“Repent
& Believe the Good News” (Mark 1:14-20)
1.
Please
pray with me. May the words of my mouth
and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock,
and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word this 3rd
Sunday after the Epiphany is taken from Mark 1:14-20, it’s entitled, “Repent & Believe the Good News,” dear
brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
Our LCMS Synodical President Pastor
Matt Harrison recently was on the radio talk show Issues Etc. talking about the
Christian teaching of repentance. In
that talk show President Harrison stated how he was recently in Germany and
attended a triple parish there in order to worship. He asked Pastor Wilken, the talk show host,
how many Christians were in attendance on average in those churches each
Sunday. “I don’t know, how many are there
in those parishes each Sunday,” Pastor Wilken asked? President Harrison said, “26.” And this is in the land of Martin Luther, the
great reformer of the Christian church.
How is it that in the land of Luther, where the Gospel was rediscovered
some 500 years ago, that churches have such a small church attendance each
week? I think the answer is a lack of
repentance among the people of Germany and within their Christian churches as
well.
3.
Recently
President Harrison wrote in the Lutheran Witness these words about our need for
repentance. “What is the
single most critical issue in the life of the Missouri Synod? Is it evangelism?
Church planting? Missions? Seminaries? Church-worker well-being? Theology?
Congregational vitality? Finances? Education? Mercy? I submit to
you, dear reader, that the single most vital issue facing this church body
today is our great need for individual and collective repentance--thorough-going sorrow over sin, and faith that grabs
hold of the Savior of sinners, Jesus.
Repentance is a matter of eternal life
and death. "Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight!"
(Matt. 3:3). [Jesus] the eternal Lord of the universe came as a babe at
Bethlehem. He comes in His Word and Sacrament. He shall come again in
the end. If you meet Jesus secure in
your sins, whether at the Communion rail or on the Last Day, you shall die in
your sins, eternally. Friends, I may know a couple of your sins, but I know
many, many more of my own. Under the Law, I too am nothing but a damned sinner.
My prayer life wavers. I'm not what I should be as a father and husband. My
love for God's Word is often grown cold. I worry. "Wretched man that I am!
Who will deliver me from this body of death?" Grant repentance, O Lord! Grant
faith, O Lord! Grant forgiveness,
O Lord! Grant us love for each
other, O Lord! Grant us zeal for
the Gospel and those who need it,
O Lord! Renew our preaching and
our hearing, O Lord! Come
quickly, and save us!”
4.
Mark
1:14-20 says, “14 Now after John was arrested,
Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and
saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and
believe in the gospel.” The way to God, as Jesus
points out, is to “repent and believe the
good news.” Repent means “to have a change of heart as far as sin is
concerned” and in this connection points to the good news concerning the one in
whom they would find forgiveness of sins. Jesus called on his listeners to turn
away from the service of sin, to be sorry they had fallen away from God, and by
faith to trust in him who alone offers forgiveness. Surely that is the good
news mankind needs, whether in Galilee or in our community here in Baldwin.
5.
The
moment when our promised Messiah and Savior Jesus came was a moment of profound
crisis. The English word crisis is a transliteration of the Greek
krisis, which means “judgment.” When the Kingdom of God broke through and the
Messiah appeared, it brought the most profound crisis humanity ever faced. That crisis was this: those who received Him would receive eternal
life; those who did not would pass into God’s judgment. Jesus was saying to the Jews, “Your crisis is right now.” He says the same to everyone in the world
today who hears His name. No one can
heard the Good News of Jesus death on the cross to pay for the penalty of our
sins and His resurrection from the dead to show His victory over death for us
and walk away indifferent. When someone
receives the gospel, it’s the greatest moment of his life. But if he rejects the gospel, he brings the
greatest judgment on himself. The gospel
is a two-edged sword. Jesus was saying,
in essence, “You are not ready for the
coming of the kingdom; therefore, repent and believe.” Those two actions are absolutely necessary to
receive the Savior. The coming of Jesus
requires repentance and faith by all who hear of Him.
6.
So
what sort of sins do you need to repent of?
Is it your lack of worship to Jesus as your Lord and Savior and devoting
yourself to the reading of Scripture and receiving His gifts of Word and
Sacrament? Or, is it your lack of love
for your neighbor? The words that you
say that hurt your neighbor, the actions that you commit in order to hurt those
even closest to you. Have you taken
God’s name in vain or failed to worship Him and serve Him only? Have you watched something on TV or over the
internet that was sexually immoral and sinful?
Have you stolen something from your classmate’s locker or from your
place of work that wasn’t your own? Have
you desired something that doesn’t belong to you and wanted to do anything that
you can to get it? Have you failed to
honor and respect those God has placed in authority over you? If so, then you need to repent. Ask the Lord for forgiveness and look to
Jesus, the one who fulfilled all of God’s commandments perfectly on your
behalf.
7.
Did you notice that the response of
Simon, Andrew, James, and John was immediate to Jesus’ calling them to repent
and be His disciples? When Jesus called, they were ready to follow him, for
they had learned to love him and believe in him. Business, wealth, family—all
were secondary to following Jesus and becoming fishers of men. The same faith
that filled their hearts should also fill ours, whether we are pastors,
teachers, missionaries, or lay Christians. Christ must be first in our lives.
Note also that Father Zebedee didn’t object. Without a doubt he, together with
the hired men, continued to bring great sacrifices to support Jesus’ mission
and the training of his disciples.
8.
This immediate behavior of Simon,
Andrew, James, and John can only come from our Savior Jesus whose Gospel deeds
are characterized by a sense of urgency and commitment. In the very first verse after our Gospel text
we read of Jesus, “Immediately on the
Sabbath day He entered into the synagogue and taught” (Mark 1:21). When the disciples on a stormy sea fear that
the figure approaching them might be a ghost, “immediately Jesus spoke unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I;
do not be afraid” (Matt. 14:27). Really,
it’s at His Baptism that Jesus establishes the tone of His ministry, “Jesus, when He was baptized, went up
immediately out of the water” (Matt. 3:16). It’s true of His miracles
too. There’s nothing showy about
them. A woman sneaks up behind Jesus to
touch His robe and “immediately the
fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was
healed of that plague” (Mark 5:29).
Jesus commands a dead girl to get up and “immediately the girl arose” (Mark 5:42). In the presence of a deaf man, Jesus says, “Ephphatha…be opened” and “immediately his ears were opened”
(Mark 7:34-35).
9.
The point is that you and I can have
a sense of urgency like Jesus’ disciples only because our Lord Jesus had a
sense of urgency. You and I each day can
repent of our sins each day and turn to Christ for forgiveness. We can respond immediately to God’s calling
through His Word and to serve our neighbor with the love of Jesus only because
of Christ. The sense of immediacy in our
lives is the product of the immediacy of our Lord Jesus in His earthly career. May God enable us to follow Him each day as
we repent of our sins, turn to Him in faith, and live, following Him as our
Lord and Master. Amen.
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