Jesus calls

Imagine that you're at work, doing whatever it is that you normally do, and someone comes up to you and says, 'come, follow me'. That is the way that Mark presents the calling of the first disciples (Mark 1:14-20) and the calling of Levi (Mark 2:13-17). People were already speculating as to who Jesus might be, and John the Baptist had laid the groundwork - but even so it must have taken a lot of courage to leave your livelihood (Simon and Andrew), your family and family firm (James and John) or a lucrative job (Levi) and follow a man who was calling people to repent and making claims about the kingdom of God.

But Jesus is not just good news - he is the good news. As we continue reading through Mark's account of Jesus' life this term, Mark is confident that we will come to see that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that the kingdom of God has come near - and this is the ultimate good news. In fact, it is such good news that it is worth leaving everything behind in order to respond to Jesus' invitation to follow him.

Unlike Jesus' original audience the terms 'Messiah' and 'kingdom of God' may mean nothing to us - so here are a couple of videos to help us out - both from The Bible Project.

So, what's the Messiah all about?



And what does Jesus mean when he's talking about the kingdom of God?




And like Mark says, this is good news. And so often we instinctively want to share good news. Here's the video I showed on Sunday from Igniter Media.



Why do we sometimes find it so hard to share the good news about Jesus? Here are a few reasons I mentioned on Sunday:

• We're not sure what to say - how will I answer their questions? - what gives me the right to start telling others how to live
• We don’t really believe it is good news
• We don’t want to offend people - what about those of other faiths
• We’re afraid of how they will respond to us - what will they think of us
• We compartmentalise our lives - so faith stays in the 'faith box
• We’ve tried it before and it didn’t go well
• We believe that faith is a private thing - not something we talk about
• We’ve lost sight of the consequences - we no longer believe in heaven and hell
• We no longer believe that Jesus is the only way to God
• We don’t believe we need saving - our lives really aren't that bad
• I don’t know any non-Christians
• Someone else will do it
• We deal with the symptoms but not the cause

If you want to listen to this sermon you'll find it here, or to download the home group notes and explore this theme a bit more click here.