Repent and Believe | Mark 1:1-15
Repent and Believe | Mark 1:1-15
INTRODUCTION
Gospel means – Good News. That is how the gospel of Mark starts, Repent and believe the good news.
ILLUSTRATION
Some time ago, while driving to the Kothanur church from HBR we had to take a detour due to road work. Google Maps did not know the roadblock. Again and again, it kept saying, “Recalculating…Take a U-Turn at the next intersection.”
That day, we had a valid reason to ignore it. But how often do we do the same without any good reason with our walk with the Lord? We take a wrong turn, move away from God’s will, and the Holy Spirit gently prompts us: “Make a U-Turn.”
Well, today I want to talk to you about repentance.
Mark 1:14-15
Jesus Announces the Good News
14After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15“The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
That is how the gospel of Mark starts, Repent and believe the good news.
THREE MOVEMENTS
1. The King – Identity
Mark 1:1
The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God,
Here Mark is telling who Jesus is.
Jesus – Comes from the name Joshua – means – “God Saves.”
Messiah (Hebrew) or Christ (Greek) – Means “Anointed One.”
Jesus is the Son of God.
Then Mark calls Jesus Christ the Son of God. Caesar Augustus was celebrated in the Roman world as the son of the deified Julius Caesar. Mark announces that Jesus is the true Son of God.
In the Roman world, “good news” was often used for imperial announcements. But Mark announces a greater gospel: not Caesar, but Jesus is the true King and the Son of God.
Gospel means – Good News.
Note: Mark does not present Jesus as a break from the Old Testament. He immediately says:
Mark 1:1-3
1The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, 2as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
“I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way”— (Mal. 3:1)
3“a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’” (Is. 40:3)
The coming of Jesus is the continuation and fulfillment of God’s promised plan.
Mark quotes the promise of Malachi 3:1, where God sends His messenger, with Isaiah 40:3, where a voice prepares the way for the Lord. John the Baptist is that promised messenger, preparing the people because the King is coming.
So Jesus is not a new idea. He is the promised Messiah, the Son of God. God has kept His word. The King has come.
What is the proclamation of the gospel?
The gospel is proclamation about the reign of a king. That is the idea of this very word that there is a king. But it is not Caesar, it is not the rulers of this world. Jesus is the true King, the one who the Father himself gives witness to:
Mark 1:9-11
9At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. (Trinitarian passage) 10Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
Jesus was not baptized because He had sin to confess. He entered the waters to identify with sinners, to fulfil righteousness, and to begin His public mission as the beloved Son anointed by the Spirit.
Mission of the King:
Mark 10:45
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
That is the true King. He is not like the rulers of Israel or any ruler of this present world. Jesus Christ is nothing like that. He is the true King. As true King he has given his blood for us. He has given his very life for us. We owe him everything but he gives everything on behalf of us. This is the most striking and disturbing message that one could ever hear. It is the trigger; it is the motivation to repent. Because if this is truly who the king is then indeed, I really need to consider my life and to change.
2. The Kingdom – Urgency
Mark 1:14–15
14After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15“The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
a. Mark presents Jesus as the King who brings God’s reign
In the Old Testament, God had promised that He would come to rescue, restore, rule, and reign among His people. Mark is saying: that moment has now arrived in Jesus.
The kingdom of God has come near
God’s saving rule has entered history through Jesus
The King is here
The reign of God has broken into the world
The kingdom has truly come in Jesus, but it has not yet come in its fullness. We taste its power now, but we await its fullness when Christ returns.
The kingdom of God is not primarily a geographical territory; it is God’s saving reign and rule breaking into the world through Jesus. Wherever Jesus comes as King, the kingdom is present.
In Mark’s Gospel, the King demonstrates the power of the kingdom. Jesus has authority over demons, disease, sin, creation, uncleanness, and death.
Mark is showing us the King in action. Jesus does not only preach the kingdom. He embodies the kingdom. Jesus demonstrates the kingdom. Jesus brings the kingdom.
b. “The time has come”
The long-awaited moment in God’s redemptive plan has arrived. The promises, prophecies, shadows, sacrifices, and expectations of the Old Testament are now coming to fulfillment in Jesus.
The kingdom has arrived, but it is not the kind of kingdom the world expected. It does not come through political power, worldly success, or human violence. It comes through the suffering, serving, dying, and rising King.
That is why Mark’s Gospel moves from the announcement of the kingdom in chapter 1 to the cross in chapter 15. The King who announces the kingdom is also the King who gives His life.
Recap:
The King
The Kingdom
3. The Response – Repent and Believe
Mark 1:15
“The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
The Right Response To The King And His Kingdom – Repent & Believe
Greek – “metanoeite” – means: change your mind, it is a command.
A Spirit-enabled change of mind, heart, direction, and allegiance that turns a person from sin to God.
Repent & Believe: A change of mind that becomes a change of direction. It is the turning of the whole person — mind, heart, will, desires, and allegiance — away from sin and toward God. And Jesus does not say only, “Repent.” He says, “Repent and believe the good news.” So repentance and faith are inseparable: we turn from sin, and we trust in the King who has come near.
Repentance turns from sin; faith turns to Christ.
Repentance lets go of false masters; faith receives the true King.
Repentance is not self-improvement; it is surrender to the King who has come near.
A. Repentance begins with a decisive turning to Christ
A sinner turns from sin and self-rule to God through faith in Jesus Christ. This is what Jesus commands in Mark 1:15 “Repent and believe the good news!”
This is the first turning which is the work of the Spirit.
ILLUSTRATION
I experienced that shift when I was 13 years old at church when my pastor shared the gospel to me. I remember saying a prayer of forgiveness asking Jesus to forgive me. My life has been marked ever since.
Repentance begins with a decisive turning to Christ, but it becomes the continuing posture of the Christian life. It now characterizes the rest of your life in which we continually live into this life of repentance, which we have to constantly, repeatedly do it.
B. Repentance continues as a daily returning to the Lord
Church, repentance begins with a decisive turning to Christ, but it does not end there.
Repentance is also the continuing posture of God’s people. It is not that we get saved again and again. No. But saved people keep returning to the Lord.
We see this clearly in Deuteronomy. Moses is speaking to Israel, a people already redeemed by God out of Egypt. God had already delivered them. Now He calls them to obey so that they may live. Obedience is not the way they earned redemption; obedience is the response of a redeemed people.
Then in Deuteronomy 30, Moses looks ahead. He knows they will disobey. He knows they will experience the painful consequences of turning away from God. But even there, God gives them hope.
Deuteronomy 30:1-4
1When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come on you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, 2and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, 3then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. . 4Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back.
God does not write anybody off. You can always return. When you are sitting there in the mess of your bad decisions, by God’s mercy the way to return is always open. By God’s mercy, the door of return is open. When we return to Him, He receives us with mercy, even though some consequences of sin may still need to be walked through.
|
Hebrew |
English |
Meaning |
|
Shuv |
return |
turn round, return |
It is you are moving one direction and realize that is a wrong way, and you turn. Now in relationship with a God, when you turn to God another word is used “repent.”
What Moses is saying is that you always have an opportunity to return or repent. And this is the mercy of God: God does not write off His people when they return to Him. Even when they are far away, even when they are suffering because of their own wrong choices, the door of return is open.
But Moses also shows us the deeper problem. The problem is not only that they are away from the land. The deeper problem is the heart.
Israel can return outwardly and still wander again inwardly. And is that not our story also? We return, then we drift. We repent, then we go back. We say, “Lord, I will never do this again,” and then we find ourselves struggling again. Why? Because the real problem is the heart.
But then comes the promise of grace.
Deuteronomy 30:6
The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.
That is beautiful. God does not only command His people to return. God promises to work in their hearts so that they can love Him and live.
ILLUSTRATION
A man was praying with his pastor at the altar. He prayed a prayer the pastor had heard many times before. “Lord, take the cobwebs out of my life.” Just as he said this the pastor interrupted, “Kill the spider, Lord.”
Many times we ask the Lord to forgive us of some sin, yet we leave the source of temptation in our life, the heart.
So repentance is both our responsibility and God’s gracious work. We return to the Lord, but God changes the heart. We obey, but God transforms the desires. We say no to sin, but God gives us a greater yes — love for Him.
At conversion, we turn from sin to Christ. As believers, we continue to return to the Lord in obedience, as the Holy Spirit keeps changing our hearts to love Him more. We do not repent again and again because Jesus has failed to save us. We repent again and again because we belong to the King, and every part of our life must come under His loving rule.
C. Repentance bears visible fruit
ILLUSTRATION
When Jesus met Zacchaeus the tax collector: Zacchaeus said he would give half his possessions to the poor and restore fourfold what he had taken wrongly. Jesus then declared, “Today salvation has come to this house.” That is repentance — not mere regret, but a transformed life responding to the grace of the King.
D. Repentance is practiced through openness to God, honest examination, and confession of sin
Repentance first of all begins with an openness to change. We must be willing to consider change.
Mark 1:5
The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.
The people are actually going out to John to hear the message. There is already something going on in their life where they realize that they needed to hear something new.
ILLUSTRATION
Sometimes we discover that the clothes that we are wearing doesn’t fit anymore. The answers we had for a problem is not the same answer anymore.
Being open to change is opening up yourself to discover. It is like going on an adventure.
Are you open to change? Are you open to new things? He gives us the power to know ourselves, to change, and become like him. But we have to respond and be be like Jesus.
Mark 1:35
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.
To do the work of self-examination of the soul requires time. It requires effort. It requires prayer. It requires the use of God’s word and meditating upon it. Reflecting on it, reflecting on yourself. So this is a combination of prayer, scripture reading, and meditation of scripture, and of self-examination without bias. That is where good change really begins.
ILLUSTRATION
I have seen friends fly kites when we were young. So we use to have this thread and if not checked it would produce knots. Knots produce more knots and overtime. Finally we have to work the knot and clear it.
I have seen fishermen take out knots from the net after a catch.
That is the kind of work that we are called to do in our spiritual life. Searching and fearless, resolved to see the change and take everything out and keep it clear. We have the help of the Holy Spirit to cleanse us but it has some serious response.
Repentance brings about that change so that we can get unstuck.
Repentance culminates in confession of sin.
Mark 1:5
The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.
Confessing their sins. That is the final step in what repentance is all about. We look at ourselves, we look at our actions, our attitude, we look at what we have done, we look at what we have not done and we confess where we have fallen short.
Proverbs 28:13
Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper,
but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.
1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
If we open ourselves up, if do this examination, will lead to this confession and repentance.
Brothers and sisters, when you confess your sin, you are free. God frees you. The things that held you down, the things that were grabbing you and wouldn’t let go, no longer have any power. You can get to the place where you can open yourself up and say, “I was this but God has freed me.” That is what God wants you to do.
When should one repent?
There is no better time than today.
Hebrews 4:7
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.”
CONCLUSION
I know that the Holy Spirit is speaking to someone today, wanting you to soften your hearts and to hear in a fresh and a new way.
Church, the King has come. The kingdom has come near. The call is clear: repent and believe the good news.
Do not delay. Do not harden your heart. Do not hide what Christ is calling you to confess.
The King who commands repentance is the King who carried our sins. He does not call us to turn so that He can shame us; He calls us to turn because He has made a way through His blood.
Today, turn from sin and trust in Christ. Return to the Lord. His mercy is greater than your mess. His grace is greater than your guilt. His blood is sufficient to cleanse.
Repent and believe the good news.