"The Call to the Kingdom-Life!"
Falling in Love with Jesus…all over again! An epic journey through the Gospel of Mark (message #5)
Pastor Jerry Ingalls
February 13, 2011
I love epic stories! In most epic movies there are kings and kingdoms; conquerors and empires; ancient wars and epic battles between good and evil; kings defending their kingdoms against oppressive evil. These epic stories capture our hearts because there is a deeper truth running through them that rings true in the deep places of our souls. We live in a war-torn world where two kings wage epic warfare for our loyalty and obedience to their kingdoms. This war was made visible to us in the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ when the Son of God, the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, came from heaven to earth to decisively declare and victoriously usher in the Kingdom of God. Jesus crushed Satan's death grip on humanity and decimated his oppressive reign on earth.
Today, 2000 years after the death blow to Satan's kingdom, we are hearing Jesus' eternal call to all who have given their misplaced loyalty to the enemy's losing camp. Together, let's listen to the invitation of God to leave behind all of our loyalties to Satan's worldly kingdom and give our 100% loyalty to the Kingdom of God. For a message entitled "The Call to the Kingdom-Life" let's hear God's Word from Mark 1:14-15, "Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.'" [prayer]
Open your sermon notes and let's begin with the first teaching point: THE CALL TO THE KINGDOM-LIFE IS AN IMPERATIVE TO RESPOND TO THE PROCLAMATION OF THE GOSPEL OF GOD!
A quick English lesson: an imperative is a command, not a suggestion. And a command is something we each must do, especially when that command is coming from a lawful authority; in this case, our rightful King! Listen again to Jesus' call from Mark 1:14-15a, "Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand;'"
Jesus Christ came into Galilee after the prophet John the Baptist was taken into custody by Herod the tetrarch. Here is the emphasis of Jesus' entrance: men who are in power over the worldly kingdom, like Herod (& his many contemporaries today), may silence the voice of God's prophets and kill those who proclaim the Gospel, but they cannot stop the Word of God! The King and His Kingdom cannot and will never be stopped!
The conquering King, the promised Messiah, has come to deliver His people from captivity! God, in His sovereign authority, takes the initiative and acts on behalf of His people to fulfill the promises He made throughout His covenants with humanity recorded in the Old Testament (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses). The royal activity of God to redeem His people has commenced and we are now confronted by Jesus' proclamation and what will be the establishment of the New Covenant between God and His beloved creation!
Jesus preaches the Gospel of God and the content of the Gospel is a royal summons to all humanity into the sovereign authority of God, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel." This is the fulfillment of God's promise to rule His people. This is not a geographical kingdom, but the Kingdom of God which is beyond space and time. God's reign with His people is forever! From the very first covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12 to the covenant with Moses, God's promise has been to rule over His people for ever. Exodus 15:18 proclaims, "The LORD shall reign forever and ever."
Listen to the messianic prophecy of the coming King from Isaiah 40:10-11, "See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power, and he rules with a mighty arm. . . He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young."
Jesus Christ proclaims the Good News of the Kingdom of God that cannot be contained by any ethnicity, geographical or national border. The Gospel of God that Jesus proclaims is for all people regardless of their ancestry. We learn this in Matthew 8:11, "I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." Jesus does not break the promise of God with Israel, but He proclaims this promise to be the one and same promise He made to Abram in Genesis 12:3c, "And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed."
Ephesians 3:6 teaches us of this Gospel, "This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus."
This Kingdom is for you and me! There is no person on earth who has sinned so bad or run so far or hidden so deeply that the love of God cannot find them and rescue them from the grips of Satan's lies. But we must respond to this royal summons! We must respond to the proclamation of the Gospel of God with urgency! Today is the day of salvation! What is holding you back from responding today?
This summons requires us to respond in our hearts and in our lives. Our second teaching point, THE CALL TO THE KINGDOM-LIFE IS AN IMPERATIVE TO HATE SIN!
For this second point we are focusing on one word from Mark 1:15, "repent and believe in the gospel." The original Koine Greek word Mark writes is metanoeō which literally means "to change your mind."
This is a critical word for us to understand if we are going to truly live Kingdom lives. What is Jesus telling us we must repent about? To be Kingdom-people we must change our minds about our allegiances and loyalties. Either we will continue to think the ways of this world are the right way or we will allow our minds to be changed for the ways of the Kingdom of God by having our minds renewed! (Memorize Romans 12:2!)
Do you know the difference between the ways of the world and the ways of God? Have you allowed the Holy Spirit to deal with every presupposition you bring into your relationship with God? (STOP here and pray!)
To put this directly: We must hate sin (the ways of the worldly kingdom) and love righteousness (the ways of the heavenly kingdom)! We must hate the one and love the other! The Bible teaches us in Psalm 97:10a "Let those who love the LORD hate evil…"
Jesus tells us that we cannot serve two masters! So let's be transparent (sincere, real, authentic) with one another about our repentance. We've been called to hate sin and love righteousness. Do we truly hate sin for its detestable nature? Sin is an affront to God; therefore, it should be to us too!
Show movie clip from Fireproof.
Do you hate your sin enough to take a baseball bat to it? What causes you to put your attention and loyalty on someone/something other than the Kingdom of God?
Most people are just sorry about the mess their sin causes, but they don't really hate the sin. They just hate the consequences of their sin! And let's be honest about our human nature: we would continue to sin if we had a reasonable assurance we could get away with it with no consequences. Do you hate the consequences of sin or the sin itself?
True repentance is a changing of our mind about sin. We must first pray and ask God to identify the sin in our lives (STOP and pray!) and once He shows us we must change our minds about it. We must hate it and take a baseball bat to it; remove it at all costs! Even if this sin is our most prized thing, our security in this life, or even something we see so many other people doing because it is our fellowship with sin (however harmless we may think it is) that keeps us from having the Kingdom-Life we are summoned to!
The Kingdom-Life requires you to live a repentant life and for this life must bear fruit—this fruit is the only visible witness of your changed loyalty from the kingdom of this world to the Kingdom of God! Jesus is teaching about the repentant life when He tells this parable in Luke 13:6-8, "Then [Jesus] told this parable: 'A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, 'For three years now I've been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?' 'Sir,' the man replied, 'leave it alone for one more year, and I'll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.''" The summons to the Kingdom and the repentant life is urgent; it is time sensitive!
In Matthew 3:8, we hear from John the Baptist to the multitudes who came for baptism, "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance."
This is an urgent imperative that must be made visible in each of our lives. Does your life visibly demonstrate your love for God?
The Kingdom-Life is not possible without the third action item. We must respond, repent, and believe. THE CALL TO THE KINGDOM-LIFE IS AN IMPERATIVE TO GIVE FULL ALLEGIANCE TO JESUS CHRIST!
Mark 1:15 ends with "repent and believe in the gospel." "Repent and believe" is not a new imperative, but a fresh reiteration of the prophets of old. This time though, it is declared by the Son of God, the King of Kings, who came once the time was fulfilled to declare with urgency that the Kingdom of God was now at hand!
The Greek for believe is pisteuō which means we must "put our trust in" the Gospel. The Gospel is centered not on a concept or religious system, but on the very person of Jesus Christ!
The heavenly King stepped out of heaven and into space and time to summons people to the Kingdom of God; to give their full allegiance to the Gospel! This is God's royal activity to redeem His lost children (all of whom have gone astray like a sheep without a shepherd!) and to fulfill His promise to restore that which was broken by sin—perfect relationship with God! The coming of Jesus Christ is the greatest point in history because this is the self-revelation of God unparalleled in any other point in history! God stepped into our space and time to be the way into the Kingdom of God. God made Himself one of us and proclaimed the Kingdom that He Himself was ushering in. He showed us the way! The call of the Kingdom-Life is to believe in the King and to give our full allegiance to Him! Jesus Christ is the means of salvation!
In John 10:9-10, Jesus declared of Himself as the entrance into the Kingdom, "I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."
Jesus Christ confronted Satan and his rule over earth! Jesus took on sin, disease, and even death and defeated them all! Jesus subdued the created realm and brought to submission all that is over and under as the sign of God's coming Kingdom. There is no time to delay to put your full trust in Jesus and enter the Kingdom of God.
Do you want proof of the Kingdom of God? Do you want to see it? Then put your faith in the One who can give you eyes to see. Jesus told Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, that the way to see the Kingdom of God is by being born again through the Holy Spirit. From John 3:3, "Jesus replied, 'Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.'"
Have you been born again through the Holy Spirit of God? This is only possible by putting your full faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as your Lord and Savior!
Memorize this Promise of Salvation from 1 John 5:11-13: "And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life."
Jesus Christ is the final word of invitation to humanity in our last hour. And the Holy Spirit is granting you the privilege of hearing the invitation today. You must make a decision and then live eternally with the consequences: either you will submit your full allegiance to God's sovereign reign over your life and enter the Kingdom of God (eternal fellowship with the very presence of God, the return to Eden called Heaven) or you will choose the world and its riches and honor (and that's the only thing you will get; a brief life of your choosing and then the eternal separation from God; a place Jesus described as a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, called Hell).
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the means of salvation to all humanity! Do you have intimacy with and full allegiance to the King of the Kingdom?
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For further study on the King, study the great "I am" declarations made by Jesus Christ.
1. "I am the way…" from John 14:16.
2. "I am the bread of life." from John 6:48.
3. I am "living water" from John 4:10-14.
4. "I am the vine…" from John 15:5.
5. "I am the alpha and the omega…" from Revelation 1:8.
For further study on the Kingdom of God study the parables of the Kingdom taught by Jesus Christ.
1. Matthew 13:44-45 (teaching on the Kingdom's worth)
2. Luke 14:15-24 (teaching on urgency of our response)
3. Luke 14:25-33 (teaching on the cost we must pay)
4. Luke 15:1-32 (teachings on the value of each person)
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