Prepare Your Heart (Mark 1:1-15)

CPS: Prepare your heart for the Lord.

Introduction

We are starting a new sermon series in the Gospel of Mark. Mark’s Gospel moves quick. He will say something happened, then immediately something else happened. This will be an interesting series to go through.

We also have something happening at the end of this month called Seek Week. We do this every year around this time. Seek Week is a time when we slow down for fasting and prayer, and seek out the Lord for the new year. It will be a time when we prepare our hearts for the Lord.

You might think it strange to say that you can prepare your heart for the Lord. Think of a fire. Now I can’t create the fire. I can do things to spark the flame, but I can’t create the flame itself.

What I can do is create an environment where fire will most likely occur. What do you mean? Well, I can find a dry area. I can lay down some tinder or dry twigs, maybe that are doused with lighter fluid. I can nestle them up together on the dry ground. Then I can get some dry wood and put it around, leaving some space for oxygen to go through. Then we get the match, and strike it.

In the same way that you can create an environment for a fire, the Bible describes ways we can prepare our hearts for the Lord. We will see that in the first chapter of Mark. Open up to Mark 1.

Scripture Reading

Mark 1:1–15 CSB

1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way. 3 A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight! 4 John came baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 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. 6 John wore a camel-hair garment with a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. 7 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. 8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” 9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. 10 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. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well-pleased.” 12 Immediately the Spirit drove him into the wilderness. 13 He was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and the angels were serving him. 14 After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God: 15 “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

Pray

Much of this first chapter introduces us to a man named John the Baptist. He is talked about in all four Gospels. His main purpose was as a forerunner for Jesus. His ministry prepared the hearts of the people of Israel for the coming of the Messiah, Jesus.

From his ministry, there are a few things we can learn about preparing our own hearts for the Lord.

One of the ways that we can prepare our heart for the Lord is this,

Prepare your heart for the Lord by submitting to God’s truth.

John the Baptist spoke truthfully about himself and his mission. Look at Mark 1:7:

Mark 1:7 CSB

7 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.

John says a couple of things here. First,

Mark 1:7 “One who is more powerful than I am”: John has a tremendous self-understanding of who he is in the grand scheme of things. At this point, John is at the height of his baptismal ministry, and he is self-aware of his ministry position. He is saying, “You think I’m powerful, because of the messages of repentance that I am bringing, and all of these people who are responding to the message?” Look at what else he says:

Mark 1:7 “I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals”: This is the most menial position of a slave in Israel, to stoop down and untie the strap of sandals. From John, “I am not even worthy to be the servant of the one who comes after me!”

John is someone who has prepared his heart with truth. He is beginning from a place of humility to the one who comes after him. He exists, his purpose is for the more powerful one to come.

In John 5:33, Jesus described John as someone who “testified to the truth.” John the Baptist testified to the truth despite the personal cost to himself and to his ministry.

John’s Gospel tells us a story about some of the disciples of John the Baptist, who started complaining about Jesus’ ministry. In John 3, some of the disciples of John the Baptist went up to him and complained that Jesus was baptizing more people than he was. Look at how John the Baptist submitted his life and his ministry to God’s truth. Look at John 3:27-30:

John 3:27–30 CSB

27 John responded, “No one can receive anything unless it has been given to him from heaven. 28 You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah, but I’ve been sent ahead of him.’ 29 He who has the bride is the groom. But the groom’s friend, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly at the groom’s voice. So this joy of mine is complete. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease.”

I love how he has prepared his heart for the Lord. He is ready for the coming of the Messiah. You can hear it in his words. John 3:29 “The groom’s friend, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly at the groom’s voice.” This is really important, don’t miss this: There is a joy in knowing who you are and whose you are. When you prepare your heart with truth, you are engulfed in a reality that you are not your own. Paul said in 1 Cor. 6:19-20 “You are not your own, for you were bought at a price.” Christian, when you submit to the reality of who you are in Jesus, you will be able to say with John in John 3:30 “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

We need to constantly be reminded of this in our ministries and in our lives. We are not building personalities or our own kingdom. We are here to do the work God has called us to do in proclaiming the kingdom of God to our community and our city. When you prepare your heart and submit to the truth, there is joy in knowing who you are and whose you are. There is one kingdom that matters, and its not my own. He must increase, and I must decrease.

Sometimes submitting to truth is hard. Truth shines a mirror on ourselves and the world around us. Sometimes that means standing up to a culture that is rebellious and arrogant against the truth of God.

John the Baptist did that in his ministry. In the first century, the respected people in Jewish society were the religious elite, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. There were differences between those two groups, but they were looked up to in Jewish society. You wouldn’t dare speak against them.

But John the Baptist was not afraid to submit himself to the Lord and take a stand on the truth of God. He was able to see through what the culture said was right, and instead expose the lies to the truth of God. Look at how he responds to these Pharisees and Sadduccees in Matt. 3:7-9:

Matthew 3:7–9 CSB

7 When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance. 9 And don’t presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones.

John the Baptist was a truth-teller. Now, I don’t recommend you go home and start calling your family, or go to your co-workers, and start calling them a “Brood of vipers.”

But what is John saying? “You say you follow God. Well, don’t just talk a good game. Show it with your life! Don’t think that God owes you something. Instead, prepare your heart, and submit to God’s truth.”

This kind of heart, the kind of heart that is prepared with truth, can say, Mark 1:7 “I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals.” Lord, I am not worthy. There is nothing that God owes me. Instead, my life and my heart needs to submit to his truth.

It can be hard not to think of ourselves as the center of the universe. We think that people can read our minds. Why? Because we think, “Well, this is important to me, so they must obviously understand that.” The problem is the other person is saying the same thing!

Couples will play this game. The wife will say, “Husband, where do you want to eat?” The husband, thinking this is a real question, says, “Oh, I want to eat BBQ.” The wife then says, “Nope.” The husband is confused. So he says, “Well, what about a hamburger?” The wife says, “Nope.” The original question was, “Where do you want to eat?” What she was really saying was, “Guess where I want to eat.”

We can play this game with God. We think God won’t really mind if we don’t obey him in this area, or in that area, because he will understand. After all, God will understand that we’ve been busy, or we just don’t have time right now, or whatever else is going on. See, we want God to submit to our priorities. That is backwards. As Christians, we always need to prepare our hearts to God’s truth and submit to his priorities.

Christian, prepare your heart for the Lord by submitting to God’s truth.

Another way we can prepare our hearts for the Lord is this,

Prepare your heart for the Lord by looking inwardly.

John the Baptist prepared the way for the Lord. Let’s look at Mark 1:3-5:

Mark 1:3–5 CSB

3 A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight! 4 John came baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 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.

John gets the whole Judean countryside to come out to him and gets them to begin to look inwardly, to take a careful inventory of who they are, and repent for their sins. It says they were confessing their sins.

Confessing means to be in agreement, it means to say the same thing. (Kittel, TDNT). When you confess your sins to God, it is being in agreement with God of who your are before him.

John the Baptist’s ministry was to prepare the hearts of the people of Israel through repentance from sin. Through repentance from sin they would be prepared for the coming of the Lord.

As Christians, confession of sin to God is not a one time thing. James wrote a letter to other Christians, people he calls brothers and sisters, and he tells them this in James 5:16:

James 5:16 CSB

16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.

The point here is that Christians, although we are saved, our sins are on the cross, we are forgiven in Jesus, while we are in these weak vessels, there is still a struggle with sin. We are not perfect. We are perfect in Christ because of who he is, but we are people who constantly need the grace of God, and need to be in agreement with God about who we are before him.

We are his children, and we make mistakes. We are his children, and we need to confess our sins before the Father. Church, if we want to prepare our hearts this year, to seek him out, to grow closer to him, we need to look inwardly, repent daily, and turn to Jesus daily.

As a church this year we want to grow in Jesus Christ. Growing means to be honest about who we are before God. We need you to grow in Jesus. Your church needs you to grow closer to the Lord.

When you grow in Jesus, it’s not just for you. It’s for your family, it’s for your church, it’s for your work place, it’s for your community. There is a ripple effect when you grow in Christ. Your church is counting on you to love Jesus more this year.

What’s interesting is that, the closer you grow with the Lord, the more you experience the holiness of God in your life, the more you begin to realize your need to look inwardly and confess your sins.

One of the best examples of this is the prophet Isaiah. Here is a prophet, a man who prophesied in some of the clearest language of the coming Messiah. When he gets a vision of the Lord on his throne, immediately he is confronted with the depth of sin in his life. Look at Isaiah 6:5:

Isaiah 6:5 CSB

5 Then I said: Woe is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Armies.

When you see the King, you are confronted by his holiness.

John’s baptism prepared the hearts of the people of Israel for the coming Messiah through repentance. It was a baptism of repentance, of confession of sin.

What happens when we are baptized into the Lord Jesus Christ? Take a look at Mark 1:8:

Mark 1:8 CSB

8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

When you put your faith in Jesus, you are baptized in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit abides in you in a special way, in a way that is unique, because you are now a child of God.

The Holy Spirit starts to expose things about you that maybe you weren’t aware of before Christ. Dark areas become exposed to his light. We are exposed because of God’s work in us. 2 Cor. 3:18 says this:

2 Corinthians 3:18 CSB

18 We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.

God is doing a transforming work within because he wants you to be a man or woman who is looking more, every day, like Christ. Therefore, those areas that we thought weren’t a big deal start to become exposed by the light of Christ, and there are areas we need to bring before him.

When we confess our sins, we are in agreement with God that we are people who need him. We can do things to stifle the Spirit. The Bible says in 1 Thess. 5:19 “Don’t stifle the Spirit.” There is nothing more damaging to your faith then holding on to unrepentant sin.

Listen, your salvation is secure in Christ. He will not lose you. But if we want to be a church that grows in our faith, we need to prepare our hearts for the Lord. We need regular times of confession to God.

Preparing your heart before the Lord can be a slow process. Earlier this week, I decided to cook some food. There were some chicken breasts on the bottom of the fridge, but they were frozen solid. Normally, I always have the chicken defrosted in the fridge, but this time, I tried a shortcut. I wanted to get this done quickly. So I put the four chicken breasts in the microwave to defrost. I put the setting to defrost, and defrosted the chicken.

Then I put them in the oven and cooked them as normal. They came out, I tested the temperature, and everything seemed fine. I served the chicken for my wife and I, and we started eating. But the chicken was not good. It was some of the worst chicken ever. Parts of it were hard, rough, some were okay.

When we are preparing our hearts before the Lord, we want a microwave. We want things done quickly. We don’t like the slow process of carefully getting on our knees, being still before the Lord, asking him to reveal anything we are holding from him, confessing our sins before him, and seeking his face.

But the best preparing of our hearts for the Lord come through times of careful repentance. That’s why I love Seek Week, a week where we will, together as a church, fast and seek our God together. We need to be people who take careful inventory, look inwardly, confess anything we are holding from God, walk in his power, his strength, and watch him do his work in our lives.

Prepare your heart for the Lord by submitting to God’s truth.

Prepare your heart for the Lord by looking inwardly.

One last way on how we can prepare our heart for the Lord,

Prepare your heart for the Lord by looking ahead.

So much of Mark 1:1-15 is about preparing for what is coming ahead in the Lord’s ministry.

John the Baptist is always looking ahead in his ministry. The reason he comes baptizing is to Mark 1:3 “Prepare the way for the Lord.” He knew in his ministry that Mark 1:7 “One who is more powerful than I am is coming after me.”

The works of Jesus in Mark 1:9-13 are foundational works in his ministry for what is coming ahead. His baptism in Mark 1:9-11 marks the beginning of his ministry, where we see the Trinity all in one place, Father, Son, and Spirit.

Then in Mark 1:12-13, the Lord is driven by the Spirit into the wilderness, where he is tempted by Satan. Both of these are foundational works in his ministry, preparing for what is to come.

All of this leads up to Mark 1:14-15, where Jesus comes in power proclaiming the good news of God, which is this in Mark 1:15:

Mark 1:15 CSB

15 “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

Take a look at a couple of things:

The time is fulfilled: What time is this? The time of the Messiah’s coming to Israel. The Messiah is here. All of the promises and prophecies have lead up to Jesus Christ. God’s timing is perfect, and his perfect timing is fulfilled in Christ to Israel.

The kingdom of God has come near: The Messiah means the kingdom of God is close. Therefore, there is no time to lose. Repent and believe the good news!

The beauty of Christianity is that it is not just something that happened in the past, as amazing, wonderful, and incredible as that is. Christianity is also about what is to come!

As Christians, we look ahead to a bright future with Christ. There is hope in Jesus, there is love in Jesus, there is the joy of a future with the Lord Jesus forever!

A brother in our church encouraged me with this verse recently, and I’d like to read it for you in context. Look at Col. 3:1-4:

Colossians 3:1–4 CSB

1 So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

How can we be men and women who prepare our hearts for the Lord by looking ahead? If you have been raised with Christ - if your life is in him, then seek things above. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

What does it mean to set my mind on earthly things? That’s to be wrapped up in the muck, and the ugliness, and the things that keep me engulfed in the worries and anxieties, the things that hurt my relationship with God and with others.

God is calling us to a mental switch. He says to set my mind on things above, the things of God, seeking to walk in him, seeking to grow in him, seeking to serve the Lord in the strength of the Spirit, seeking to love another, seeking to grow in my love for God and others, pursuing love to be like my Lord, because as it says in 1 John 4:17 “we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world.” When we fix our minds on things above, we prepare our hearts for the Lord.

The Lord prepare for the cross by looking ahead, as it says in Heb. 12:2:

Hebrews 12:2 CSB

2 keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Jesus prepared his heart for the cross. You know why? Because there was a resurrection coming. He set his eyes on what was ahead, for the joy that lay before him, enduring the cross, despising the shame, knowing that there is a resurrection coming.

In the same way, we can also prepare our hearts for the Lord because there is a resurrection coming.

We love to see what is coming when it’s something exciting. I’m a fan of Marvel movies, and I get excited when a new trailer comes out. They show the best parts of the film, and it looks awesome, and I’m like, “Yeah, I can’t wait for that movie to come out.”

Then it comes out, and maybe its good or not, but then come out with another trailer, and I’m like, “Man, that one looks even better.”

In some ways, the resurrection of Jesus is sign showing us what is coming. In the resurrection, Jesus conquered death and the grave, and all of that is incredible. But that is also showing us what is ahead.

We can prepare our hearts for the Lord because there is a resurrection coming. God’s kingdom is coming. Eternal life is here and is coming. Prepare your heart because Jesus is risen, and Jesus is coming again.

Conclusion

Prepare your heart for the Lord by submitting to God’s truth.

Prepare your heart for the Lord by looking inwardly.

Prepare your heart for the Lord by looking ahead.

Conclude

Prayer

Last Song

Doxology

Numbers 6:24–26 CSB

24 “May the Lord bless you and protect you; 25 may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; 26 may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.” ’

Jude 24–25 CSB

24 Now to him who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, without blemish and with great joy, 25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time, now and forever. Amen.

You are dismissed. Have a great week in the Lord!