The Beginning of the Gospel

Today may be a little different than your normal sermon. We are beginning a new book as a church. Today we start our sermons through the gospel of Mark. And today, we are only going to look at the very first verse. This verse is going to give us a groundwork of what the rest of the book is going to be about. So let’s start our sermon out by reading Mark 1:1

Mark 1:1 ESV

1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Pray.

I know that this seems odd to just have one singular verse for a sermon. But this verse is dealing with a few very important topics that help us to lay the groundwork of the entire gospel of Mark.

Today, we start at the beginning. This beginning will lead us through, what I pray, is one of the most significant journeys that we will ever take as a church. I can remember the first major trip that I had ever taken. My very first time flying. I was nervous yet excited. I did not know exactly everything that would happen but I knew that the journey would be meaningful. I want this to be what this journey is for us. But instead of us being in an airplane looking down to the little specs on Earth that are actually very large things, this journey is going to be us getting on our hands and knees and bending over to make the little things look big for us.

This journey may feel like it is beginning today, but this journey actually began a long time ago. I could make the argument that it started nearly 2 years ago when I came here as your pastor. But that would not be the full truth. I could make the argument that it began nearly 77 years ago when a small group of people saw a need for a gospel centric church right here where we sit today. But that would not be the full truth. The correct view of this is that God began this journey for us at the moment of creation so that today, I could stand up here and preach a sermon about the beginning of the gospel.

The gospel of Mark is somewhat of a unique gospel account. In the book of Mark, we do not have a birth story of Jesus, we do not have a genealogy of Jesus, we do not have a childhood account of Jesus. We also do not have a telling of the sermon on the mount and we have very few parables. What we do have is a historical, dramatic narrative of the life of Jesus during his earthly ministry. With that being said, at 16 chapters, it is the shortest gospel account as well. I would like to think of it as getting down to business.

If you are familiar with your bible, you know that we have 4 different books of what we call the gospel accounts. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The book of Matthew is the longest book at 28 chapters. Matthew lays out for us the picture of Jesus as the Messiah. He shows us over and over again the fulfillment of Old Testament scriptures through Jesus. The book of Luke is written from a Greek perspective. It is written to a man named Theophilus to convince him that Jesus is the son of God. And we also have John. John is quite unique. He has stories in his that aren’t in others and leaves out some that are in the others. John writes his book to declare that Jesus is fully God and fully man. And in doing so, has a very poetic telling of the life and ministry of Jesus.

And we have the book of Mark. This book was written to a Roman audience. In doing so, Mark leaves out much of the fluff and deals with questions that they would have concerning Jesus being the messiah, the son of God, the Christ. Mark cuts right to the point. He is writing this to a church who is living under the tyranny of Nero. He cuts to the chase, skips over the birth story, skips over the genealogy, and goes right to pointing them to Jesus. We just sang Turn your eyes upon Jesus. This is what Mark is telling the people of Rome. And he does this in this very first verse in 3 distinct ways. The best way to see what Mark is describing is that these 3 things are the 3 most important doctrines of Christianity. And as we go through this first verse, what we need to see that the the gospel is of primary importance for us.

1. We Must Believe the Gospel

March 29th, 2009. That is the day that the gospel became part of my life. If you are a Christian here today, the chances are that you have a memory similar to this. Maybe you were raised around scripture and cannot remember a time when you did not believe the gospel. If that is you, praise God. But for most of us, we can remember a time when we were unbelievers.

Mark tells us that this is the beginning of the gospel. Number 1 thing is the gospel. This is not a reference to the literary genre that this book is. Yes, it is what we call a gospel account. But this word the way it is used in this sentence does not describe the genre. The word gospel, to us is a reference to the good news that scripture proclaims. But first, for any news to be good, we need to understand the bad news

why we need the gospel

what is the gospel

So that is the good news of the gospel. The gospel is what is preached about Jesus and about God. The gospel tells us our need for Christ but it also tells us how we are restored back to God through Jesus Christ. That we are brought from darkness into the light of Jesus Christ.

Mark tells us that this is the beginning of the gospel. What we read as we continue is the story of God restoring his people through Jesus Christ. The 4 gospel accounts that we have tell us of the life and crucifixion of Jesus. Acts tells us of the beginning of the church and the apostles spreading the gospel. The letters that were written to the different churches tell us how the change in our lives should be seen. And the book of Revelation tells us of our savior coming to restore creation.

These are all aspects of the gospel. But it all starts with believing the gospel. And when we believe the gospel, we are changed.

There was a boy named John born in 1725 in London. His mother was a religious woman and taught her son the bible but she died when he was only 7 years old. When he was 11, he began accompanying his father on sea voyages. When he was 18, he joined the Royal Navy. While in the Navy, he attempted to desert his post and was eventually relieved of his post and was sent aboard a passing slave vessel. He became interested in the slave trading business because is was an easy and lucrative business. Although he would remember some of the teachings his mother gave him, it didn’t make a big impact on his life. It was in 1748 when he was in a very bad storm at sea that a renewal of his faith began. Though he continued in the slave trading business a few more years, he would eventually leave that and become a minister. You know him as John Newton, the man who wrote Amazing Grace. He believed the gospel. And the gospel changed him. Just the same as everyone throughout all of history, we too must believe the gospel.

2. We Must Believe that Jesus is the Christ

There has been a trend in the last few decades that has seemed to be growing. And maybe it is only more prominent now because of media but it is this thing that we call stolen valor. This is when someone will impersonate a military service member. They may do it in speech alone by telling someone that they are a veteran. But more commonly, they go all in by attempting to wear military garb to make it look like they serve. They will get the bars to put on a uniform. They will put on patches to represent different missions or wars. They will even put on patches to show they are of a high ranking. But it is all false. They have tried to make someone believe that they carry this title with them of someone that they really are not. Jesus also holds this title but he proves that he really is who he says he is.

Mark 1:1 ESV

1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

The gospel is about Jesus Christ. The way that we say it, it would sound like Christ is his last name. But Christ is a title. It means “anointed one”. For the people in the time of Jesus, the name Christ meant that they were anointed by God to carry out specific tasks with the liberation of Israel. This title being attached to a person would give someone hope in the person that it was attached to. We have just came out of the season where we spent some time focusing on Jesus being the Messiah. There were different views on how this would look when the Messiah would come. Some thought that he would come and be like a second Moses to deliver the nations of Israel. Others thought that he would rise to political power and take the literal throne of David and command a great army to defeat all those who had oppressed the Jewish people. And the people of Rome would have known these things as well.

And then they get this book written to them. And it says that Jesus is the Christ, the messiah. Yet when they read the whole book, they see that the last third of the entire book is dedicated to the crucifixion of Jesus. The people of Rome would have read this very first verse and heard that this book was about the gospel of Jesus who is the Christ. They would have associated the word gospel to the pronouncement of a victory in battle. They would have known that the Christ is the one who came to save God’s people. So they would read this pronouncement that Jesus is the savior and has had victory, but then read the rest of the 16 chapters and seen that Jesus was crucified.

But Mark, in this gospel account is unapologetic about what he is saying. He is saying that Jesus is the Christ. He is the one that was promised by God to come and liberate his people. The way that our brains work is that we try to make sense of this. But we have a real hard time doing so. We try to figure out why God sent Jesus to die. And for the believer, we often find comfort in the fact that God is smarter than we are. Isaiah 55:8 “8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.” We should find comfort in that. But we should also find comfort when Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:23 “23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,”. Jews will not understand why Jesus, who was crucified was the Messiah, and the Gentiles think it is nonsense.

I said earlier that Jesus would prove that he really is who he says he is. So how does he do this? He does this through the resurrection. If Jesus would have stayed dead, we would not be in this building, singing the songs that we sang, hearing me say the words that I am saying, reading from this bible that I have, and praying the prayers that we pray. Because it would be pointless. Without the resurrection, Jesus would only be seen as another person who lived a good life and did good things. But he did not stay dead. We know this because of eyewitnesses of his resurrection. Acts 1:3 “3 He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.”

He proved that he really was God, which is what he was claiming, by defeating death through the power of God. No other man has ever defeated death. The other religions that are prominent in our world today, none of them have this claim. Buddha is still dead. Mohammed who was supposed to be God’s ultimate prophet is still dead. You could name countless other religious leaders and none of them have ever died and then came back. This is why Jesus was the Christ. This is why we can still worship him as the Christ today. He proved that death could not keep him. He proved that he was the Christ. And just like all of history, we must believe that Jesus is the Christ.

3. We Must Believe that Jesus is the Son of God

Mark 1:1 ESV

1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

This title is given to Jesus on many occasions throughout the book of Mark. So what does it mean that Jesus is the son of God? I want to start with what it doesn’t mean first. It does not mean that God was married to Mary. God wasn’t married and had a son like we experience as humans. For us to understand what it does mean, I want us to look at John chapter 1.

John 1:1 ESV

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:14 ESV

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

In John’s gospel account, he is telling us about this “word”. The word was with God in the beginning but not only was the word with God, but the word was God. And then we skip down to verse 14 and he tells us that this word became flesh and dwelt among us. The word became a human being. The word that John is referring to is Jesus. Jesus also claimed to be the son of God. And this is what led to his crucifixion.

Matthew 26:63–66 ESV

63 But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” 64 Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” 65 Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. 66 What is your judgment?” They answered, “He deserves death.”

Because of this claim that he is the son of God, he was crucified. But why? By Jesus claim that he is the son of God, he is saying that he is, in essence, equal with God. But to the Romans, it was less that he was claiming to be equal with God and just as much that he was claiming to be equal with the Roman emperors. The emperors in Rome would have this same title bestowed upon them. So they crucified him.

Mark uses this statement to bookend this gospel account. We have him saying it in verse 1 here, but he also retells of a Roman centurion declaring it at crucifixion. As Jesus was hanging on the cross and had been beaten and broken and took his last breath.

Mark 15:39 ESV

39 And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”

A Roman centurion, who was underneath the Roman emperor, declared that Jesus was the son of God. A statement that would likely have caused his own execution if it were to be heard. We hear of people coming to faith today, but in our culture we do not have this type of oppression where we see radical statements like this being made. This gives me comfort in who Jesus is.

To be the true son of God, there would be some requirements.

sinlessness (Hebrews 7:26 “26 For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.” )

authoritative (Matthew 7:29 “29 for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.” )

love (Romans 5:8 “8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” )

compassionate (Matthew 14:14 “14 When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.” )

These are only a few of the characteristics that the son of God has shown us. I cannot wait to get to heaven to be able to spend centuries and centuries being able to look back in time and see all of the characteristics of Jesus that scripture could not hold. Just as Jesus proved himself to be the Christ by his resurrections, he proved himself to be the son of God through the life that he lived. And just like everyone in all of history, we must believe that Jesus is the son of God.

Conclusion

I have used scripture to point us to the basic beliefs of Christianity. That we must believe that Jesus is the Christ. That we must believe that Jesus is the son of God. And that we must believe the gospel of Jesus Christ. These are the 3 base line beliefs for being a Christian. This is why Christianity is unique. This is why we cannot have fellowship with other religions like the Mormons and the Jehovahs Witnesses. Because they do not believe that Jesus was the Christ and that he is God. These are essential to the Christian faith. And I don’t try to pretend that everyone that is here each and every week is a follower of Jesus. So I am not going to do that today. What I want you to hear though is that if you do not believe one of these things, then you will spend an eternity separated from the grace of God.

If you do not believe that Jesus is the Christ, then you do not believe that he died for the sins of man. If you do not believe that Jesus was the son of God, then you cannot affirm the sinlessness of Jesus to be able to be our substitutionary atonement. And if you do not believe the gospel of Jesus, then you see no need of a savior to begin with.

If any of these apply to you, I want to give you an opportunity today to restore communion with God. We use this word repent in church. This is because Jesus says in verse 14 of Mark 1 to repent and believe the gospel. To repent means to turn. You turn from your sinful nature and turn towards Jesus. And when you do that, you must believe the gospel. The gospel is the hope that we have in Jesus. That he lived a sinless life in our place, that he suffered and died for our sins, and that he rose from the grave 3 days later. And when we turn from our sins and believe this, he is our savior and our Lord. Our lives have changed. Just as it says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 “17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” If you are feeling this pull towards God, surrender yourself to him. Commit your life to him. But please let us know. This is only the beginning of your life as a Christian.

But maybe you have been a Christian for years or even decades. You might be wondering what this passage today means for you. The challenge that I see in this verse is that there is such a great need in our world for people to hear the gospel. And I know that you may not have the confidence to share the gospel with someone. I want us to all take a step this week in building this confidence. Maybe you are the person who never talks about faith with anyone. If that is you, I want to challenge you to ask one person this week about their faith. Maybe this is something that you are comfortable doing. If it is, then I want to challenge you to share your story with someone this week. This may be a stretch for some of us and that is good. But maybe this is something that you do often. If you do, look for an opportunity in conversation to share some sort of gospel truth with someone. As we read the first 5 chapters of Mark this week, take something that you read and share it with someone.

But maybe you are someone that all of this stuff happens with on a regular basis. My challenge to you is to share the full gospel with someone when you have the opportunity. Tell someone how sin has separated us from God so he sent his son to live a sinless life, die a terrible death, and raise from the grave 3 days later so that we can turn from our sins, believe in him, and be saved from an eternity of separation from the grace of God.

With all of us, let us be reminded of what God’s word says to us, and be in awe of his mercy and grace in our life.

Pray.