’s great. Tell me more.’ So he said ‘Well, the reason I started coming was that I realised I was totally out of control.’ He said ‘I’d got into everything (drink, drugs, sex) thinking it was great to do anything I wanted. But then I realised I couldn’t stop when I wanted. And I got into more drink and worse drugs and treated a string of women more and more awfully.’ And he said ‘One day, I was in my room and something made me get out a piece of paper and draw a line on it. And at one end I wrote ‘good’ and at the other end I wrote ‘evil’ and I looked at it and I knew I was right down the evil end. I knew what I was doing was evil, and that I was really out of control. But then, he said, something made me cross out ‘good’ and put ‘God’ instead, and cross out ‘evil’ and put ‘Devil’ instead. And, he said, I looked at it and I realised I wasn’t just out of control, but that I was under something else’s control. And I knew I couldn’t get myself out of it, and I knew I had to come along here because something told me Jesus could.’

Satan explains our experience of evil – the sense that we don’t just do evil, but that evil is a power that can control us. Isn’t that why we talk about our anger or bitterness or lust or pride or envy or whatever getting the better of us? It’s part and parcel of being in this fake kingdom, which lands us under God’s judgement and evil’s control. And Jesus came to get us out from that – which we’re powerless to do ourselves. He came to defeat the fake kingdom for us. That’s the point of Mark 1.12-13:

…he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan.

So battle was joined here: Satan’s kingdom versus God’s. And Jesus knew that to bring us from one to the other he would have to go to the cross. So the central temptation for him was to avoid it. So every day of his life Jesus saw the cross looming – the judgement we deserve coming his way, so we could be forgiven and changed. But read all the way through Mark to the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before the cross, and what did Jesus pray to his Father? (Mark 14.36):

Yet not what I will, but what you will.

And on his obedience, undeflected by all temptation, hangs our salvation from the fake kingdom. That’s point 1: Jesus came to defeat the fake kingdom. Point 2:

2. Jesus came to call us into his kingdom

Look down to Mark 1.14:

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God

So John, remember, was the final messenger, the last of the prophets whom God sent to prepare for Jesus’ coming. So if Jesus was the main band, John was the warm-up act. And by Mark 1.14, he’s been arrested. And turn over to Mark 6.17 and you’ll see why. So this is a flash-back later in the story to John’s arrest and death. And it says (Mark 6.17-19):

For it was Herod [the king of the Galilee area] who had sent and seized John and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because he had married her. [So Herod had divorced his wife, Herodias his sister-in-law had divorced his brother, and then Herod and Herodias had got married – which was against God’s will because they had too close a family relationship. That’s why verse 18:]…John had been saying to Herod, “It is not lawful for you [it’s against God’s moral law] to have your brother's wife.” And [unsurprisingly] Herodias had a grudge against him and wanted to put him to death [and she succeeded].

Because people who are living how they want, as part of the fake kingdom,
don’t want to be reminded about the real King and the lines of right and wrong that he draws for our good. So back to Mark 1.14:

Now after John was arrested

That’s a detail you might skip over, but it’s very significant because if the warm-up act has been dragged off stage and killed, what’s going to happen to the main band? This is the first hint in Mark that the world is going to reject Jesus – and by implication, those of us who follow him. But that’s not because the world is smarter – and has discovered reasons that we haven’t that it’s all nonsense and untrue. It’s but because the world is sinful (we all are) – and doesn’t want to be reminded about its real King. But here’s what he says – Jesus’ first words in Mark. Mark 1.14-15 again:

…Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel [the good news] of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

So Jesus is saying ‘The good news is that I’ve come…to defeat the fake kingdom and bring you back into mine.’ So look at Mark 1.15 bit by bit.
He says “The time is fulfilled”. In other words, “The waiting for God to keep his promise to put right what’s gone wrong in his world is over.” Then the kingdom of God is at hand and the kingdom of God means the opportunity to leave the fake kingdom and come back under God’s rule. And Jesus says that’s at hand – literally ‘has drawn near’. It’s the idea of physical nearness like the train announcer saying, ‘We’re now drawing near to Newcastle’, or you thinking ‘That car behind me has drawn a bit too near.’ So Jesus was saying ‘The opportunity to come back into God’s kingdom has come near – because I’m here – and I’m the King of it, and have the power to forgive you back into it.’ So lastly in Mark 1.15 he says repent which means turn back from playing ‘god’ to have him as King and believe in the gospel which is the good news that he will forgive and change us if we turn.

Now you might well be thinking ‘But is it good news? Would it really be good for me to give up the right to decide for myself what’s good and evil, to give up my freedom to do anything I want? And Jesus would say ‘Yes’ for two reasons. One is that, having died for us on the cross and risen again, Jesus is one day going to wrap up history and, as we say in the creed, ‘judge the living and the dead’. And if we’ve gone through life saying, ‘No’ to him as King, then with no pleasure he’ll have to say, ‘No’ to us in the end – ‘No, I can’t have you in my kingdom of heaven.’ Because you can’t be part of a kingdom if you won’t accept the king. But the other reason having Jesus as King is good news is that as God he knows better than we do what’s good for us, and if he loved us enough to die for us on the cross, why would we doubt that he’d have our best interests at heart in running our lives? So Jesus came to defeat the fake kingdom. Jesus came to call us into his kingdom. Last point:

3. Jesus calls us to call others into his kingdom

Look on to Mark 1.16-18:

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. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him.

So Jesus says to these men, Follow me. It’s as absolute and unconditional as that. ‘Do what I tell you to do. Be what I tell you to be. Go where I lead you to go.’

Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.

In other words, ‘I’ll make you what I want you to be.’ And there’s only one person who has the right to say things like that and it’s God. Which we’ll see, as we go through Mark, is exactly who Jesus claimed to be.

Follow me [he says to these men], and I will make you become fishers of men.

In other words, you accept me as King – and I’ll then use you to call others to accept me as King. I’ll send you to fish with the good news about me in the whole human sea. And, Mark 1.19-20, he does it again:

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. And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.

Now here’s a really important Bible reading principle: narrative is not normative. In other words, just because someone does something in a Bible narrative doesn’t mean we must necessarily do it, too. So in Mark 1.16-20, Jesus isn’t saying anything directly to us. He was speaking to Simon, Andrew, James and John, who were unique in two ways: One way was that: to follow Jesus, they had to leave their work and families, because Jesus was here incarnate – so when he moved on physically, they had to. But the other way they were unique is that Jesus called them to be four of his twelve apostles – his chosen eye-witnesses who would give the world the official record of his life, death and resurrection – part of which we’re reading now. Because the Simon in Mark 1.16, also known as Peter, is the apostle who Mark got his information from for this Gospel. While the John in Mark 1.19 is the apostle who wrote John’s Gospel. So here’s the question: is Jesus calling us to leave our work and families and to write books about him? The answer’s no, because narrative is not normative. But read on in Mark, and Jesus does say this (Mark 8.34-35):

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.

So this time Jesus is speaking to anyone – including us, and he says “Following me means denying yourself” that is, saying, “Self, you’re no longer number one, Jesus is.” And he also says “Following me means living for my sake and the gospel’s”. In other words, it does include the job of trying to pass the gospel on to others. But, do you have to leave school or uni or work to do that – like these men left their fishing? No, Jesus wants you to do that at your school or uni or work – in classes and teams and offices and friendship circles where you may be the only Christian, the only fisherman or woman in that part of the human sea. So if you’ve just arrived at uni as a Christian, that’s part of why Jesus in his sovereignty has brought you to Newcastle: not just to get a degree, but to use you to call others into his kingdom. And what about family? Do you have to leave family to follow Jesus – like these men had to, at least for a time? No. But Jesus has to come above family, because he’s number one. So, early on in my Christian life, my very non-Christian family weren’t at all keen on me following Jesus. In fact Dad once asked me ‘When are you going to come into the real world?’ But if Jesus is who he says he is, if he’s King, if he’s number one, then if my family (or anyone else) doesn’t like me following him, that’s not to stop me following him.

Now there’s much more that needs to be said on how to relate well to families who aren’t Christians, and how to share the gospel in our culture. But this isn’t the time; suffice to say that we need to be very gentle and wise. So, Jesus came to defeat the fake kingdom. Jesus came to call us into his kingdom. And Jesus calls us to call others into his kingdom. And if the last of those makes us hesitate to follow him, here’s the encouragement to end on tonight, just look at Mark 1.17 one last time:

…Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”

In other words, ‘People aren’t fishers of men instantly. I don’t expect you to know at all what to do or say to begin with. And I don’t expect you to be someone else who may be more gifted at it or who’s just been at it longer. It’s a process. It’s one part of the lifelong process of learning to live for me as King’. But, says Jesus, ‘I will make you become a fisher of men and women – and I’ll work in you to make you become everything else I want you to be, as well.’ He’s a gracious King. Let’s pray.