Awakening In Our Wilderness

Mark 1:1–8 ESV

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’ ” John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

Opening Prayer: Gracious God, as we gather at the dawn of Renewal Methodist Church, guide our hearts and minds. In this season of Advent, as we reflect on the wilderness journeys in our lives, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our strength, and our Redeemer. Amen.

As we delve into Mark 1:1-8 this morning, we find ourselves confronted with a powerful theme – the wilderness.

The wilderness, a place both literal and metaphorical, where Jesus, John the Baptist, and even John Wesley found clarity and calling.

I think it’s fitting that we launch RMC with a theme of wilderness.

Most people here today have experiences some form of wilderness.

Some have felt the sting of exclusion in places of worship, being told that their Biblical convictions were unwelcome.

This wilderness of rejection has brought us here, united in a church that upholds the Word of God.

That’s a wilderness.

Others have perhaps wandered through a different wilderness, one marked by personal failures or moral lapses.

We remember that like Moses, David, and Peter, our wilderness can be a place of repentance, redemption, and restoration.

Some of you have experienced wilderness through sickness, estranged relationships, or any other number of ways or reasons.

Whatever the case may be for you, wilderness is not generally a place we enjoy when we’re going through it.

John the Baptist’s Wilderness

Mark 1:2–4 ESV

As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’ ” John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

As far as I can tell, there are at least two reasons people go into the wilderness in the Bible.

Firstly, many of us know the story of Moses.

Before he became the Moses who led people through the wilderness, he was the Moses who murdered an Egyptian.

We read in Exodus 2 that Moses had to flee to Midian for 40 years.

This theme of 40 shows up again and again.

When God decides to use Moses to release the Egyptians from captivity, the Israelites spend how many years in the wilderness?

40 years

Then we have Jesus who, in Matthew 4:1-11, goes into the wilderness to be tested.

For how many days?

That’s right. 40 days.

Wilderness Repentance

Friends, God sends people into the wilderness for one of two reasons, and sometimes it’s a mix of both.

Sometimes he sends us into the wilderness because we have sins that need cleansing.

Sometimes, due to our own fault, we find ourself in the wilderness periods of life.

If we aren’t careful, we can think that nothing but punisghment is happening, but that isn’t true.

See, just like John the Baptist went into the wilderness preachign a baptism of repentance.

Just like Moses twice went into the wilderness for repentance…

Just like that, sometimes God calls us into a wilderness period to cleanse us of sin and brokenness.

There’s a second reason, though.

Usually, when God sends us into wilderness it’s because he’s preparing us.

Jesus went into the wilderness to prepare himself for the next three years of ministry.

He needed to be tested and tried before beginning his earthly ministry.

Moses needed to be cleansed.

John the Baptist went into the wilderness to cleanse not only himself, but to call all to repent.

Wilderness Fuel

Friends, sometimes wilderness comes with God’s chastisement.

Hebrews 12:6 ESV

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”

Just like a good parent refuses to allow a disobedient child to go unpunished, God will not allow His children to go unpunished.

Hear this though, friends, He does it in love. Not hatred.

Evidence of this love is that even in those periods of chastisement, God consistently prepares people for what He is preparing next..

In those wilderness periods, we are called to repent of what needs repenting.

Comfortable Egypt

With the benefits of wilderness, one might wonder why we resist it.

The reason is simple. We get comfortable.

I wonder how many of us today have experienced beautiful forms of religion without the fuel of repentance.

We’ve sat in beautiful sanctuaries.

We’ve heard beautiful words but it all felt…sterile.

Sometimes it was flatly unBiblical.

Still, we may have been tempted to stay because it was comfortable, familiar, and felt safe.

Some of us tried to make reforms within those beautiful places.

Even when we were told our faithfulness to God’s word wasn’t welcome, we desired ways to remain in Egypt, so to speak.

Beautiful Captivity

See, nobody really enjoys wilderness.

While in the wilderness, the Israelites often complained and wished to go back to the place of their captivity.

Exodus 16:3 ESV

and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

How easy it becomes to romanticize even captivity when we are in the wilderness.

We try to make friends with captivity.

We seek to remember the captivity as not so bad.

“At least we had pots of meat.”

How about us friends?

How many of us have been tempted to return to captivity?

“At least we had our own buildings.”

“At least we had familiar people.”

“At least we knew what to expect.”

There is comfort in spiritual captivity because it’s familiar.

And, yet, what was the cost?

Do we really desire a faith where things that are clear are traded for confusion?

Were we truly fed good food when significant portions of Scripture were either bent beyond recognition, or altogether ignored to keep peace?

Sometimes God has to send us into the wilderness to remind us that freedom to seek the clarity of His will and His word is worth more than a thousand beautiful distortions.

It often seems to me that the church today is asleep at the wheel.

That Satan has fed us a million beautiful delusions and distortions, and we are no longer awake.

Awake, O Thou That Sleepest

John Wesley, in his sermon Awake, Thou That Sleepest, echoes this sentiment and call for repentance.

“My brethren, it is high time for us to awake out of sleep before the "great trumpet of the Lord be blown," and our land become a field of blood.

Wesley, like John the Baptist some 1700 years before him, simply stood as a prophet in the wilderness, calling people back to faithfulness in God.

He was kicked out of scores of churches in England because he dared preach what the Bible teaches, and he dared make the sinfully comfortable, uncomfortable.

I want to see hands.

How many of you today have been asked to leave churches, or asked to stop talking because you refused to stop saying what the Bible says?

Well, you have a friend in John Wesley.

Eventually, Wesley was left only to preach, quite literally, in the wilderness.

He began preaching in fields and within a few years, the spirit of Methodism caught flame.

He refused to shut his mouth, even when peers and friends rejected him.

Within a generation, Methodism was the largest Christian expression in the United States.

Why?

Because Methodism is just so great?

No, because John Wesley called the church back to its first mission and settled for nothing less.

He refused to equivocate on clear Biblical teaching, and like John the baptist, he called people and the church to repent and return to the Lord.

He took Jesus’ call in Matthew 5:48 seriously.

Matthew 5:48 ESV

You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Rather than a threat, Wesley saw this as an opportunity borne in optimism, and that optimism is borne out of verse 8 of today’s text.

Friends, you might be asking, how?

How could Wesley go to a verse like that without fear?

Because Wesley understood we aren’t doing it on our own.

Baptized With The Holy Spirit

Mark 1:8 ESV

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

John reminds us that Jesus is going to baptize us by the Holy Spirit, and this Spirit would be our power.

What Jesus calls us to...

What John the Baptist prepared the way for...

What John Wesley called the church to return to...

…Was a faith of Holy Spirit power.

Application

Friends, most of us are not yet perfect, but we are a people who pursue perfect love in the Holy Spirit.

Many of you will think, but I’m not perfect.

I see that I’m so far from the mark.

Brothers and sisters in Jesus, you are not a failure because you’ve failed.

For God forgives not seven times, but seventy times seven.

You have only failed when you quit.

When you quit believing God in His word because the standard seems to high, or too far off.

You have failed when you begin to view God’s moral commands in the New Testament specifically as negligible.

Even in failure though, there is room for repentance.

And repentance is not only for individuals, but entire churches.

I’m reminded of a Methodist Seminary, United, that turned away from clear teaching and began falling away.

About ten years ago they decided to repent and return to God’s authority in scripture.

They are once again a thriving seminary.

Many of us have come from churches that we loved, but had to leave for various reasons.

We continue to love the people, and the congregations, and we would wish to simply say this.

Repent. Turn back to New Testament faithfulness and you can wake from sleep,

See, like the Israelites in Egypt, you may get comfortable in sinful bondage, but you will never thrive there.

You will never bear fruit in keeping with repentance, as Jesus says in Matthew 3:8.

God doesn’t want you in the wilderness forever, though.

Only for as long as it takes for the lesson to lead to repentance.

You Are Home

Friends, if you have experienced a wilderness season, I say these words to you with a full heart.

You are home.

For all who were cast into the wilderness due to their faithfulness at former churches.

You are home.

For all who were in the wilderness due to their sin and have repented of that sin.

You are home.

For all who wrestle with sin and holiness, you are home.

Our First Meal

One of the things people do in homes is enjoy frequent meals together.

As we prepare our hearts and minds to enjoy the meal God gave to us in the Lord’s Supper, I ask you to join me in preparing as we sing, How Great Thou Art.

Amen