The Good News of the Kingdom

Passage: Mark 1:14-15

The Big Idea

Jesus is like a contractor God hired to renovate a broken world, and unlike human contractors, He never fails. Isaiah 61 is the job description: good news to the poor, healing for the brokenhearted, freedom for captives, beauty for ashes. Jesus announced that the time had come and the kingdom was at hand. Our part isn’t to do the work; it’s to repent, giving up on our own way, and believe, placing all our trust in His.

The Perfect Contractor

We’ve all heard news stories of a big construction project gone wrong: a contractor fired for blowing the budget, missing deadlines and not doing the job right.

Mark presents Jesus as the perfect Servant of God and man. Think of Him as God’s contractor, hired to renovate the earth: fixing everything wrong with this world and delivering people from all the pain, sorrow and death sin has caused.

And Jesus doesn’t fail. He’s perfectly qualified. He finishes what He starts. He meets the deadline. He’s reliable and dependable, and His work is top-notch.

The Bible’s word for “hired” is anointed. And about seven hundred years before Jesus came, Isaiah posted the job description for Messiah, the King of the Jews. (Remember, a king isn’t a privileged position; it’s a job. A king is meant to lead and serve his people.)

Isaiah wrote that the Spirit of the Lord GOD would be on Him, because the LORD had anointed Him to bring good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of God’s vengeance, to comfort all who mourn, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness, so they would be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, for His glory (Isaiah 61:1-3).

We saw last time that the power Jesus was filled with for this job was the Holy Spirit. That was the fuel in His engine. “The Spirit has empowered Me for the job I need to do”:

  • Preach good news, the gospel!
  • To the poor: the objects of His love are those who can’t save themselves.
  • Heal the brokenhearted.
  • Free the slaves.
  • Open the prisons.
  • Announce the right time, the moment in history.
  • Bring God’s vengeance on sin.
  • Comfort those who mourn.
  • Give beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, praise for heaviness.
  • Grow fruitful trees of righteousness.
  • All for God’s glory.

What a job! The toughest job in history: Messiah.

The Kingdom Is at Hand (Mark 1:14-15)

After John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

“After John was put in prison.” John’s mission was to announce that God had arrived to save people by the power of the Holy Spirit. Now he’s in prison; his part is done for the moment. Mark wants our attention to shift to Jesus.

“Jesus came to Galilee.” Galilee was a busy, populous region of Jews and Gentiles. The historian Josephus wrote that it had over two hundred towns and villages. Jesus spent most of His ministry there. The first half of Mark (roughly chapters 1-8) tells what Jesus did in Galilee and how people responded; the second half follows Him to Jerusalem.

“Preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.” This is the summary of Jesus’ message:

  • “I’ve brought the good news you’ve been hoping for!”
  • “I’m here to be your King, to set you free from slavery, bondage and sorrow!”
  • “I’m here to establish God’s perfect kingdom. That’s My job.”
  • “No more poverty. No more broken hearts. No more sorrow. No more slavery. No more ashes. I’m here to fix it all!”

Sounds like great news! That’s why it’s called the gospel. But how will people respond? That’s what the first half of Mark is about. Fascinating!

“The time is fulfilled”

The specific moment in history had come. Jesus couldn’t have come earlier or later. Paul says that when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son (Galatians 4:4).

  • The time of shadows was over. The time of sacrifices needed to end. The time of separation was done.
  • Now was the time for the real thing! The hopes of all people are answered in Jesus alone. He is the completion of all the planning and prophecy, the point of the whole Old Testament.

“The kingdom of God is at hand”

At hand means as close as the hand in front of your face. You can touch it!

  • Jesus would bring everything God promised the kingdom would be, and make it real.
  • Not just a promise for a future fix, or a hope for a different life someday. He was doing it now.

Paul pleads with us not to receive God’s grace in vain, quoting Isaiah: “In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you.” Then he says, “Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:1-2).

  • All the benefits of God’s kingdom offered to us are called salvation.
  • To be saved means, “I’ve received everything Jesus came to give me.” (Look back at Isaiah 61’s list!)
  • This tells us where to find the kingdom if we’re looking: in the person and life of Jesus!

“So how do I get in on this kingdom? How do I receive its benefits? What am I supposed to do, Jesus?”

“Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

Repent

Repent means to turn from the way you’ve been doing things.

  • Jesus was saying the way they’d been living would never work. They needed to change direction, turn around, and agree with God instead of themselves.
  • Jesus is going to do His job of fixing everything.
  • My job is very simple. It isn’t to do any of the work or figure out any solutions. It’s to agree with God: that my way of living can never lead to life. My efforts can’t save. My desires can’t transform me. My self-sourced life can’t earn me any real life at all.
  • Repent: give up on your way, and turn to His.

David Guzik makes a helpful point: repentance isn’t something we must do before we come to God; it describes what coming to God is. If you’re in New York and I invite you to Los Angeles, I don’t need to say, “Leave New York and come to Los Angeles.” To come to Los Angeles is to leave New York. We can’t come to God’s kingdom without leaving our sin and our self-life behind.

How hard is it to give up on our way? To admit we can’t do it, that we’re beyond human ability to save ourselves? It’s like dying, dying to self and to self-sufficiency.

Can you remember when you realized you were wrong, guilty, in need of help, in need of salvation? Admitting that is the first step into the salvation Jesus offers. But it isn’t the only step.

And Believe

Repentance is great, but without faith it’s still worthless. We can’t just turn away from our ways without turning to Jesus.

The Greek word for believe, pisteuō, means much more than agreeing with facts. It means placing all your confidence and hope in something: a relationship of trust and dependence.

Does your heart find its peace and rest in the gospel?

There’s a well-known story about a college student who gave a speech-class demonstration on “the law of the pendulum”: a pendulum can never swing back higher than the point from which it was released. He tied a small weight to a string, let it swing, and marked each shorter arc on the board until it came to rest. Then he asked the class who believed the law of the pendulum. Everyone raised their hands, including the professor.

But then he revealed a huge, heavy pendulum he’d rigged from the ceiling, and asked the professor to sit in a chair against the wall. He pulled the massive weight right up to the professor’s nose and let it go. As it swung away and then came rushing back toward his face, the professor leaped out of the chair. He said he believed the law. He didn’t trust it with his face.

Do we really trust Jesus that way? Jesus will be faithful to do His job: Messiah, Savior, Healer, Provider, Husband, King. He does it all perfectly. But how will we respond to His finished work?

I love seeing the great things people have built: tall buildings, great sculptures. But the kingdom of God is the only thing ever built that will last forever.

So do you actually believe the gospel of the kingdom? Do you really put all your hope and trust in what Jesus accomplished? Has your direction changed, from trusting yourself to trusting Jesus in every area of your life?

Do we have saving faith, a faith that actually works?

Lewis Sperry Chafer described saving faith as a willing turn away from every hope based on our own merit, toward an attitude of expectancy, trusting God to do a perfect saving work based only on the merit of Christ.

Contrast that with the story of George Whitefield preaching to coal miners in England. He asked one man, “What do you believe?” “The same as the church.” “And what does the church believe?” “The same as me.” “And what is it that you both believe?” “Well, I suppose the same thing!”

Spurgeon remarked that nearly everyone he met, even prisoners in England’s jails, said they believed the Bible was true. But most had never made a personal, life-changing commitment to Jesus Christ. For them, “believe” wasn’t an active verb.

Do we have a faith that has moved from trusting self to trusting Jesus?

A life marked by faith in self is full of:

  • Worry and stress.
  • Anger and bitterness.
  • Disappointment and despair.
  • Weariness and staleness.
  • Doubt.
  • Impatience and oversensitivity.
  • Lovelessness.

These thrive in a life that trusts itself.

I invite you today to put your trust in Jesus:

  • His power and control.
  • His love.
  • His sacrifice.
  • His life and Spirit given to you.

He is all we need.

Grace Takeaway

Jesus is the contractor who never fails, and Isaiah 61 is the work He came to do: freedom, healing, comfort and beauty for ashes. The kingdom is as close as your hand. You don’t build it; you receive it. Repent, giving up on your own way, and believe, trusting your whole weight to Jesus. Now is the day of salvation.

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