Introduction

 

One of the oldest memes on the internet today is … ‘you had ONE job’.  The principle is … someone is given a very simple task … and they fail spectacularly.  So here are my Top 10 ‘you had one job’ memes.  My apologies to those watching on YouTube … I’ll just have to describe them for you.

1. A sign that says ‘Open 9 days a week’

2. A sign that says ‘Back to school supplies’ … above a wall of sharp knives

3. A big ‘Give cyclists space’ sign, that takes up the whole cycle lane

4. It’s not first … it’s not third … it’s a medal for thirst place medal.  Three … s … t.

5. This one messes with my OCD.  A ‘centre’ switch that ISN’T in the centre

6. A crowd favourite … misspelling school … showing that person needs to go back there

7. A fruit shop that labels bananas ‘long yellow things’

8. Public toilet doors that go from the waist up

9. Canada flip-flops … with the Union Jack

10. And finally … lemon water anyone … with WHOLE lemons in it

Well … the reason I begin this way is because today’s passage sees Jesus giving his disciples … and that includes you and me … one job.  So we’re 3 weeks into our series on Mark’s gospel … we’ve only just got to v. 14.  I used to think that because Mark was the shortest gospel … it was therefore the simplest to preach on.  But after diving in … I’ve realised Mark isn’t simple … it’s dense.  Mark packs just as much content and theology into his gospel as Matthew and Luke do … he just does it with less words.

Well in our passage today … Jesus begins his ministry … which includes calling his first disciples.  And WHEN he calls these disciples … he gives them ONE job.  Now as you’ll hopefully already know … Christians have MORE than one job.  We’re to (i) bring glory to God, (ii) love our neighbour as ourselves, and (iii) grow in Christian maturity … just to mention a few.  But in our passage today … Jesus tells his disciples that he has a specific purpose … a specific job for them.  And that job is to be ‘fishers of people’ … or as the old song goes … ‘fishers of men’.

Now … Jesus DOESN’T say he will make these disciples expert fishers of people on the spot.  In the Greek … the verb ‘make’ is in the future tense.  So what Jesus is telling us here is that WHEN you become a Christian … Jesus puts you on the path to becoming expert fishers of people.  It’s kind of like an apprenticeship.  You start on the tools immediately … but upskill as you go along.  And the question this passage asks the Christian is … how is Jesus going to make us more proficient … more passionate … more fruitful … in this one job he’s giving us here?  How are we to become better fishers of people?

Well I’ve got 3 points today … as your sermon outline shows … to help us find out.  And each of these three points is crucial to helping us become better fishers of people … help us become better at calling others into God’s kingdom.  And we’re going to begin by looking at (i) The message Jesus proclaims … point 1.  OK … unless we know what message to proclaim … we’ll be quite inept at calling people to Christ.  We’re THEN going to look at how we bring people into the kingdom … which I’ve titled (ii) The response Jesus wants.  Then we’ll conclude by looking at OUR place in all of this … which I’ve titled (iii) The mission Jesus gives.  So … if we want to become the kind of fishers of people’ Jesus calls us to be … then please come with me as we look at (i) The message Jesus proclaims, (ii) The response Jesus wants, and (iii) The mission Jesus gives.

​

The message Jesus proclaims (v. 14)

 

And our passage begins with these words:

Mark 1:14 (NIV) After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.

So Jesus’ ministry begins after John’s ministry ends.  We get a bit more info on John’s imprisonment in Mark chapter 6.  But for NOW … Mark wants to get straight into Jesus’ ministry.  And Jesus’ ministry … we’re told … was to proclaim the good news of God.  Now the phrase ‘good news’ translates the single Greek word ‘euangellion’.  Now an ‘ANgellion’ is simply a message.  It’s where we get the word ‘angel’ from.  An ‘angel’ is literally a messenger … a kind of like a herald.  The prefix ‘eu’ means ‘joyful’.  So a ‘euangellion’ is a joyful message … or as the NIV translates it here … ‘good news’.  The word ‘euangellion’ is ALSO translated as ‘gospel’ … in places like Rom 1:1.  So … ‘euangellion’ … joyful message … good news … gospel’.  All the same thing.

Yet the word ‘euangellion’ is NOT a biblical word.  We have a 1st century inscription … called ‘The Priene Calendar Inscription’ … that talks about ‘the beginning of the euangellion … the good news … of Caesar Augustus’.  And what this inscription suggests … is that a ‘euangellion’ … a ‘gospel’ message … is simply news.  You see WHEN Christians explain the gospel to people today … most non-Christians think we’re giving them advice.  They THINK we’re telling them what rules they need to follow to get into heaven.  And the reason that’s what most people think Christianity is about … is because that’s what every other world religion is about.  The difference with the Christian message … is it’s a ‘euangellion’.  And a euangellion in NOT advice.  It’s news about some historical event that has happened.  Let me explain.

In 490BC … the Persian army landed in Greece on a beach near the town of Marathon.  Their goal was to subjugate all of Greece.  The Athenians and the Spartans were the two main nation states in Greece at the time … and the Spartans declined to send troops … because of a festival.  So the Athenian army marched to Marathon … and although they were outnumbered by the Persians … they defeated the Persian army … forcing them to retreat back to Asia.  Following the victory … heralds were sent to Athens to proclaim the gospel … the euangellion.  And that good news was … Greece is saved.

Now … had the Athenians LOST the battle of Marathon … it would have been an entirely different message … wouldn’t it?  The message would have been ‘King Darius of Persia now rules Greece.  And you WILL obey him … or else’.  Notice that’s NOT just news.  It’s advice.  Thankfully for the Athenians … the message they received that day was NOT advice.  It was news of the historical event that had taken place at Marathon.  ‘Your army has secured a great victory at Marathon … on your behalf’.

And this is the difference between biblical Christianity and every other world religion.  Ever other world religion says ‘God rules this world … and you WILL obey him … or else’.  Every other world religion gives advice.  The Christian gospel is NEWS about a historical event that has happened.  Jesus has won a great victory at Calvary … on your behalf.

Now WHY is it so important that we understand the message Jesus proclaims?  Well let me ask you … WHEN you stand before religious people … who are telling you all the moral standards you must meet in order to get right with God … in order to get into heaven … how does it make you feel?  Like if I were to stand up here … Sunday after Sunday … and preach moralism.  If I were to beat the lectern … and demand you go out there and OBEY … how would leave here each week feeling?  Like … you MIGHT feel inspired?  You MIGHT leave each week saying to yourself ‘YEAH … I DO need to do better’.  But I guarantee you … you will not feel the way the Athenians felt … when they heard the news that their enemy had been defeated on their behalf.

Friends … if we are going to be effective fishers of people … then we MUST understand that the Christian gospel … the euangellion … is NOT advice.  Advice does nothing but ADD burdens to people.  The euangellion makes all our burdens fall off.  And that’s the message Jesus proclaims.  Come and hear about a great feat that was accomplished on your behalf.  Jesus has taken all your sin … all your burden … away.

​

The response Jesus wants (v. 15)

 

So … that’s the MESSAGE Jesus proclaims … and therefore the message ‘fishers of people’ are to proclaim.  The next question is … what’s the PURPOSE of this message?  Well the big word in v. 14 was euangellion.  The big word in v. 15 is ‘kingdom’.  We read:

Mark 1:15 (NIV) “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

Now the kingdom of God is best defined as the place where God is king.  In ONE sense … that’s the whole universe.  But since the Fall … in Genesis 3 … the kingdom of God has been defined as the place where God’s people LIVE with God as king.  In the OT … that was in the land of Israel.  In the NT … the kingdom of God is best described as the church.  The world-wide church is where followers of Jesus live with God as king.

Now the reason this is so important is because WHEN Jesus returns … the kingdom of God will be heaven.  And the NT teaches that anyone who doesn’t live with God as king in THIS life … will be thrown OUT of the kingdom in the next.  The NT describes that exile as ‘fire and brimstone’ … where there is ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’.  Yet like I said a few weeks ago … they are simply metaphors for a level of suffering beyond human description.  So when we are fishing for people … our PURPOSE is to rescue them from suffering that is beyond human description.  The million-dollar-question is … how does one AVOID suffering that is beyond human description?

Well there are 2 responses Jesus calls us to make in v. 15: repent and believe.  Let’s look at ‘repent’ first … which if you recall … is the exact same message that John the Baptist preached.  To enter the kingdom … you MUST repent.  Some people might believe in the existence of Jesus … they might believe what Jesus says is good … but never repent.  According to Jesus … we will NEVER reach heaven if we die unrepentant.

So let me ask … when was the last time we told someone they need to repent before God?  When was the last time we explained the gospel to someone … that included a call to repent?  Because my experience is … this is not a word that comes up too often when we’re talking to people about Jesus.  And I’m wondering if that isn’t part of the reason why we’re not catching many people for the kingdom these days.  Are we failing … as fishers of people … because we’re too afraid to tell them of their need to repent?

Brothers and sisters … repentance is not an angry word … or a judgmental word.  It is a wonderful word … because it’s encouraging people to drop those things that are infecting our soul.  It is urging people to throw off those things that are preventing them from coming to faith in Christ.

1. For some it might be a possession of theirs … or money.  But hanging onto that … will kill them.

2. It might be a relationship.  Yet if you hang onto sleeping with your boyfriend or girlfriend … it will end up killing you in the long run.

3. It could be a lifestyle … like one’s sexuality or one’s career.  Those things have to go … of they’ll kill you.

4. Or it might just be your foolish pride … thinking you’re above salvation.  That will kill you.

Repentance is persuading people that hanging onto those things … those worldly idols … instead of Jesus … is dangerous.  Repentance is a wonderful thing.

THEN there’s ‘believe’ … which is a synonym of faith.  And Christian faith is not just intellectual ascent … for Satan KNOWS Jesus died for the sins of his people … and it does him no good.  Belief … or faith … means trusting that Jesus’ words are true … and FOLLOWING them.  OK … if we are selective about which of Jesus’ commands to follow and which to ignore … then that’s not really faith.  Faith is obeying God’s words even when it looks illogical to do so … because we trust him.

​

The mission Jesus gives (v. 16-20)

 

So … that’s the message Jesus proclaimed … the good news of the historical event of Calvary.  And that’s the response Jesus wants … repentance and faith.  The final piece to this puzzle comes in:

Mark 1:16-18 (NIV) 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 “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” 18 At once they left their nets and followed him.

Jesus then does the same with James and John.  Now … Marks’s gospel gives us the impression that these men have never met Jesus before.  And that would be weird … to start following some random bloke you’ve just met.  When our daughter Nina was about 6 … Deb’s dad took Nina and her cousin to Bunnings.  They both got a little trolley each to take around … and take to the checkout.  And when they got to the checkout … the lady looked at these 2 little girls and said ‘is this your grandad?’  And Nina looked up at her grandad … and said ‘nah … he’s just some random bloke’.  Needless to say that was an awkward moment.  You don’t just follow random blokes … do you?

The gospel of John tells us this is not the first time these men have met Jesus.  They’ve actually spent quite a bit of time under Jesus’ teaching by this stage.  So this is not some kind of divine mind-control going on here.  These 4 men already KNOW Jesus.  And they’ve come to the conclusion that he’s worth dropping everything for … to follow him.

But here’s the thing about following Jesus.  It’s not like being on a cruise ship.  What I mean by cruise ship is you have a small number of crew … who do all the work … while the rest just sit back and relax.  No … following Jesus is like a battleship.  Because on a battleship … EVERYONE works.  And the job Jesus is calling his followers to in this passage is to be ‘fishers of people’.  So if you’re a Christian … if you’re (i) heard the message of Jesus, and (ii) responded with repentance and faith, then you’ve been called BY Jesus to (ii) proclaim that same message to others, and call them to (ii) respond with repentance and faith.  We are ALL called to be fishers of people.

But this is not an easy mission that Jesus is giving us.  It comes with real difficulties and dangers:

• What if I don’t know what to say?  I might end up looking stupid … or worse … dishonouring God.

• What if they don’t want to hear it?  It might make for an awkward moment.

• Or what if they reject me altogether … and I lose a good friend?

And these are valid concerns in 21st century Australia.  So how do we overcome these concerns … given our Lord and Saviour has called us to be fishers of people?  How do we become EXPERTS … CRACK soldiers … in fishing for people?  Well … I want to share with us 2 things we can do by way of application today.  And they are (i) less self-absorption, and (ii) more trust.  And we’ll look at these in that order.

So to begin with … while those dangers and difficulties I listed are all valid concerns … they’re all concerns about ME.  I might look stupid.  I might feel awkward.  I might lose a friend.  Do you know what THEY’LL experience if we DON’T proclaim Jesus’ message?  Suffering beyond human description.  So the FIRST step to becoming expert fishers of people … is to focus less on ourselves and more on others.

Friends … nothing makes us more miserable in life than self-absorption.  It leads to things like self-pity … relationship breakdowns … class struggles … and in extreme cases … even war.  When psychologists are confronted with patients who are constantly obsessing over how THEY’RE going … how THEY’RE succeeding … how THEY’VE been wronged … how THEY’VE been mistreated … they will often prescribe volunteer work.  Go and do SOMETHING that will turn your thoughts towards others.

So if we are to become the kind of people who can pull others out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light … we need to rid our hearts of self-absorption.  Now if you’re anything like me … you will have ‘what about me’ moments all the time.  OK … WHEN that happens … when you find yourself obsessing over how I’VE been poorly treated … or what I can do to succeed … we need to switch those thoughts off … perhaps visualise putting those thoughts in the bin … to use a counselling principle … and then fill our mind with how we can orbit around others.  Get into the dance … as we heard last week.

The SECOND thing we can do … is we can trust that if Jesus has asked us to follow him … he won’t lead us astray.  George McDonald wrote a fairytale book in 1872 called ‘The princess and the Goblin’.  It was made into a movie in 1991.  In it … 8-year-old Princess Irene meets the ghost of her great-great grandmother … who gives her a ring with an invisible thread on it.  And she tells Irene that whenever she feels afraid … she is to follow the thread … wherever it takes her.

Well several nights later she hears goblins IN the castle … which understandably terrifies her.  So she feels for the invisible thread on her ring … and starts following it.  And the thread leads her out of the castle … and towards the goblin caves.  She follows the thread right INTO the heart of the goblin’s lair … where it leads her to a dead end.  The thread goes INTO a wall.  But she remembers her great-great grandmother’s words … so she begins to dig into the wall.  When she breaks through the wall … she finds her friend Curdie on the other side … who had been imprisoned there by the goblins.  And they’re both able to escape.

Friends … when Jesus calls us into his kingdom … it’s like he gives US an invisible thread.  And he says I want you to follow me.  I might take you down some dark roads.  It might look like some of them are dead ends.  But you must follow me … because I have a plan for your life.  And that plan is to heal you of your pride and self-absorption … that is currently ruining your life.  And if you can continue to follow me … obey me … then I’ll turn you into something great.  I’ll turn you into someone who can transform people’s lives.

​

Conclusion

 

And THAT’S the job … the one job that Jesus has given each and every one of us.  We are (i) to proclaim the euangellioin … the good news of Jesus death, we are (ii) to call people into His kingdom through repentance and faith.  And we are to do so … by casting off all pride and self-absorption … and instead trusting that Jesus’ plans for us … dark and dangerous though they may look … are designed to transform us into world changers.  So …

Mark 1:17 (NIV) “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”