Regret Or Repentance

Regret or Repentance?

Mark 6:14-29

Good morning.

Many people, including Christians, struggle with the idea that a Loving God allows pain and heartache to exist within our lives.

The truth is that every human alive, lives in a broken world until Jesus comes back for us.

Pain, heartache, and trials are universal; to believers and unbelievers alike.

There is no magic formula to escape the pains of this life.

During the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said in…

Matthew 5:45 He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. NKJV

But even though pain, heartache, and trials happen all the time; there are different reasons why they happen in our lives.

Today, I want to explore one of the reasons God allows pain in our lives, as we talk about regret and repentance.

Regret and repentance are often times miss indentified, because they often begin the same way in life; through pain.

Regret can easily masquerade as repentance, because they both have similar characteristics; but, how a Christian deals with them, is completely opposite from one another.

Please open your Bibles to Mark 6 as we continue that study

Last week, Jesus headed towards His home town and began to preach in the synagogue at Nazareth.

According to Luke 4, a year earlier, Jesus was rejected by these same people and they removed Him from this same synagogue.

But on this occasion, instead of kicking Him out of the synagogue, these home town people choose to ridicule the Lord.

Jesus was amazing them by His teaching and His miraculous power; but, they would not buy into the fact that this blue collar worker from their own town is the Messiah and God in the flesh.

The end of vs. 3 says, “So they were offended at Him”

Jesus’ heart was broken by their unbelief; so, He decided to send out His disciples with His authority and power to other places.

These Disciples were given special power over unclean spirits.

The Lord is working all around us, all the time; but, there are those who do not have eyes to see His miracles because of their unbelief, so they fail to recognize all He does.

Immediately after Jesus sent out the Twelve Disciples with special power for ministry, Herod Antipas hears of Jesus’ fame.

I. The confused king.

Read Mark 6:14-15

Herod had murdered John some time before this; so here, Mark was filling in some of the details of what had happened before, this for the sake of those who didn’t know these facts.

Mark emphasizes Herod’s paranoia and the growing threat on the life of Jesus.

Remember, as we learned before, the Pharisees and the Herodians were already plotting to kill Jesus; and now, Jesus was catching the attention of a powerful, paranoid, man.

Notice, Mark calls Herod Antipas a king, because Herod liked to call himself king; however, Herod was not really a king.

When Herod the Great died, the Romans divided his territory among his three sons; so Herod Antipas was appointed ruler over Galilee, which was a client state of the Roman Empire.

Herod heard of Jesus because His Great name, His teaching, and His miracles which had become well known; even making their way into the Herod’s palace.

Psalm 135:13 Your name, O LORD, endures forever, Your fame, O LORD, throughout all generations. NKJV

As Herod hears of all the miracles of Jesus, he begins to reason who this miracle worker was. Herod’s choices for who Jesus is

1. Herod believes John the Baptist is risen from the dead.

Herod had a very colorful background, with many superstitions; as he believed Jesus was a reincarnated John the Baptist.

We already know, John the Baptist is not John the Apostle.

The call for John the Baptist was predicted by the prophet Isaiah as a herald (a person who brings important news); to cry out to the people that Jesus the Messiah was coming soon.

John’s message was for the people of Israel to repent and prepare the way of their hearts for the LORD’s arrival; he used baptism as a means for the Jews to show true repentance.

Repentance boils down to one thing; a u-turn. We agree with the Lord about our sinful behavior; we turn from our sin and turn to the Lord instead.

Repentance is a 180 degree turn from sin and head toward God.

2. Some people said Jesus could be Elijah.

Why would people think Jesus could be Elijah?

Some folks misinterpreted an OT prophecy Elijah would appear before the Great Tribulation; since Jesus was doing such great signs and wonders, they believed He could be Elijah.

Malachi 4:5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. NKJV