Mark 1:1-11 - The Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God

Hello, and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. We are beginning a great new study that I am super excited about in the Book of Mark. And Mark is one of the four gospels.

It's one of the four accounts that we have from these original witnesses, those that saw who Jesus was, what he did, the miracles that he had take place, the stories that he gave, the proclamation of the gospel.

And Mark's an interesting book because it is the shortest of the four gospels. These four accounts are not four contradictory stories. They are all complementary.

And each of the writers gives us a different angle on the story of Jesus. So the Gospel of Matthew is written to persuade the Jewish people that this was your promised Messiah from the scriptures.

The Gospel of Mark appears to be written to the Romans concerned with taking action. And Jesus takes his big actions over and over and over again in the Gospel of Mark.

You have the Gospel of Luke, which was written by a physician and goes into detail about how Jesus was truly man and truly God, about his care that he had for even the lowliest.

And then you have the Gospel of John, in which not as many miracles are written down in that Gospel. But there's a lot of the teaching, the stories of Jesus, his interactions and conversations with people and proving that Jesus is the Son of God.

So in each of these Gospels, Matthew and John were there firsthand as disciples.

The Gospel of Mark from some of the earliest times of the Church, even as soon as 8130, we have extant manuscripts that talk about Mark as being a compatriot of Peter and that Mark had gotten many of these particular stories and accounts through the

Apostle Peter. Mark was also one that was a relative. We actually interacted with him. John Mark is his full name.

We interacted with him in the Book of Acts several times, that he was a relative of Barnabas. He had gone with Paul and Barnabas on their initial missionary journey and then had backed out.

And then later on, Barnabas and him, they went and they spread the Gospel. Then he comes up one or two other times in the writings of Paul and then in the Book of 1 Peter. And all through this book, you can see Jesus being hard at work.

There's only kind of one spot where Mark tells you what he thinks about Jesus. And it's kind of right there at the beginning. And we'll read over it today.

But what's so interesting about the book is Mark wants to convince you through the words and actions of Jesus that he is who he said he was. It was something that the people of Israel as a whole didn't adopt.

It wasn't even something that the disciples realized and took for their own until much, much later in the story. And so we'll see many of those things.

Mark is also one that is very connected with the stories and the thoughts and the plot lines of the Old Testament. And he does a lot to connect the pieces between the Old Testament and the New.

So Matthew, a lot of times, will say something direct like, hey, this was done so that it would be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet, you know, Isaiah, who said and then gives the prophecy.

Mark ties in the words with the, a lot of times, the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, and he'll borrow phrases from that to say, hey, here's this story about Jesus and how he, like, conquered, if you will, the sea. He conquered the storm.

And this is just like when God conquered the Red Sea. This is just like in the Book of Psalms where God defeats the waters. And so Mark's very tied into a lot of those things and he's very connected with the Old Testament.

The gospels are one of those big things that remind us we need the Old Testament if we want to understand what God is doing in the New Testament.

The Old Testament gives us the vocabulary, the world view that then we can understand the New Testament rightly in. So the Book of Mark is not going to be one of the books that we get through in four or five episodes.

But I'm really, really excited to dive into this gospel with you. And I'm going to be going through The Gospel of John. We're doing chapters one through four in a few months here at Tabernacle.

And then taken from, I think it's chapters five through ten, comes up at the beginning of next year, right around or right after Easter. So as we go through, as always, if you have any questions, please comment, DM, call, text, whatever.

I would love to talk about Jesus and God's Word with you. I'm also going to link in the show notes, the Gospel Project video for the Gospel of Mark. Super helpful.

I got to get in some good reading today on how all of Mark fits together. And it's kind of done in three acts. Act number one is people kind of going, man, who is this Jesus?

Then act two is the disciples going, okay, well, we think Jesus is the Messiah. What does it mean for Jesus to be the Messiah? What's the implication of that?

What will that result in in our world or in our lives personally?

And then you have the last portion of the book, which is Jesus' last week on earth and the Passover, the crucifixion, the resurrection, all of that's included in that last section of Jesus shows himself to be king, shows himself to be the Messiah

through his death on the cross. And it was the way in which, if you will, he presented himself as the Messiah in the truest sense of the one that reconciled us to God. He did that through the way that no one expected. So who is Jesus?

What does it mean for Jesus to be the Messiah? And then how Jesus showed himself to be the Messiah. That's kind of the three parts of the book.

So we're going to start in part one today. As I mentioned, it starts off with kind of the only little addition by Mark where Mark tells you exactly what he thinks about the topic. It says this in Mark 1 verse 1.

The beginning of the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. So Christ there is Messiah.

He says Jesus is the promised Messiah, the one from Genesis 3.15, the heir of David, the suffering servant from Isaiah 53, the one that would save his people, the one that would reign over the House of Israel forever. He says he's the Messiah.

So the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And remember that phrase, Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. And you're going to see those themes come up consistently throughout the Book of Mark, especially there at the end.

And we'll get to that in many episodes. But he says the Son of God. He says, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, see, I am sending my messenger ahead of you.

He will prepare your way. A voice of one crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord. Make his paths straight.

So here he quotes both from Isaiah and from Malachi. It was a common practice, especially during this time period.

If you're quoting multiple people, you would just attribute the quote to whichever person was kind of esteemed the most or was like the most important or had the most notable works. So here, though, he's quoting both Isaiah and Malachi.

The practice was just name the person that if you, again, audio people, you can't see it, but I'm putting air quotes. The more important person Isaiah is a much, much longer, much bigger book than the Book of Malachi.

So he says, I'm sending my messenger. He'll prepare your way. A voice of one crying out in the wilderness.

Prepare the way for the Lord. Make his paths straight. He says, John came baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Okay, want to stop here? Here we have John. So Mark, he's always going to get like right into the action.

Some of the other writers, Luke especially, will give a lot of detail. Mark's not about that. Mark wants to get right into the action.

So here, John, this would be John the baptizer, John the Baptist. This would be Jesus' cousin or second cousin that we can read about in Matthew chapter three and in Luke chapter one. And here it says he came baptizing.

This was something that wasn't, it didn't start with Christianity. It was something beforehand too. It was, hey, especially baptism during this time, it's hey, I'm turning over a new leaf.

I am now like publicly expressing the old me is gone. Like it's washed away and now I'm going to be walking in this new way with God. So that kind of baptism, that ritual cleansing was not original to Christianity and it existed beforehand.

So John comes, he's baptizing in the wilderness. So that's a bit of an oddity. A lot of times if you had like a cleansing thing, it might happen in the temple.

Like we read about some times in the Book of Leviticus that the priests go in, they wash their hands. When they're first ordained, they get sprinkled with blood and hyssop that says, hey, they're set apart for this purpose.

Here, he's doing it out in the wilderness. So that lets us know, okay, something interesting is happening here. He's going where people aren't.

Like he's not going and trying to draw a big crowd in a city. Like he's way out there. And he is doing this.

He says he's proclaiming a baptism of repentance, of turning from going one direction to going a different direction. And the Book of Luke illustrates what that kind of thing was.

I'm actually going to turn over there just because I find this to be a very important thing for us to look at. I'm going to quote here from verse 7 in Luke chapter 3. So this is John the Baptizer.

He then said to the crowds who came out to be baptized by him, brood of vipers, you sons of snakes. He says, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Therefore, produce fruit consistent with repentance.

And don't start saying to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. For I tell you that God is able to raise up children of Abraham from these stones. The axe is already at the root of the trees.

Therefore, every tree that doesn't produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. What then should we do? The crowds were asking him.

He replied to them, the one who has two shirts must share with someone who has none. And the one who has food must do the same. He says, let generosity instead of greed exemplify your life.

They say tax collectors also came to be baptized. And they asked him, teacher, what should we do? He told them, don't collect any more than what you have been authorized.

He says, have honest business dealings. Some soldiers also questioned him, what should we do? He said to them, don't take money from anyone by force or false accusation and be satisfied with your wages.

He says, treat people kindly, do good to them, and do not be covetous, don't be greedy. So here, this is that kind of repentance that John is talking about. He says, live your life in the way that God intended.

What God has given you is enough, and in fact, God has given you more than you truly need for your life. And so you have a call on you to treat others well because God has blessed you so much so that you may bless others.

So here he has this baptism of repentance. It says, for the forgiveness of sins. Now, I want to be very clear on what this means and what it doesn't mean.

What it does not mean is you get baptized and your sins are forgiven.

As we'll see throughout the Gospel of Mark, that was something that was deeply blasphemous to Israel at this time, because obviously when Jesus comes onto the scene, he's authorized to forgive sins. But no person could forgive sins.

We just went through the Book of Leviticus in which God outlines, hey, here is how atonement is made. Here is how forgiveness is achieved for the people of God, that I have made a way.

And so John the Baptizer did not come in and say, hey, I can give you forgiveness of sins through this baptism that you can't get through the way that God had set up.

What he does say is, because your sins have been forgiven as a result of God having forgiven you, you need to act like you are God's people. That's the baptism there for the forgiveness of sins.

I think I might have mentioned that all the way back in Acts 2 when Peter says something along the same lines where he says, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

That as a result of your state before God, realizing that God has loved you, He's forgiven you, you ought to act in such a way that shows that you have been forgiven.

Verse 5, The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him and they were baptized by him in the Jordan River confessing their sins.

They're all going out to this wilderness spot and it is a muddy, dirty, not very nice river as you can read about even in the Old Testament times and they're going out there and they're confessing their sins. There is a revival that is taking place.

Verse 6, John wore a camel hair garment with a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey.

Here he's got a similar diet, similar clothing to Elijah, the prophet from the Old Testament that gave a very clear message of preaching to the children of Israel that had gone far away from God at that point.

And he says, you need to repent and turn to God. And here it's like a new Elijah has come on the scene, which Jesus will often reference when people ask him, hey, who is John the Baptizer? And he says, this is who it is.

Verse number 7, John proclaimed, one who is more powerful than I am is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the straps of his sandals. He says, someone's coming.

And as we remember from the very first part of the chapter, it said, God said through Isaiah and then Malachi, I am sending my messenger ahead of you. He will prepare your way.

Voice of one crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord, make his path straight. So John is that messenger proclaiming this message, prepare the way for the Lord. He's coming.

And John says, I'm not even worthy to untie sandals. Like I am lower than the lowest slave in comparison to this Lord who is coming. Verse 8, I baptize you with water.

He says, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. He says, when the Lord comes, he's going to give you his own presence with you. This is just water.

This is just H2O. This does no permanent beneficial thing for you. He says, but when God comes, his presence is going to be with you.

Okay, so the Lord is coming. You know, this was prophesied. Here the messenger that was prophesied is here.

He's saying the Lord is coming. His presence is going to be with you. Verse 9, it's got to be the Lord, right?

In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought the Lord was going to come.

Now it's just a person from kind of a Hick town in Galilee, like a little, a little Roman colony city. That doesn't really seem like the Lord. And here he's baptized in the Jordan by John.

Verse 10. As soon as he came up out of the water, he saw the heavens, the skies being torn open and the spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven.

You are my beloved son. With you, I am well pleased. Oh, man.

So right here at the very beginning. So Mark had already told us at the beginning. Hey, Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one, the Christ.

And he is the Son of God. And then Mark says, all right, let me show you how this worked. Here's the prophecy from the Old Testament.

And here's what John was doing in fulfillment of that. And then the Lord that John promised would come. It's him.

And God specifically spoke from heaven and says, Jesus is the one with whom I am well pleased. That he is his son as the Pharisees and Jews would object to when Jesus made the claim of I am the son of God.

They said, hey, that makes you equal with God. A son is not subservient to his father. I've got my dad.

My name is Bryon Self Jr. And my dad is Bryon Self Sr. I am not less than him.

We are equal. We are. I am his son.

And that means that what I do reflects on him. What he does reflects on me because people don't view it as, especially as adults, they don't view him as perhaps greater than me or me as greater than him, but we are equal.

And this is what God says, that Jesus is the Son of God.

And just want to mention too, I don't know if I've perhaps mentioned this on the podcast yet, because Jesus is the Son of God, that is his title, that is his role, it is not something that he was never created.

The Bible says that he was not created, but from all eternity past, as John 1.1, and on would say, in the beginning was the Word, Jesus. And the Word, Jesus, was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. So here Jesus being the Son of God is, he is divine, he is deity.

And even there are some hints throughout the Old Testament that there's something interesting happening with the God of Israel, Yahweh. And you can read the book, The Unseen Realm by Michael Heiser, by Dr.

Michael Heiser, and has some amazing insights into Old Testament passages that give little hints and kind of breadcrumbs throughout from Genesis all the way through the end of the prophets that say, hey, there's something special going on, that

there's these breadcrumbs of Jesus that are spread all throughout the Old Testament so that when we get into the New Testament, it's not a totally foreign concept. And he highlights some really, really great things that I had not noticed before in

Scripture that show Jesus' divinity. So Jesus is announced by God to be his Son. This one is divine and the Holy Spirit, God's presence comes and descends down on Jesus.

There we have the Trinity and that's why we baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit because that's what Jesus' baptism was. He wasn't repenting of sin. He was saying Jesus is the forerunner, if you will.

He is the one that shows us this is the action that we take, that we do have a baptism of repentance, that we are saying the life I used to live, I'm not living that way anymore. I am living this new life following Jesus.

And just as with Jesus, baptismal waters don't save us, but instead it is us following in Jesus' example. Verse number 12, and I'll end with this account.

He says, immediately, and this is going to be a recurring word all throughout the Gospel of Mark. He says, immediately, the Spirit drove him into the wilderness, that from the very first moment, we see Jesus is guided by the Holy Spirit of God.

And if Jesus was guided by the Spirit, how much more do we need to be guided by the Spirit? He says, the Spirit drove him into the wilderness. He says, he was in the wilderness 40 days.

Okay, we should take note.

All right, Jesus is being kind of likened to the children of Israel in the Book of Exodus, that as they went through the waters of the Red Sea, if you will, they went through kind of their own version of baptism and then they were in the wilderness

for 40 years. Here, Jesus is being shown as the more perfect children of Israel, that what they did in failure, they were in the wilderness because of sin. Jesus was in the wilderness and he did not sin. And there's something interesting here.

He was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by Satan. So we think often of what's mentioned in Matthew and in Luke as the three big temptations that Satan brings to Jesus.

But the truth is all throughout those 40 days, Mark tells us Jesus was being tempted by Satan. And if Jesus, our Lord and Savior, was tempted, may we not think that we are not tempted.

We are not tempted to greed or to lust or to power or to unkindness or to selfishness, to a billion different evils in our life. If Jesus was tempted, man, we'll be tempted too.

As Hebrews chapter four says, because Jesus was tempted, like in every way, just like we are, but without sin, we can go to him because he understands our situation and he will give us grace to help in time of need.

Jesus' temptation assures us that victory over sin is possible, but it's only possible through Jesus, through his Holy Spirit working in us. So he was tempted by Satan. It says he was with the wild animals.

Here it's Jesus is interacting with the spiritual realm.

And as we even discussed a few weeks ago in Genesis 1, where you have those creatures, the serpents, the dragons, and when I say dragons, like serpentine, large snakes is how it was used in the ancient world, not the kind of medieval dragons that we

think of. And different things that are mentioned in the Old Testament about describing spiritual beings, specifically the demons, those against God, as wilderness creatures, whether that's creatures of the sea, sea serpents, sea dragons, or if it's

land wilderness creatures like a lion or a jackal or a scorpion or a snake. Here Jesus, it says he was with the wild animals and the angels were serving him. So Jesus went through a time of great spiritual battle and he came out victorious.

Here as well, it could very well be the most natural reading that there would have been some jackals or that there might have been some lions or some scorpions or some different animals.

And that's absolutely another possibility as well because it's encased in Satan and the angels. There seems to be an indication at the very least that there is a spiritual battle that goes on. I want you to realize today, Jesus has a mission for you.

God had a mission for Jesus to accomplish and he has a mission for you today. Step number one in the mission, believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God.

If you have never repented from your sin and turned to Jesus, you can do so today. If you've never been baptized, follow Jesus in that. It was Jesus' first step in public ministry.

Follow him in it. Identify with Christ, with all believers over the past 2,000 years. And then Jesus was led by the Spirit.

Allow yourself to be led by the Spirit today. Jesus was tempted. And he was tempted over the course of 40 days.

It was a long time. So when you're undergoing temptation, when you're undergoing trials, don't think that God has abandoned you or that God has given you opportunity to sin.

God has given you an opportunity to be able to, like Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, overcome Satan. That the serpent's head would be crushed by you, saying, I am not participating in that.

I've got someone that I love, that I am following, and I am obeying, and I am not turning away from him to do my own thing. And then I see there at the very end that the angels helped Jesus.

The angels were there with him and realized that God has not just left you and His Holy Spirit, though that would absolutely be sufficient with the Holy Spirit in your life, He also has His angels. And I think of Psalm, it's either 90 or 91.

He will give His angels charge concerning you, list at any time you dash your foot against a stone.

You are being watched over by God, by His servants, His angels, the spiritual beings, and God has given you a spiritual family to be able to help you as well. You are not alone in this fight. It is worth it.

Turn to Jesus. Looking forward to continuing this study.

Mark, thanks for a little bit of lengthier time talking about the initial beginnings of the book, but looking forward tomorrow to seeing when Jesus calls His first disciples and some of the first miracles that He does. Thank you.