When Jesus Calls: Discovering Your True Identity in the Kingdom of God

There's something profoundly disorienting about being in danger and not realizing it. Imagine thrashing in rushing water, convinced you're about to drown, only to hear someone shouting from the bank: "Just stand up and walk out." The water is only knee-deep. The terror was real, but the solution was simpler than you could have imagined.

This captures something essential about the human condition and the message Jesus proclaimed when He began His public ministry. We're often in less danger than we think, or more danger than we realize, and what we need most is someone to tell us the truth and show us the way out.

The Dawn After a Long Night
Mark's Gospel gives us Jesus's first sermon in a single, powerful sentence: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel" (Mark 1:15).

Think of standing in the woods on a moonless winter morning, so dark you can barely see your hand in front of your face. You're frozen, uncertain where to step, waiting. Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, the sky begins to lighten. The sun hasn't risen yet, but you can tell it's close. With every passing minute, the details around you become clearer—the trees, the path, the landscape you couldn't see before.

This is what Jesus announces. From the fall of Adam through all the Old Testament, God's people had been walking through a kind of night. They had glimpses of salvation—sacrifices, stories, leaders like Moses and David—but these were like flashlights in the darkness. Helpful, but not the full light.

When Jesus emerged from the waters of baptism and began to preach, it was like the breaking of dawn after a long night. The kingdom of God—the realm where the King reigns, where His power and authority hold sway—had come near in the person of Jesus Himself.

Where Nobody Expected
Remarkably, Jesus didn't start His ministry in Jerusalem, the religious and cultural center of Israel. Instead, He walked seventy or eighty miles north to Galilee—a region considered backwater, culturally confused, populated by the poor and uneducated.

If Jesus had announced His plans, the response would have been predictable: "Those people will never listen. They're too different, too far gone. If you want to make an impact, go to Jerusalem where the influential people are."

But Jesus rejected this thinking entirely. His choice of Galilee demolishes our pride about what we think His church should look like and who can be reached with the gospel. No place is too remote. No person is too far gone. No demographic is unreachable. And the method hasn't changed—proclaiming the word of God is still sufficient to bring people to salvation.

The Only Response That Matters
Jesus's message contains both facts and a call to respond. The facts: the time is fulfilled, the kingdom has come near. The call: repent and believe the gospel.

These aren't complicated theological concepts requiring years of study to understand. Repent means turn away from your sin. Believe means trust God to save you. That's it. There's nothing you can do to earn entry into the kingdom, and there's nothing you've done that can keep you out if you trust Jesus.

Three questions capture this call:

1. Do you acknowledge yourself to be a sinner, deserving God's displeasure and without hope except in His mercy?
2. Do you believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and Savior of sinners, and do you rest on Him alone for salvation?
3. Do you resolve to live as a follower of Christ, relying on the Holy Spirit?

These aren't one-time questions for a membership ceremony. They're questions worth asking ourselves regularly, especially when we come to the Lord's Table.

A New Identity
The story of Jesus calling His first disciples illustrates what happens when someone truly responds to His message. Walking by the Sea of Galilee, Jesus saw Simon and Andrew casting their nets. Mark explicitly tells us: "they were fishermen." This wasn't just their job—it was their identity, how they understood themselves.

Then Jesus speaks: "Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men."

Notice the clunky phrasing. Jesus doesn't say, "Follow me and do something different." He says, "Follow me and I will make you become something different." This is a call to transformation, not just a career change.

The sea in biblical imagery often represents chaos and judgment—not a safe place. Jesus was essentially saying, "I'll use you to pull people out of chaos." But the center of the story isn't the clever wordplay about fishing. It's the command to follow and the promise that following Jesus changes who you are.

This is what repenting and believing looks like in real life. Your defining identity shifts. You were a businessperson, a parent, a student, defined by your work or role. Now you follow Jesus. You've repented, believed the gospel, and He has transformed how you think of yourself. You are, first and foremost, a Christian.

This new identity works itself out in practical ways unique to your life. For some, it means dropping everything and switching directions entirely. For others, it means continuing in the same work but with new purpose, renewed energy, a transformed perspective—now working for the Lord.

But make no mistake: it will change your life somehow.

Following Jesus doesn't guarantee ease, comfort, or earthly success. The kingdom of God has come near in Jesus, but it hasn't come fully yet. His first coming started it, like the first light of dawn. His second coming will complete it, like the noonday sun.

We live between these two moments. Sometimes we experience the goodness of the kingdom breaking into our lives—healing, restoration, answered prayer. Other times we're painfully reminded that we still wait for its fullness—suffering, loss, injustice.

John the Baptist provides a sobering reminder. All of Jesus's early ministry happened "after John was arrested." Jesus didn't rescue John from prison. John died there at the hands of a wicked king. Even the forerunner of the Messiah reminds us that our ultimate hope lies not in this present age but in the kingdom yet to come in its fullness.

The gospel Jesus proclaimed was ultimately about His own death and resurrection—His righteousness given freely to us, His death on our behalf for the punishment we deserve. The cost of entry into the kingdom was enormous, but Jesus paid it.

The invitation remains: The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe. Come and follow. Let Jesus transform your identity.

The dawn has broken. Can you see the light?