{"id":127,"date":"2012-01-24T19:11:53","date_gmt":"2012-01-24T18:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=127"},"modified":"2012-01-24T19:11:53","modified_gmt":"2012-01-24T18:11:53","slug":"jesus-calls-disciples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=127","title":{"rendered":"Jesus calls disciples"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world is in a mess. Recession, unemployment, riots, wars, crime. And that\u2019s on top of all the everyday problems ordinary people face. But what is the heart of the problem? Where has the world gone wrong? There was once a prolonged correspondence in the Times on the question, \u201cWhat is the root cause of all the troubles in the world. The matter was finally settled by the author G.K. Chesterton, who wrote, \u201cDear sir, What is wrong with the world? I am, yours sincerely, G.K.Chesterton.
\nHe was absolutely right, of course. Before any of us start putting the world to rights we need to take a long look at ourselves, and if we are honest and not blinded by pride we may not like what we see. If only we could all stop being selfish. But we can\u2019t. However much we try to live perfect lives, we can\u2019t do it! We need help!
\nIf anybody is serious about wanting to change, we need the one person who can help us. The greatest teacher in history, the one perfect human being, perfect because he was not only a man but he was also the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Jesus was born into the world to put things right, to help people change. This was his mission. And right at the beginning of his ministry Jesus brought a message which shows us three simple steps we can take if we want our lives to be different.
\nMark 1:14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 \u201cThe time has come,\u201d he said. \u201cThe kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!\u201d <\/p>\n

REPENT
\nRepentance is a very important word in the Bible. We hear it sometimes in reports from the courts, \u201cthe accused was unrepentant\u201d. But what did Jesus mean when he called men and women to repent?
\nAt its root the word repentance means A COMPLETE CHANGE OF DIRECTION
\nThe A12 Boreham Interchange is a very confusing junction. All those roundabouts \u2013 it is perfectly possible to follow the signs for the A12 and end up joining that wonderful road, but heading North instead of South. Lovely road but completely the wrong direction. Now if it should happen that you find yourself on the A12 going in the opposite direction to the way you wanted to go, there\u2019s no point in turning off and trying all sorts of minor roads. The only sensible thing to do is to go all the way round one of the roundabouts and come back on the A12 in the right direction. To do a complete U turn. And that is what repentance means. Doing a U turn in life. The root of the word for repentance is to change your mind \u2013 and that is what Jesus calls every one of us \u2013 change your mind!
\nSo many people spend their lives running away from God as fast as they can. Jesus calls people to repentance, to do a U turn so that they are running towards God instead of away from him. Repentance \u2013 a complete change of direction. If anybody wants to meet God, they have to change direction. If you have your back to the light, all you can see is the darkness of your own shadow. If you want to see the light, you have to turn around and walk towards it.
\nThen repentance means dealing with the sins in our lives. We all know what sin means \u2013 we see it on TV, and read it in the papers. Most of all we know about sin in our own lives. All the things we do and say and think which hurt other people and actually hurt ourselves. Lying and greed and immorality and hatred and selfishness and pride. All the things we would love to change about our lives if only we could. Repentance to deal with sin has three parts and it begins when we recognise the problem of sin in our own lives. When we \u201cacknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness\u201d and are truly sorry for our sins. Then we need to confess those sins before God and ask his forgiveness, for the times we sin against God and against our neighbours, through ignorance, through weakness, but most of the time through our own deliberate fault. And thirdly we need to be sorry enough for our sins that we are ready to give them up and let God change us! Jesus says, repent. Change direction. Acknowledge your sins, confess them and change your ways.
\nThe Greek which the New Testament was written down in has two ways of giving commands. One would be the one-off event, repent just once. But the word used here means more. It means repent lots of times, keep on repenting. The first act of repentance is only the beginning. We need to keep on turning our lives round, to keep on saying no to sin and yes to God. The starting point to changing our lives is repentance.
\nThen the second step Jesus gives us to changing our lives is this.
\nBELIEVE THE GOSPEL
\nMark 1:15 \u201cThe time has come,\u201d (Jesus) said. \u201cThe kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!\u201d
\nBelieve the gospel. Believe the good news. We began to see last week how the good news is all wrapped up in the person and work of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The world is overcrowded with self-help books and lifestyle gurus and make-over programmes. But the truth is that only one person can help us to change, only one person can save us from ourselves, and that is Jesus Christ. The good news IS Jesus \u2013 his life, his death and his resurrection.
\nMark 1:15 \u201cThe time has come,\u201d (Jesus) said. \u201cThe kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!\u201d
\nWe all have things in life that we look forward to, birthdays, Christmas, holidays, maybe retirement? The Jews had been looking forward to the arrival of their Messiah for more than a thousand years, the time when God would act as King and save His people. And Jesus brings the message, the time has come! The kingdom of God, the Kingly Rule of God is near! God\u2019s Kingdom is not territory. It is not the people who serve the King. The Kingdom of God is the things God does as King. The time has come when God will act as King and save his people! So, says Jesus, believe the Good News!
\nBelieve that God WAS acting as King in Jesus. The Creator was stepping into His Creation to repair the damage done by sin and to offer forgiveness and new life through Jesus to everybody who believes. Jesus came and lived a perfect life and showed us and taught us how we should live. And by dying for our sins in our place on the cross and rising from the dead Jesus offers us forgiveness and eternal life.
\nBut we each have to BELIEVE the Good News, believe the gospel. And that is much more than knowing about the good news. It is much more than intellectual agreement to certain ideas. Believing the Good News is about putting our trust in the Good News. I think that roller-coasters are safe. I can do the physics which says that when that car loops the loop and you are sitting upside down then you should stay in the car and you shouldn\u2019t fall out. But I can\u2019t truly say that I believe roller coasters are safe if I am not prepared to put my money where my mouth is and take my seat and go for a ride. Believing the gospel means putting our trust in the good news of Jesus Christ and living every part of our lives based on his command and his promises, trusting Jesus for everything!
\nRepent, believe the good news, and the third step to putting our lives right comes when Jesus says, <\/p>\n

FOLLOW ME
\nMark 1: 16 As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 17 \u201cCome, follow me,\u201d Jesus said, \u201cand I will make you fishers of men.\u201d 18 At once they left their nets and followed him.
\nThat is what the Christian life is all about. Following Jesus. Learning from Him. Becoming his disciples.
\nAnd that is what Simon and Andrew did, AT ONCE. Because the time had come, the Kingdom of God was at hand, and that demands an urgent and immediate response. The King has arrived, but he is moving on. We have to follow him NOW, or never. It was the same for James and John.
\n19 When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. 20 Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.
\nWithout delay Jesus called them. Without delay James and John followed him. In a way I feel sorry for Zebedee and the hired men. Jesus came and called for followers. James and John went but their father and his employees were just abandoned. Following Jesus was a complete break from their old lives. They just left their nets. No compromise. No turning back. AT ONCE they upped sticks and followed Jesus.
\nThere is a story of a competition in hell for ways to keep human beings away from God. 3rd prize went to the suggestion, \u201cTell them there\u2019s no heaven.\u201d 2nd prize went to, \u201cTell them there\u2019s no hell.\u201d But the prize was won by the suggestion, \u201cTell them there\u2019s no hurry.\u201d
\nBeing a Christian demands wholehearted obedience to Jesus and his commands. Following the example of love and sacrifice which Jesus gave us. Simon and Andrew, James and John left their nets. Following Jesus will always be costly \u2013 it will always involve sacrifice. Jesus told the Rich Young Ruler that obeying the ten commandments was not enough. \u201cGo, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me,\u201dJesus said.
\nThere is no room for competing interests \u2013 Jesus comes 1st, 2nd and 3rd! But the command to follow Jesus comes with a promise.
\nMark 1 17 \u201cCome, follow me,\u201d Jesus said, \u201cand I will make you fishers of men.\u201d
\n\u201cI will make you, \u201d says Jesus. God loves us so much that he reaches down and loves and accepts and forgives us just as we are. But God loves us too much to leave us just as we are. So God promises not only to accept us but to change us \u2013 to give us a brand new life, life in all its fullness. \u201cI will make you\u201d says Jesus. One day two speakers were on their soap boxes at Speakers\u2019 Corner in Hyde Park when a tramp passed by. The communist speaker said, \u201cMarxism would put a new suit on that man.\u201d The Christian preacher replied, \u201cJesus Christ would put a new man in that suit.\u201d
\nWhen we hand our lives over to Jesus Christ he promises to make us into what he wants us to be \u2013 the very best person we could ever become. So whatever we give up to follow Jesus we gain so much more than we could possibly lose!
\nFollow me and I will make you FISHERS OF MEN. Jesus had a special job for those first disciples. It would be their task to continue his work after his death and resurrection, after Jesus returned to heaven. The disciples would continue proclaiming the Good News and catch men and women into the safety net of the Kingdom of God. And that task continues today. Jesus calls all Christians to be witnesses for Him, to tell other people about the wonderful things God has done in our lives so that others will follow Jesus too.
\nSo here are the three steps we can all take to changing our lives. Here is the invitation Jesus makes. The invitation is for all of us \u2013 but it comes today and it calls for an urgent response.
\n15 \u201cThe time has come,\u201d (Jesus) said. \u201cThe kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!\u201d \u2026 17 \u201cCome, follow me,\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world is in a mess. Recession, unemployment, riots, wars, crime. And that\u2019s on top of all the everyday problems ordinary people face. But…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}