Day 5: Repent & Believe The Gospel

**Recommended Use**: Listen to the short sermon clip. Read through the provided passages and summaries. Think and talk through the provided questions. Ideally, do all that before, during, or after you meet up to with one or more followers of Jesus.

DISCUSS YOUR READING FROM DAY 4:

Q: What have you thought most about? What questions do you have?

READING:

Mark 11-13

KEY VERSES: 

Mark 11:10, 17, 22; 12:6-9; 

13:30-33; 1:14-15; 2:17

BIBLE THEME TO CONSIDER:

Repent & Believe the Gospel: God is reconciling back to Himself a beloved people born of His Spirit who repent from sin and lovingly follow the Lord Jesus by faith at the hearing of this good news and for all eternity in the new creation to the glory of God.

BIBLE THEME AS SEEN IN MARK:

Mark’s Gospel shows us what it means to either obey or disobey Jesus’s command to repent and believe the Gospel. To obey it by faith is forgiveness and life with God. To disobey it and remain in sin is death and condemnation. Notice the various responses to Jesus, from the woman who worships Him to the disciples who forsake Him to Judas who betrays Him to the women disciples who are amazed at the announcement of His resurrection. Then especially reflect on the Roman centurion's response, declaring Jesus as "truly the Son of God."

EXPLANATION OF TERMS:

To "repent" is to turn from and forsake your sin. It is a miraculous change of heart produced by God through the Gospel message. God creates His people by His Word. When you truly repent, you no longer want to be the king of your life. You want Jesus to be your King. You begin to release your grip on your life and lusts. 

To "believe" is to turn to Jesus as your new love and to surrender all control to Him. It is to trust that Jesus died and rose again for your sins. It is to follow Jesus as your Good Shepherd. It is to know that you will never be ashamed of following the crucified and risen King among His people.

"Conversion" to Christ is a one-time, lasting work of God in which God gives you His Spirit, justifies and forgives you through the substitutionary death of Christ, brings you into the new people of God, and makes you an eternal citizen in the Kingdom of God with the sure hope of the resurrection and new creation. Repentance from sin and faith in Christ are ongoing evidences that you have been converted by God into being a follower of Christ.

QUESTIONS TO ASK AS YOU READ MARK 11-13 BETWEEN MEETUPS:

Q: In Mark 11:1-26, how does Jesus present Himself when He enters the temple? (Hint: Psalm 118) What does Jesus declare about the temple? What does this have to do with His disciples needing to pray and forgive?

Q: In Mark 11:27-12:12, what warning prophesy in the form of a parable does Jesus tell the leaders of the temple? What does this have to do with Jesus’s mission and call to disciples?

Q: In Mark 12:13-17, what does Jesus say God owns by pointing to the image on Caesar’s coin? (Hint: Genesis 1:26-27) 

Q: In Mark 12:18-27, what does Jesus teach is true of God and His people? What authority does Jesus say reveals this truth—if rightly interpreted and believed?

Q: In Mark 12:28-44, what does Jesus say are the greatest commandments in Scripture? What does loving the Lord have to do with Jesus, according to His question from Psalm 110? What does the second commandment have to do with how the temple rulers treated the poor widow?

Q: In Mark 13:1-30, what does Jesus prophesy will happen within the generation of the disciples? What does this have to do with what Jesus has previously said about both the temple and Himself? What did Jesus instruct His disciples to do when this all happens? How does this relate to history later in the first century?

Q: In Mark 13:31-37, what “day” does Jesus say no man can predict—in contrast to the prediction of the previous verses? What does this have to do with Jesus’s mission and the calling of His disciples? (Hint: v34) What does Jesus command “all” His disciples to do until “that day”? What would it look like for you to obey Jesus's instruction? Will you?

Q: How are you responding to Jesus's warnings and teachings? Do you believe Him? Do you believe He will return and that we will all give account to Him?

Q: What do you need to repent from? Will you? Will you try to rule your life as though you are the owner, like those in the parable of Mark 12? Or, will you submit to God as our good Ruler?

Q: Will you entrust all your life to God who came in Christ? Remember how blind Bartimaeus cried out for mercy in Mark 10? Will you? Do you trust that God truly does save from sin and death through the crucified and risen Jesus?

Q: Do you believe Jesus's words in Mark 10:15 that to enter the kingdom of God you must come as a child with nothing to offer and everything to receive? Do you believe God saves unworthy sinners by His grace?

Q: Do you trust that God's grace not only saves from sin and death but also that it transforms sinners into faithful followers of Jesus who "watch and pray" until He comes again?