Mark (Part 1)
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
If you are around here for any time at all you will realize i love movies
Not for simple amusement but because I love a story
My favorites a epic stories
There are 2 types really
You have one of my favorites 1917
A world war 1 epic that begins slow.
A soldier sleeping at the base of an oak…and it builds to a crescendo 2 hours later
Then theres the James Bond style
Skyfall is my favorite Bond movie
Before the opening credits theres gunfights, car chases, explosions, and some flirting...
Both types tell set the story and tell you where they are going in the hour plus to come
When you read Mark as we are going to go through it is the James Bond of epics
Fast paced, action packed, no Christmas story just 33 year old Jesus taking the throne
Put to the first listeners and us today as the story of the real Jesus the Son of God so we are forced to choose....Is He the King of the Cosmos
Mark is writing with the Disciple Peter in his ear and it is the action packed intentionally crafted epic of the cosmos you and I are in today
Who Is Jesus (1-8)
Who Is Jesus (1-8)
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 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!
John came baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 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. John wore a camel-hair garment with a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey.
He proclaimed, “One who is more powerful than I am is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
This may come as a surprise to you but Christianity is not a new thing
From the Bond like intro Mark has explosions and drama that announce Who Jesus Is and why He is King
Tim Keller says of this bombshell openings purpose:
In making this audacious claim, Mark roots Jesus as deeply as possible in the historic, ancient religion of Israel. Christianity, he implies, is not a completely new thing. Jesus is the fulfillment of all the biblical prophets’ longings and visions, and he is the one who will come to rule and renew the entire universe
What is so audacious in this opening?
Mark is claiming that the coming rescuer of God’s people is this Jesus
Imagine thousands of years of longing…looking…promises....dark days that looked like it was over....hope that the occupation of your land was going to end…imagine your bibles promises all point to a king who would come…and Mark says all these guys thousands of years wrote about has a name and has come
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Gospel means good news of a historical event
Mark has no manger, no wise men, no christmas…just strait in bombs dropped…thousands of years of looking are over
Isaiah is probably the most in your face this is what will announce the King has Come out of all of them....Jesus even used it to shock the temple that he is it
So Mark goes in
Not just what Jesus would be but all of the promises are about this time
He uses a combo of face slapping loaded Old Testament verses every Jew reading this would know..that God himself Has Come to rescue us
He uses Isaiah 40:3
A voice of one crying out:
Prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness;
make a straight highway for our God in the desert.
&
“See, I am going to send my messenger, and he will clear the way before me. Then the Lord you seek will suddenly come to his temple, the Messenger of the covenant you delight in—see, he is coming,” says the Lord of Armies.
Not just one part of the story…but every detail of what it would look like is here
Why does this matter at Unlocked Coffee Roasters at 1030 am?
Because this means that the only person who could kill all the things that have made you cry has come
The promises that seem too good to be true are coming true
The King has Come to take back His throne and His name is Jesus
John down to how he dresses and eats shouts everything sad will come untrue in this real man
John wore a camel-hair garment with a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey.
Why is it important for mark to highlight John’s sheek style and keto freindly diet?
He wants us to know everything sad comes untrue in this Kings reign if you turn from the project of self saving to submission to life in the Kingdom of Heaven
Another Old Testament prophet told in Joel 2 that the end time of all the old would come and it was for all people…we are part of it
Joel called all that stole and took and hurt and caused despair and regret and what ifs....he called them locust that devour
He ate locusts and wild honey because the time had come to devour the devourer (locusts), for God’s promises to come true, and for the barren land to produce a bountiful harvest. His desert diet was a prophetic sign of hope
The defeater of all that has defeated you has met its conquerer…and the image of the promised land flowing with milk and HONEY is the conquers kingdom
imagine the pain and regret and mistakes and wish you could take it backs that are too big to forget…and imagine the one big enough to devour them so they are no more ever again....that is the Son Of God…thats the real Jesus
That is the Bond Opening to Mark
Wilderness Hope (9-13)
Wilderness Hope (9-13)
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. As soon as he came up out of the water, he saw the heavens 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.”
Immediately the Spirit drove him into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and the angels were serving him.
Morgan has always had a green thumb…she loves plants and a growing garden
When we lived in Birmingham she was off to work and I wanted to surprise her with a small garden
I ran to our neighbors got a tiller and got after some Alabama clay
I knew thought if I put enough nitrogen and miracle grow in the clay it would grow her dream garden bed
I created scorched earth and a patch of dirt that produced carrots that looked like they were grown at Chernobyl and glowed in the dark
The anti garden is the barren wilderness
Wilderness and barren ground is the anti creation
Mark is going fast no fluff to tell us exactly what this Kings Kingdom is
Look at the theme of wilderness in these verses we have covered
It is explicitly said 3 times and implied that this is were the King has come
Perfect creation became the ultimate de-creation and it is the world we know
Has this thing gone how you thought it would?
Mark says the King has come
And in His Kingdom he is taking back the cosmos and making it how it was supposed to be
Look how incredible this is
As soon as he came up out of the water, he saw the heavens 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.”
The bible tells us in the first book that the father son and spirit were the active agents in creation of the perfect world
The King is destroying what destroyed his perfect world
The same 3 people are the active agents in making all things new
Jews like Peter wouldn’t have read and spoke Hebrew…they used a language called aramaic
Like our translations they had old testament translations from the hebrew into Aramaic it was called Targum
there is only one place where the Spirit of God is likened to a dove, and that is in the Targums, the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Scriptures that the Jews of Mark’s time read
Genesis 1:2 in our bible says that the Spirit hovered over the face of the waters.
The Hebrew verb here means “flutter”: the Spirit fluttered over the face of the waters.
To capture this vivid image, the rabbis translated the passage for the Targums like this: “And the earth was without form and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God fluttered above the face of the waters like a dove, and God spoke: ‘Let there be light.
Tim Keller says:
Mark is deliberately pointing us back to the creation, to the very beginning of history. Just as the original creation of the world was a project of the triune God, Mark says, so the redemption of the world, the rescue and renewal of all things that is beginning now with the arrival of the King, is also a project of the triune God.
Unreal isn’t it?
Mark is going off....and realize this is true..you have to choose is this the King and His Kingdom or are you looking for another to save this broken world?
Here is the uniquness of the Christian Message
God didn’t say you made it a wilderness down there now follow some rules ....or heres some life hack therapy tips
He came as King…to the wilderness we created to make things how they were always meant to be…to give us wilderness hope…by entering it himself
To do what we were supposed to do
He didn't run from what has devoured us he went out to it
He hunted it down where it lived and killed it
Immediately the Spirit drove him into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and the angels were serving him.
Mark doesn’t let up in the bombardment that the King has come to make all things new
And this is the way he has done it
The theme of wilderness goes back to Israel
Free from slavery in Egypt they don’t believe and wander for 40 years in disobedience and die out there
In the un-creation the King steps in to save us
Where we failed for 40 years he steps in and is obedient
the lie that the good life is being held out on us by God He dismantles
He stands where we fell
And the consequences are cosmic and they were promised in Isaiah too
When the King comes to make everything sad untrue it would look like this Isaiah says in Isaiah 11:5-8
Righteousness will be a belt around his hips;
faithfulness will be a belt around his waist.
The wolf will dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard will lie down with the goat.
The calf, the young lion, and the fattened calf will be together,
and a child will lead them.
The cow and the bear will graze,
their young ones will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like cattle.
An infant will play beside the cobra’s pit,
and a toddler will put his hand into a snake’s den.
Mark doesn’t add that He was with the wild animals because Jesus was the first Steve Irwin
This is cosmic claim of the King
The last time the world saw this on earth was in Eden when everything was how it was supposed to be
With this King this earth is restored to what it is supposed to be …in small places first…and when he comes back every inch of this world will be perfect
This King came to devour all that has devoured us
He did it by hunting death and sadness and addiction lies and disobedience and dismay and regret
In the wilderness He took back what is His and made a way for those who believe
The Part We Forget (14-20)
The Part We Forget (14-20)
After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
As he passed alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, Simon’s brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. “Follow me,” Jesus told them, “and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. Going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat putting their nets in order. Immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.
I turned 40 a few weeks ago
The older i get the more I long for things to be made new
The more you live the human experience you want the promised Kingdom to be what is coming
I come more and more to realize that the already of the Kings coming and the yet to come are very different
There are days i don’t see any of the new creation in my life, my mind, my body and struggle and doubt and forget
But i know it is real
And I am reminded just as Mark intends that there is a war to get me home and its hard
I know the promise means i am cast in this great epic redemptive drama and i have a part to play with cosmic consequences
I will never be famous
I have a uhaul full of what if’s and regrets
I have high colestoral and a hgh perscription on my contacts
Not just me
We aren’t an earth shaking crowd
We are a small gathering unseen to the world
And this is exactly who makes up this Kings Kingdom
The place he purchased with His blood
The throne he took and dominion he holds is for the unseen to the world
It isn’t simply full of Jesus extroverts and celebrity pastors
It is the delight of the God of the universe we are who we are where we are
For those of you church frequent flyers heres a question
take out judas, peter, james and john…can you name 4 other disciples and tell me what they did…who they were? personalities?
No
No name guys the king set as the fathers of the new creation
Real people
Who weren’t given an escapist faith
They were given a King to walk in the pain of the human experience with them and promise to get them home
Look at John
No background is given to his arrest, first century people Mark is writing too would know already
Imagine you are the one person the entire old testament said was announcing the KING
You Baptized God
Surely you get some perks?
Surely you get to live in the spiritual high of that for a while
We say the same things
I am a follower of Jesus I believe…and i cry out like the psalmist
But as for me, my feet almost slipped;
my steps nearly went astray.
For I envied the arrogant;
I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
They have an easy time until they die,
and their bodies are well fed.
They are not in trouble like others;
they are not afflicted like most people.
Did I purify my heart
and wash my hands in innocence for nothing?
For I am afflicted all day long
and punished every morning.
John is saying this in prison
John is asking did I get it wrong?
These disciples will feel the same way
The no name rag tag group of misfit toys will all doubt and run away
The part we forget is that we are not given an escapist faith we are given a king who has walked the road we walk and got up to get us home
I forget this is about His fame not mine
For John he had to move from center stage to make way for the hero
The role of the forerunner is over; the time of fulfillment has come
He had to prepare the way now for the picture of injustice and dying in obedience
His fate points to the similar fate of Jesus…they are identical
What i have reserved myself too in the healthiest of ways when i think it shouldn’t be this way i believe is that I will see it only when i look back with him
I will see the masterpiece when i look back even though now there are days it looks like the bad guys are winning
Its the part we forget
It costs everything to follow Him
Because it cost Him everything to save us
He didn’t run from it
The call of the King to follow is disruptive, it doesn’t make sense in the moments of our greatest pain, it costs us
Any message that says you get faith to never suffer is a lie
The disruption was different for them and us
We live in a world that says you are the definer of the good life
The disruption of the King says He is not you
We live in a world that says kindness and tolerance are the greatest virtue
The disruption of the king says truth is greater than kindness and his truth is the path to the fullfillment of every longing of the human heart
When pain and confusion hits us like it does John in prison the disruption of the King is that we are called to trust while we hurt
We trust that our pain in this life has an experation date....but we will feel it
God saved His people in the most upside down way and his kingdom is an upside down kingdom
Even how he calls us in
The call itself Mark tells is shocking
In jewish life students chose a teacher
The teacher never chose students
Yet here is the rabbi breaking all of what was expected and choosing His people
This is countercultural authority on display
Keller says: In traditional cultures you get your identity from your family. And so when Jesus says, “I want priority over your family,” that’s drastic. In our individualistic culture, on the other hand, saying good-bye to our parents isn’t a big deal, but for Jesus to say, “I want priority over your career”—that’s drastic. Jesus is saying, “Knowing me, loving me, resembling me, serving me must become the supreme passion of your life. Everything else comes second.”
We forget Christ isn’t an add on to our own ambitions
We forget the road of Jesus is hard
It promises hard days that we will trade one day for beauty
In a culture of celebrity pastors and megahchurhces and individualism we forget it is the regular people who doubt and suffer who He calls His
And to be his means we die to ourselves and find a new way to live
I have heard by critics and people skeptical about the bible
It is said it is made up by people who wanted power and spread a lie
These men blast that criticism out of the water
What other person of history in a great movement writes only of themselves as a nobody and a failure?
Mark, led by Peter, tells this epic and the key people are telling themselves as the failures
This book is truly inspired by God written by men carried along by the Holy Spirit
They are everyday people who gave it all up to still fail and struggle and doubt so we remember that this is the type of person who Is in the Kingdom
Repent and believe and know the King has come
Mark slaps us in the face with the real claims of a real man who walked this earth 2000 years ago
You have to choose if He is Lord…or if you are
Sometimes the Nativity Scene is nice and the Christmas story is the paegent we need
Sometimes we need the way to growth from Peter or Paul
Sometimes we need Mark
We need to simply come face to face with the real Jesus and all He claims
Sometimes we need a Bond Movie instead of the Notebook
Lets Pray