Jesus in Galilee (Part A)

It is up to us to blast through it, to plow through it, to plow through the doubts. They have no right to take us over, but they have every right to challenge us. And we have every right in Christ to fight back, to believe in Him, to resist the devil, to trust in the Lord.

Without faith it is impossible to please God. We are told those are the kind of verses that we hold on to, to help us get us over these things that come at us. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Gospel of Mark.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Mark chapter 1 with a new study called Jesus in Galilee. We are in the Gospel according to Mark chapter 1 verses 14 through 20. Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and saying, The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and believe in the Gospel. And as He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew, His brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. Then Jesus said to them, Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men. They immediately left their nets and followed Him. When He had gone a little farther, from there He saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John, His brother, who also were in the boat mending their nets, and immediately He called them. And they left their father Zebedee in the boat, and hired servants, and went after Him. Jesus in Galilee, we've been tracking His ministry in the first 13 verses of this chapter, from the Jordan waters where He was baptized, to the wilderness sands where He was tempted by Satan, and now to the shores of Galilee where ministry awaits Him.

There's a lot of people in this area, and that is why He is targeting it. He has already been ministering in Judea and Jerusalem, but now He's moving to Galilee. And we look at verse 14, now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.

We're about six months to a year from verse 13, between verse 13 and verse 14. Mark, he leaves out a lot of the details. John fills it in for us in the first three chapters of John, even into the fourth a little bit. He gives us some background on what was going on then. He was working miracles, he was giving his first sermons, and Mark, skipping over the Judean ministry, begins to the north of Israel in Galilee. It says, now after John was put in prison, well that prison was a death trap, usually a one-way ticket. And while he was there in that jail, John began to doubt that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. He had good reason to doubt, but he also had better reasons to believe. And you see a man like John doubt, and then we feel a little bit more comfortable in the presence of the Lord when we struggle with our doubts. Even though John saw the anointing, which was of course unmistakable. Matthew's Gospel, chapter 11, we read it this way, and when John had heard in prison about the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples and said to him, are you the coming one or do we look for another?

And so there it is in print. John again began to wonder, are you the Messiah, the coming one, or not? Now Jesus answered that question by pointing to facts.

He did not give him a direct answer, yes or no, that we would have looked for. Jesus said, Matthew 11, the blind see, he said, go tell John, the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them. Jesus was saying, John will figure this out, he will connect the dots, he'll know what this means. And John of course did do that. But John anticipated the kingdom with the arrival of the Messiah. But he did not factor in his own imprisonment and soon to be death. He didn't get that far in his thinking. He saw himself the forerunner of Messiah according to the Scriptures. He was very bold about that. I am not him.

I am the voice in the wilderness. And this Messiah that he announced, why wasn't he doing something? After all, John had longed for him, John had prayed for him, toiled and suffered, denied himself pleasant things, he ate locusts, waiting for this Messiah. Was he? Was Jesus the one?

What was he doing? Why was he having meals with tax collectors and sinners? Well, John himself suffered in prison with an uncertain future. After all, if he was bringing the kingdom into place, he would spring him from jail. Was I the forerunner for the right man? If you preach a lot of Christ to others, I'm not talking about in a formal environment such as this, I mean out in the world, in the workplace, in the family, if you do this over the years, Satan's going to target you, he's going to try to get you to doubt.

Know that you're in good company. The Old Testament prophets were heavy-handed in their description of Messiah coming as king. They did not hold back.

They just longed for this. The prophets said that the king would smite Israel's foes and raise up a kingdom like David's. The kingdom would be better than that of Solomon with such peace and prosperity. The desert would bloom, the wolf and the lamb would lie down together, and the lamb would not be part of the meal.

The lions would eat straw like oxen, no longer eating the oxen. And the Hebrew people would reign with Messiah as his ambassadors, not only ambassadors, but governors, administrators, which is expanded, of course, to the church. The believers will be part of that process in the kingdom age. But with all of this prophecy that they were given, the oracles of God, they failed to remember that there would be two appearances of the Messiah, or at least two ministries of the Messiah. One to rule, the other to suffer, to die for the people, for sinners, to reign over death, to return to creation and reign over it yet again. And the prophets, they spoke very clearly about his suffering, especially in the Psalms, especially in Isaiah, too much for us to read now, but Jesus violated their expectations. We have to be on guard in our own lives. We do not set expectations that aren't right, looking for others to conform to what we expect things should be like.

Their expectations were violated because they cherry-picked the word. They took out, they extracted only those parts of scripture that dealt with oppressors, such as the Roman Empire, who were now, of course, subjugating Israel to Caesar. So they longed for those verses that spoke about the Messiah coming, while not looking at why he was coming. We pick it up in Luke's Gospel in chapter 24. This is, of course, right after Jesus had rose from the dead, Luke 24. But we were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel.

Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened. Their lamentation is, we thought he was the Messiah. This is three years later, after John, after all the miracles. There's so much doubt surrounding God and what he is doing in this life, and it is up to us to blast through it, to plow through it, to plow through the doubts.

They have no right to take us over, but they have every right to challenge us. And we have every right in Christ to fight back, to believe in him, to resist the devil, to trust in the Lord. Without faith, it is impossible to please God, we're told. And those are the kind of verses that we hold onto to help us get us over these things that come at us, these monsters. It continues here in verse 14, Jesus came to Galilee. Well, we'll get back to John, we're not done with him this morning, nor are we done with him in the book of Mark.

And he's such a large figure, John the Baptist is, and yet he's not worthy to lose the sandal straps of our Lord. And John, of course, the first to tell us that, and we listen to John say that and we say, Amen, brother John. But Jesus of Galilee, Jesus, John, John sought the wilderness. That's where the people would come to him so he could preach to them. It was necessary. They needed to have a hunger and thirst for righteousness and come and get it. And as the forerunner of Christ, he was preparing their hearts, he was stirring the people to turn to God, and he did a good job at that. But Jesus, now that John is in prison, expanding his ministry into the region of Galilee, Jesus seeks out the multitudes.

He goes where the interstates are. And in that region of Israel, there were no less than 15 cities around the shore of Galilee, the sea. It's really a lake, not a sea. But anyway, about 15,000 people in each village, plus their suburbs. So you're looking at over 150,000 people in that area where Jesus is now bringing himself in front of the people. And so John drew the people to him, but Jesus is looking for the people. Two different approaches to ministry, both of them are correct.

It is true that John was put in prison, Jesus comes into Galilee preaching, and Satan may have at first thought that when John was arrested, that that was a victory for him. But it was really a setback, because now God in human form, the humanity of Jesus Christ, is now unleashed in this area where all of these people are to hear the gospel. Now the Son of God, his ministry, cannot be stopped until he says so. There we go, when he's on the cross, he says, before the cross, no one takes my life, I give it up. And then on the cross he says, Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.

No one kills me, I'll say when it's over. And we love him for this sovereignty over creation. Preaching the gospel of the kingdom, that's what Jesus was doing. So John's in prison, Jesus enters into this densely populated area, and he's preaching the gospel of the kingdom. Christians have no right to devalue preaching, not true preaching.

It was Jesus who's quoting the Old Testament, said, man should not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And that requires listening to what God has to say and repeating what God has to say, because Satan doesn't want you to do it. And so God says his message is good, that's why it's called the gospel. It is a good message that we bring.

It is not what the world says it is, it's what God says it is. And if they don't like it because it puts restrictions on their sin, that's their problem, however we're supposed to be part of their solution. And that's how people get saved, that's how we got saved.

The world needs what we have, they do not need a diluted brand. They don't need a dumbed-down gospel. They need the gospel as it is. John was put in prison for being unlike the world, not conforming to it. Mark's gospel, chapter 6, verse 18, because John had said to Herod, it is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.

He stood up for righteousness no matter what it cost him. G. Campbell Morgan, that British preacher from long ago said, the church did the most for the world when the church was least like the world. That was true in the early part of the last century when Morgan preached those words, as it is now, as it always has been. John 17, verse 14, this is the authority for the things that we say and believe. That's why the pastors put cross-references in the sermons and say, listen, this is what God's word says, this is the authority. I have given them your word, said Jesus to his father, and the world has hated them because they're not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Listen, the world hates itself, so don't expect them to just love us.

They are at war with each other all the time. I heard a comedian years ago say he was going to box. Whether it's true or not, who cares, he makes the point. And he says his opponent comes out and he's swinging his gloves and hitting his own self.

And he's reasoned, well, if he thinks that way about him, what's he going to do to me? And that's the world. The world is hitting themselves with their wars and civil wars and riots and protests. Of course, we can't expect them to love us. However, some of those in the world will love very much what we have to say, and that's how people get saved. Unfortunately, many churches and churchgoers suppose that mimicking the world is somehow helpful to the world, that churches that conform to the image of unbelievers is somehow going to attract the unbelievers.

Look, rock stars will always out-attract us. We're not after the crowds. We're after souls.

That's the work of the Holy Spirit. And setting up a bait-and-switch that turns out only to be bait is not honorable. It's not what we're supposed to do.

The Bible disagrees with that approach. We are to preach the gospel, and then we see Christ with John in prison not saying, well, you know, maybe John did it wrong. Maybe I shouldn't preach the gospel like John did. I'll give people something that makes them feel comfortable just to get them to come out to hear me. And then I'll keep giving them something comfortable so they won't continue to come out to hear me, but I won't give them the gospel. Thank you, Lord, that that is not the case, and we should not be ashamed of these things. We should be eager about them, excited, in a rush to tell the story.

The world can get more of the world from themselves. They need truth from Christians. When the church becomes like the world, we only give them a defeated Christianity, just what Satan wants. We play into their hands because Christians are ashamed to be different. We're ashamed to stand up and say, no, I don't do that.

I don't even like that, and if I do like that, I know I shouldn't like that, and I'm fighting that, and I don't appreciate you trying to get me to do that. When the Christian becomes like the world, they're no longer becoming like Christ. We're supposed to be Christlike, and that's hard enough.

That's hard enough in a sheltered environment, returning to what Jesus has delivered us from whenever we try to be like the world. When Israel adopted pagan lifestyles, the pagans that were around them, they lost. That's the Old Testament holds us up to us time and time again. Read the books of Kings and Chronicles. Read the prophets, major and minor alike. When Israel turned to idols, God stopped blessing them.

The doctrine of Balaam was to mingle in the world with those who claimed to believe in God's word, and in so doing, he corrupted individuals. And if it had not been resisted and stopped, there would be no Israel today. They would have gone the way of the Amalekites and the Philistines and the Canaanites and all the others, but Israel is still here because God's word does not return void, and she is proof of that. Israel, whether they believe or not, is not the point. The point is, God said, that nation, that people as a nation will not be removed from the earth, and if you take them out of the Promised Land, they will retain their identity as my people, and I will come back to them. And the guilty Jewish people will be treated like guilty Jewish people before the throne of God, and the righteous Jewish people will be treated like righteous Jewish people before the throne of God, and so it is with the Gentiles also. But Israel is this blinking light in the face of the planet throughout all history that God is real and there's nothing you can do about it.

You can come up with theories, you can come up with your arguments, you can write books, you can do movies, you can slaughter Christians, but the light keeps blinking. Verse 15, this is of course still speaking of Christ, Mark is, and saying, this is what the preaching involved or included, and saying the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the Gospel. The time is fulfilled.

It has arrived. It is a distinct action of God. It is a fulfillment of prophecy that makes it spiritual. It's a spiritual feature now.

It's not just a man standing up and saying, hey, I've got a good idea, I am the one, and everybody should listen to me, and if you don't listen to me, we're going to kill you. There are other religions that do that, not Christianity. Christianity has this long record, this unbroken witness of prophecy that is being fulfilled to this day. John's Gospel, chapter 1, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory as the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. O Lord, may we have grace and truth, and may we hold on to it tightly, may we treat it as though it is gold and more. A new era begins with the coming of Christ and to His preaching and God's dealing with human beings. Paul writes about it in Galatians to those churches in that region. He says, when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, the virgin birth. And Paul is saying, continues in verse 15, And the kingdom of God is at hand, Christ visible, that is, walking on the earth, the kingdom of God personified in Him. There's more to it, but we just don't ever have enough time to go in depth, in depth.

We do go in depth here routinely, but then we don't go to the next level because it really takes up a lot of time. And the surface lessons of the Scripture are powerful in themselves. He's touching lives and He's being touched. We know that because the crowds pushed and shoved and came to Him, and He touched them and they touched Him. Remember the woman in Christ said, who touched me? And Peter said, you kidding, right? You're here in a mob and you're going to ask, it's like getting on a New York City subway at rush hour and say, don't touch me, which I have seen.

And the fistfights that followed. Well, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Luke's gospel chapter 10, when he was sending out the 70, Jesus said this among other things to them. He says, say to them, the kingdom of God has come near you in Christ. Preach to them about the Messiah coming. A specific imperative, a directive to believers to this day.

Say to them, the kingdom of God is near to you. Luke 10, 9. Then he says, repent and believe in the gospel. So John is in jail, but he's still alive and Jesus continues to preach the same message as John was preaching. Rather than kind of just shoving him out of the way, okay, now it's my time.

He will not shove him out of the way. He will develop the message. But right now, while John is still on earth, Christ preaches the message of repentance. Repentance is an attitude with action. That's what repentance is.

It's not just lip service. It's not just, you know, a nod of the head. There's a determination that goes with it. To control, to fight, to stop, to slow down the progression of sin. In my own life, in my own heart, you're the salt of the earth. That's what that means. You slow it down, resist it. Don't give in.

Salt is that which not only tastes good and raises your blood pressure, but it also slows down corruption. And the Lord reinforcing John's message, saying people have to face their sin, their personal sin, that they're going to have contact with God. Nero would not, for example. Paul preached to Nero. Nero was the Caesar when Paul was arrested, and God said to Paul, you will stand before Caesar. And he did. We don't have to have it verbalized. We have that promise.

That's good enough. Nero would not repent. In fact, he got worse.

Way worse. Simon Peter, who we'll come to in a moment, he would repent. Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, he said to Jesus. And Jesus said, no, I don't depart from sinners.

I've come here to seek and to save them. Impenitent, fake believers will not repent. Plus, they will cause trouble amongst believers. They bring division with them. Paul writes to the church in Rome. He says, avoid the divisive.

They just come in an impenitent. They won't repent. They won't face their sin. And they want you to entertain their sin.

You know, put out little finger foods and little cups of this and that. And just everybody sit down and be happy in the face of sin. Peter preached at Pentecost. He said, and remember, just remember this point, Peter's preaching, because we're going to get back to that. Repent, Acts chapter 3, verse 19. Therefore, and be converted, change teams. He continues, that your sins may be blotted out.

Who wouldn't want that? So that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Mark. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there, you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of Mark, right here on Cross Reference Radio.