Mark's Gospel Part 10 - Repentance is Hard

Mark's Gospel, chapter 6, verses 1 to 30.

Let's listen then to the word of God.

He, Jesus, went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him.

And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, Where did this man get these things?

What is the wisdom given to him?

How are such mighty works done by his hands?

Is not this a carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joseph's and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?

And they took offence at him.

And Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honour except in his home town, and among his relatives, and in his own households.

And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.

And he marvelled because of their unbelief.

And he went about among the villagers teaching.

And he called the twelve, and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.

He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a scarf, no bread, no bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics.

And he said to them, Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from them.

And if any place will not receive you, and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.

So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent.

And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.

King Herod heard of it, for Jesus' name had become known.

Some said John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, that's why these miraculous powers are at work in him.

But others said he is Elijah, and others said he is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.

But when Herod heard of it, he said, John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.

For it was Herod who had sent and seized John and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because he had married her.

For John had been saying to Herod, It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.

And Herodias had a grudge against him and wanted to put him to death.

But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man and he kept him safe.

When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly.

But an opportunity came when Herod, on his birthday, gave a banquet for his nobles and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee.

For when Herodias's daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests.

And the king said to the girl, Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it to you.

And he vowed to her, Whatever you ask me, I will give you up to half of my kingdom.

And she went out and said to her mother, For what should I ask?

And she said, The head of John the Baptist.

And she came in immediately with haste to the king and asked, saying, I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.

And the king was exceedingly sorry.

But because of his oaths and his guests, he did not want to break his word to her.

And immediately the king sent an executioner with orders to bring John's head.

He went and beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother.

When his disciples heard of it, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.

The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught.

Thanks be to God for his word to us today.

Why do some people refuse to follow Jesus?

Why do some people not choose to become Christians?

It might be that your heart overflows with love for Jesus.

You're like that woman we met in Mark chapter 5 last Sunday.

Mark 5 · chapter mention

Unclean, separated from God, cut off from God's people, then by the wonderful kindness of Jesus, made clean, drawn near to God, or by the powerful touch of Jesus, who loves to clean the unclean.

If that's you, by the way, he would love for you to come near to him today.

And you might think to yourself, why would anyone stay away from this Jesus?

Someone else might ask, why am I not following Jesus?

Maybe I've got unanswered questions, I've got objections.

Is it really true?

Or, yeah, I'm interested, but I just don't want to.

Or I'm going to follow Jesus, but not yet.

Now, God's word today addresses this.

And it begins by giving us a reality check.

Jesus tells us that some people will not follow him.

In the previous chapter, chapter 5, we saw Jesus at his most wonderful.

All of those things that terrify us disaster and evil and sickness and sin and death, he wields authority over them.

He controls them in ways that are wonderful and good and kind.

And then in chapter 6, he comes to his hometown, to Nazareth.

Surely he will be welcomed here.

But we read, don't we?

Verse 4.

They took offense at him.

Did you see that?

So easily we actually find Jesus offensive.

He offends us.

So those people in the Nazareth synagogue that day, they found Jesus astonishing.

They heard his teaching and they knew that there was a wisdom from God that they could not deny.

They had seen at least some of his mighty works, his miracles, and they found him offensive.

And we sensed that it was their pride that was offended.

Here is this local boy.

He is the carpenter.

Does he really have what we need?

They found him offensive, and so they brazenly rejected him.

And so Jesus rejected them.

We read, don't we?

Verse 5 He could do no mighty work there.

So few miracles.

And that's an act of judgment.

If you don't come to me with faith, I will not bless you.

And then he leaves.

He actually goes away and he teaches elsewhere.

So the goodness and the power and the presence of Jesus actually removed from them.

So when a person rejects Jesus, Jesus ultimately will remove himself from them.

And here's the thing: what Jesus experienced was not just a one-off.

What Jesus experienced, his apostles would experience too.

And that's the point of the next bit.

Jesus calls the twelve, the apostles.

And in verse 7, he sends them out on this their first mission trip.

They go out with the authority of Jesus.

They have authority over demons.

They have power to heal just like Jesus.

But just like Jesus, they went out principally as preachers, preachers of the gospel.

They bring the message of the gospel, which is in verse 12, repent.

People should repent.

That is, give up self-rule, give up self-determination.

There is a king, and that king is Jesus.

Give to him the control and the rule of your life.

That's what it means to repent.

And he prepared his apostles for the reality of rejection.

That's actually what lies behind Jesus' instructions to travel right.

It's a strange set of instructions, isn't it?

Feels a little bit like they're trying to ready themselves to travel on Ryanair and they're trying to pack as little as you possibly can.

This is not standing instructions for how the church should send out ministers and missionaries.

This is a very unique mission.

Intentionally, they would go out with no self-support and no ability to self-support.

So imagine the 12.

They come to a town, and the people there will very obviously either have to receive you and feed you and listen to you, or they will reject you.

It's a completely binary choice.

There is no possibility of the people there sitting on the fence.

And when the people reject you, Jesus says, and it's a when, just move on.

With this symbolic act of judgment, shaking the dust off your feet.

And then you go on and try and find those who will listen.

And it's a bit like the parable of the soils, isn't it?

So as we've been working through Mark's gospel these last weeks, do you remember back in chapter 4, the parable of the soils?

Different people, well, we are like soils, different types of soil.

And the seed of the word is given to different types of people, and then we see different responses to Jesus.

And that first mission of the apostles would demonstrate that whenever the word of God was sown in a particular place or house, there would be good soil, but there would also be bad soil.

It's a mixed response, and it was ever thus.

Whenever the Church of Jesus takes the word of God, mixed response.

And then at the end of our reading, down in verse 30, the disciples they come back to Jesus and they tell him all about this mission that they have been on.

But in between, we get this long kind of interruption.

It's actually a flashback.

And it's all about this man, John the Baptist.

And this is given to us to explain the reason for rejection.

People reject Jesus because they will not repent.

So, first 14, you meet this man called Herod.

Herod, King Herod.

His family is entwined with the story of opposition to Jesus.

It was his father, Herod the Great, who murdered the children in Bethlehem.

Another relative called Herod Agrippa, who was also a vile and blasphemous man.

We read about him in Acts 12, he died under the judgment of God.

And now this Herod, a local king in Judea.

And the message of the apostles is starting to spread.

And it's reached the ears of this Herod.

And who is this Jesus that people are talking about?

The cogs are turning in his mind.

Who is this Jesus?

How do you explain these miraculous signs that he was doing, that his apostles are doing?

And different people have different ideas, as they still do.

But Herod has a troubled conscience.

We can see that in verse 60.

He thinks, John the Baptist, whom I beheaded, has been raised.

And then we get told the story, the backstory of John the Baptist and Herod.

And it sort of seems a crazy story, doesn't it?

It finishes off with a Christian preacher having his head cut off.

But it is actually terrifyingly relatable.

It is one of the most relatable stories in the whole Bible.

So look at Herod.

Look at Herod with me.

This local king, he professed to be a Jew, but he was also deeply in bed with the Romans.

They were the power of the day.

He needed their permission to rule.

But he was also in bed with his brother's wife.

He had a brother called Philip, but he was another local ruler who was married to this woman, Herodias.

And as her name suggests, she was actually another family member, this incestuous dynasty.

And along came Herod, and he took her.

Somehow or other, John the Baptist found a way to preach to Herod.

He said to him, verse 18, it is not lawful.

This thing you have done, it is against the law of God.

It's adultery.

It's actually a kind of incest for you to take this woman as your wife.

So, in other words, John the Baptist said just the same thing that Jesus said, the same thing that the apostles were to say, that is, you must repent.

That is, you must turn from this.

Seek forgiveness from God.

There is always forgiveness to be had, but repentance means turning.

Turn back to the law of the Lord, live by the law of the Lord, seek to repair the damage you have done as much as possible.

Isn't it incredible how direct John was and how brave?

And when he spoke to Herod, and we don't know exactly how this would have happened, but he spoke directly to him.

Verse 18, it's not lawful for you.

It's direct, it's personal.

It is not lawful for you.

And he clearly preached against this sin.

I know my tendency, it would have been so easy to ignore this.

Skate around it, find some nice, uh gentle, smooth words instead.

The command to repent, that is a hard word.

It's a hard thing to say, challenging open sin openly.

It's actually something that Christian ministers and preachers are called to do.

And actually, even in personal evangelism, it's part of proclaiming the gospel.

I don't know how you feel about that.

You can't hold out the Saviour, Jesus, unless you talk honestly about sin.

Now, Christians, we we are repenting people.

We are daily called to be repenting people, and you can't call someone else to receive forgiveness and cleansing unless we give Jesus command to repent.

I take it that means we need to pray.

We need to pray for courage to be like John the Baptist.

And then we get told what happened next.

And it's a living example of the parable of the soils in action.

So here's Herodias.

We read about her in verse 19.

Herodias is like the path.

Do you remember the seed of the word is sown on the path, and there is instant and total rejection of the message and the messenger.

She had a grudge against this man.

She wanted to kill him.

But she can't.

She can't because of her new husband.

And it looks like Herod is on a journey towards becoming a Christian.

But then he tries to sit on the fence.

And in the end, he doesn't repent.

And all of us, do tune into this, all of us, whether we're Christian people, whether we're inquirers into the faith, we need to see this in Herod.

How hard it is to repent, how hard it is to give up the sin that we love.

So walk through Herod's story with me.

Yes, he arrests John, but Herod was not an enemy of the gospel.

He kept him safe, he protected him.

We read in verse 20 that he feared John.

Now that's actually a right response, isn't it?

He's a king.

He was known for his brute power, his brutality.

He had an army behind him.

But it was right that he should fear the preaching of the gospel because the gospel exposed him.

It troubled his conscience.

The light of God shone into the dark corners of his life.

And that's actually a necessary pain for anyone on the road to Christ.

To have the light of the gospel shine into your life.

It comes with pain, but it also comes with authority and truth.

And end of verse 20, we read that he was perplexed, yet he heard him gladly.

Perplexed, troubled conscience.

I don't know what to make of this.

But he liked to listen.

And when we share the whole gospel, including that call to repent, we should expect a reaction.

There'll be some who are like Herodias, instant hostility.

But there'll be others perplexed.

You're telling me that something is not right with me, or that God thinks something is not right with me, and that's painful.

But I'm interested.

I want to know more.

But Herod shows us that that's not enough.

Herod did not take the opportunity to repent.

He had a troubled conscience, but he did nothing.

And pretty soon any desire to repent was actually snuck down.

So what was going on inside of Herod?

We get a few clues in God's word here.

He felt some kind of conviction of sin.

Something is not right with me in the eyes of God.

He listened, but he delayed.

Maybe he thought, tomorrow's the day.

Tomorrow's the day to get right with God.

But he wasn't willing to repent because it is hard to give up the sin that we love.

And in the end, Herod goes against what he knows is true.

That's one of the really striking things about this man.

He knew that what John said was true.

He did not start off intending to kill John, but that is where he ended up because he was unwilling to repent.

It is so hard to give up the sin that we love.

And that's actually why anyone doesn't follow Jesus.

It's not for intellectual reasons, is it true?

Prove it to me.

It's moral reasons.

And we don't want to turn over our lives to the light of Jesus, and we don't want to give up the sin that we love.

Now with Herod, it started with a sinful relationship.

There was a somebody in his life who mattered more to him than Jesus.

Verse 17, Herodias.

And if you talk to any pastor, they would tell you, and I would tell you, that the one thing that most leads people to walk away from Jesus, it is a relationship.

If Herod had got off the fence, if Herod had turned to Christ, if he'd ended this unlawful relationship, then actually none of the rest of this would have happened.

I'm pretty sure he did not intend to finish where he did.

In a sense, your heart goes out to him.

He has this kind of inner conflict.

I like my new wife.

I like listening to John the Baptist.

I like my new wife.

The word of God is true.

I like my new wife.

God's word shines into me like a light.

But as time goes on, in that inner turmoil, there's only going to be one winner.

That's what gives Herodias, well, an opportunity.

That's the word in verse 21, and boy, she takes it.

So there's this great banquet.

All the big men are there.

She sends her daughter in to dance.

The historian Josephus tells us that her name was Salome.

We guess that it was not a modest bit of ballet.

It was probably something very salacious.

It's likely that the wine was flowing.

And Herod is pleased.

Rather grim, isn't it?

And then he makes this vow, this foolish vow.

Have whatever you like.

And the answer comes back, sharpish, from the girl's mother.

I want his head.

John the Baptist's head.

And verse 26, it is so sad and it's so realistic.

The king was exceedingly sorry.

I believe that.

The king was exceedingly sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests, he did not want to break his word to her.

So the cost of repentance has got higher, and he won't pay it.

It's not just a woman now who won't give up, but he won't repent of his pride.

You know, those powerful people sitting around the table with me.

What would they think if I did the right thing?

And it's actually not unusual to find folk who sit on the fence of becoming a Christian and try to stay on the fence because they fear the reaction of others.

And we see here, don't we, just how morally weak Herod is.

And he's controlled by Herodias.

She kind of runs rings around him.

He is so weak.

And he's controlled by his lusts and by his pride.

And therefore, John the Baptist's fate is sealed.

And what happens to John, John's story, is actually just like Jesus' story.

Herodias, we're told, waits for the right opportunity, just like the chief priests waited for the opportune moment with Jesus.

There's this weakness and these peer pressure, just like with Pontius Pilate giving in to the voice of the mob.

The disciples come and lay a body in a tomb, just like Joseph of Arimathea came and laid Christ's body in a tomb.

There's a connection, isn't there?

John the Baptist says to us, if you speak Jesus' message, you will share in Jesus' fate.

So when there is gospel truth faithfully shared, there is a shadow of a cross.

And the twelve needed to know that.

Do you remember they were they were being sent out on their first gospel mission?

And then they come back to Jesus and in the middle, learn from John the Baptist, learn from what happened to him.

When you experience rejection, it's it's the same.

Same with Jesus, same with John.

Because it is so hard to repent.

Luke's Gospel, chapter 23, tells us where Herod ended up.

He actually got to meet Jesus.

He hoped to see a miracle.

And Jesus stood before him in total silence.

He would not open his mouth and say a word.

No miracle, no nothing.

There does come a point when God has no more to say.

And Herod, who started off listening gladly, we're told that he finished by mocking and ridiculing Jesus.

So where does this word about repentance cut home with us?

Without repentance, we cannot have Jesus.

You and I, without repentance, we cannot have forgiveness.

But to repent is very hard.

Because what we love determines what we believe.

What we love determines what we believe.

Will I repent from sin to Jesus or will I not repent from sin to Jesus?

Is Jesus really worth repenting for?

How I answer that, how you answer that, well, we're driven by what we want to do with our eyes and our bodies and our hearts.

Unrepentance is driven by what we love.

And sometimes, yes, the call to repent does involve giving up an illicit relationship.

And that's a very hard thing to hear.

This thing that you love, God says it's wrong.

But actually, all of us, wherever we're at, we know it is so easy to make small compromises all over the place.

It's really easy to become like a potential Herod.

Every single day of the Christian life is meant to be about repenting and believing, turning and trusting.

And the challenge here is to listen repentantly.

It's not enough just to listen, is it?

Herod listened.

We don't want to be like him.

He enjoyed listening, but as he listened, he knew there were loves in his heart that he would not put to death.

So can I encourage you?

If you're listening to God and he is convicting you of something, if you're realizing there is something that you love and that you thought was good, you thought it was your right, and you're learning that God says it is not your right, it is not right, then don't delay.

Don't do nothing.

Your unrepentance, it can turn you into herald.

There will be ways that you'll need to repent, maybe help you need to seek in repenting.

And it is hard to repent, it feels hard, and sometimes it really is hard to give up things, to give up people comes at a cost.

How can we bear that cost?

Well, remember this.

Repentance is a gospel grace.

Repentance is a gospel grace.

Now, Christian people, do you ever think that repentance is a negative thing?

That's what Satan wants us to think, by the way.

He wants us to think that there are good things over here and that repentance is something else over here, only and entirely negative.

That's a satanic lie.

Because giving up sin and turning to Jesus, it is always a blessing.

Giving up sin, even giving up a sinful relationship, it's not a deprivation, because sin is never good for us.

Something else that Satan would love us to think.

He would love us to think that repentance is impossible.

But actually, repentance is a blessing given by God in the gospel.

Okay, repentance is a gift of God, it goes hand in hand with Jesus and with faith in him.

And so we pray.

Lord, give me the gift of repentance.

Help me to hate my sin.

Help me to love Jesus and holiness and walk in his ways.

And it's a gift that Jesus loves to give.

Now, the way that the Spirit gives repentance, it is chiefly through the Word of God, through the Bible.

That's his chief tool to grant both repentance and saving faith.

And here's how it works.

As we read and receive the word, so as the seed is sown, the word of God exposes us.

And as we listen repentantly, the word of God becomes bigger in us, even in our lust and our sins.

It becomes bigger, it becomes better.

We see that Jesus and his way.

Are actually more lovely than the things that we are leaving behind.

That is the gift of God for that we pray.

But today the Lord says to us all for the first time or the umpteenth time, repent unto Jesus, come to Him.

There's no special thing, by the way, where the person needs to do to get themselves ready to come to Jesus.

You come as you are.

Certainly won't leave you as you are when you come to Him.

We come as we are.

There is no reason for anyone to delay.

You don't need to be good or better to come to Him.

You come as you are.

A Christian is simply someone who knows their sin and have come with their sin to Jesus, purposing in Him to turn from it and to receive grace and cleansing and forgiveness.

Every day that's the gospel invitation, and that is Jesus' word to us all today.

Let's pause.

We're going to take a moment now for silent prayer.

Let's bow our heads.

Jesus said, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and believe in the gospel.

So, Lord Jesus Christ, we bow before you as the one to whom all authority in heaven and on earth belongs.

We thank you that you are a king not only of power but also of goodness and grace.

And we pray for ourselves this morning that your Holy Spirit would move us for the first or the umpteenth time to turn from our sins and receive the blessings of your gospel.

And we pray for your name's sake.

Amen.