As you dwell in Mark 1:14-20 today think on these questions:

1. How does the opening statement of Jesus in Mark's gospel set the stage for the entire narrative, and what key elements does it highlight?

2. What significance does the phrase "the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand" hold in the context of Jesus' ministry, and how does it emphasize the urgency of the message?

3. In the calling of the first disciples, what is the immediate response of Simon, Andrew, James, and John, and how does this reflect the urgency and importance of the message of the kingdom of God? How can we apply this sense of urgency in our own lives?

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Transcript:

As we start out here we see the first words of Jesus, in the Gospel of Mark, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand Repent, and believe the gospel. This is important. This is what we are meant to see here in Mark's gospel, everything after this is going to be related to this message, right?

And so the time is fulfilled. What does that mean? It means that the promise of the Messiah is finally coming. There was all this prophetic stuff going on in the Old Testament, all the way back to Genesis 315, where the promise to crush the head of the serpent began, and that the Messiah would come. And now we have seen through the Old Testament, we have arrived to the fulfillment, the time has come, come it is time. And so what is it time for the kingdom of God? Well, what is the kingdom of God for us? I think we have to think of heaven. We think of the eschatological the final end of history where God reigns. But what Jesus is saying is, is that the reign of God is coming. And it is going to begin with this proclamation of this gospel, this good news that is going to come through him the Messiah, the One who has arrived.

And notice what it says here, it is at hand. Now yesterday, I talked about this. And obviously, you probably saw my green highlighting of the word immediately. Again, I'm going to try to remember to highlight it in green every time if you're watching on video. But I also highlighted at hand in green, why? Because again, there's an imminence to what is going on. Just like the word immediately we talked about yesterday. But this idea of the kingdom of God being at hand, there's an immediacy here, something has to be done about it. It is here, we're forced to deal with it. So what is it?

Repent, and believe the gospel, change your mind about the way things are the way you live the way you behave? Repent means to change your mind. And what do you do you believe the gospel, you believe the good news. And so that is what is going to be the main message is what we're going to follow through the book of Mark. And then we see this that this is an important message in this really, really quick calling of the first disciples, like I said, yesterday, Mark is fast paced. We are going and we're going fast through the story of Jesus.

And again, this idea of being a hand and the immediacy sort of plays into that too, doesn't it not only the story short, but there's this constant. Let's go. And we see that here. And so we see in verse 17, more words from Jesus, follow me and I will make you I will make you become fishers of men. So he's calling these fishermen away from pulling fish out of the lake, out of the Sea of Galilee. And having them now go and proclaim this gospel. He's going to make them fishers of men, he's going to make them go after people and proclaim this message to them. The message is that important that these men are leaving their vocation to follow this rabbi, and proclaim the good news, and calling people to repent. And notice what they do, immediately off their nets.

And immediately Jesus called them and they left their father Zebedee in the boat, you see those words again, immediately, immediately. There is a urgency to the mission of Jesus here, and we're gonna feel it all throughout mark. But boy, do you feel that already think how far we've come? In just 20 verses, we have the temptation, we have Jesus being baptized, we have Jesus proclaiming what His mission is, you think it'd be longer than a couple of verses right? You think it'd be this long drawn out thing, but no, it is precise, and to the point, and it is important.

And then now we have the calling of the first disciples. All of this is happening so quickly. And again, it's the same message that I mentioned yesterday, or not yesterday. But sticking me while to get used to not doing this every day. Two days ago, in our first episode of dwelling, the word I talked about the immediacy of what are we going to do with it? And the same application comes to us here today as we think about this, what do we do with the message of Jesus, the kingdom of God is at hand. It still is today. In fact, it is just as at hand as it was when Jesus was proclaiming because of His life, death, resurrection, ascension, the kingdom of God is ultimately here. We are proclaiming the same gospel. We're calling people to repent and believe. And Jesus calls his disciples to follow him and become fishers of people, fishers of men.

And what do they do they immediately do it.

Do we have that urgency? Do we feel a sense of urgency with the

kingdom of God, do we feel as though it is near to us and that we are experiencing it in the Gospel? are we experiencing this immediacy, this importance of, of sharing the gospel, not only with the people we come into contact with, but do we express the immediacy of the importance of this message with our family and with our friends?

So what do we see here, we see that this is important, and you'll notice they left their nets, and they do it quickly. This is an important message, and they are going out to do it. So may we step out in faith today, remembering the immediacy of the kingdom of God, the immediacy of that call to repent and believe the gospel and the immediacy to respond in faith to the call of Jesus on our lives.