Pointing to Christ

Last week, we began the gospel of Mark. Our sermon was on Mark 1:1. Today, we pick right up after that.

Mark 1:2–8 ESV

2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, 3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’ ” 4 John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 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. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. 7 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. 8 I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

Prayer

I have always enjoyed history. One of my favorite time periods was the medieval period. They had knights, they had jousting, they had jesters. And then they had a guy that they called the town crier. You may have seen them depicted in movies. He would go to where the crowd was gathered and make a public proclamation. These were the days before the printing press came along so you wouldn’t be able to pick up a book or a newspaper to read about what was going on. They relied on the crier to make sure the public knew what was going on. They carried with them a bell. They would ring the bell and cry out “here ye, here ye, here ye” to gain the crowds attention. Sometimes the announcement may be something that was going on at the local market. But often times, they would be making a declaration on behalf of the king.

In our passage today, we can relate John the Baptist to somewhat of a town crier. We will see him preaching a message to people. A message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins on behalf of God. A message that would point people to Jesus Christ. What we need to get out of this passage today is that we have this same message today that others need to hear.

Christians as a whole have become somewhat apathetic to other peoples need for the gospel. We say things like we want Jesus to come soon, but the reality is that we have this message to give the world that changes people. We complain about the state of our world, but we have this message that changes people. We complain about the state of our community, but we have this message that changes people. How often do we tell people about Jesus? We don’t have a problem usually talking about Jesus to people that are already Christians. But what about people who need the hope of a savior. Are we telling people about Jesus and the hope that we find in him. I am convicted about this in my own life. How can we say that we want to build the kingdom and impact our community if we are not sharing the gospel message with lost people? Most of the people that would identify themselves as Christians would tell you that they want people to be changed by the gospel but the reality is that they could care less if it happens from the gospel. As long as people act right, their soul doesn’t matter.

But we have this message. This message of hope. The same message of hope through repentance that John was preaching. We need to prioritize this message in our world today. We need to be pointing to Christ.

1. We Point to Prepare

We begin our passage today with Mark quoting some things out of the Hebrew bible. This is what we today call the Old Testament.

Mark 1:2–3 ESV

2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, 3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’ ”

Mark is talking about John the Baptist that is mentioned in the verses that follow this. He says he is quoting Isaiah, but he is quoting Malachi as well. Malachi 3:1 “1 “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.” But then he quotes Isaiah 40:3 “3 A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

In our house, just like most of yours probably, we have this debate every single day. What’s for supper. And it seems like we turn it into a game almost. I think that if someone wanted to open a successful restaurant, all they had to do is name the place, “it doesn’t matter”. It doesn’t matter is usually what we decide on. Often times, we end up maybe going somewhere to sit down and eat or take out. And this is because it is easier. We don’t have to worry about cooking and cleaning the kitchen if we just go somewhere. But we also cook at home sometimes too. And when we do that, we have to prepare. We find a recipe that we want or think of an idea of something we want to put together. We have to make a list of what we need. We go to the store to get what we need. We come home and start cutting up the ingredients. We go back to the store because of something we forgot. What I am getting at is that there is preparation that needs to happen.

The same thing needed to happen with the people of Israel for the messiah to come. They needed to be prepared. And they needed someone to prepare them. God is speaking through the prophets and saying that he is going to send a messenger before them who will prepare the way for the Messiah. This messenger is John the Baptist. If you are not familiar with who John is, John is actually related to Jesus. Their mothers were pregnant around the same time and, in the book of Luke, when Mary was pregnant with Jesus and walked in the house of Zechariah and Elizabeth, John leaped in his mothers wound from being in the presence of Jesus. John was set aside by God even before he was born to be someone who proclaimed the Messiah.

Where we are at in history, we are around 400 years after the closing of the Old Testament. God had used the prophets in the past to tell about the Messiah. Now, Jesus had been born and was a man now. God was now using John to prepare the people for Jesus.

Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Jesus is the Lord. John is preparing his way. As we continue we will see how he is preparing the way. But what does he mean by making his paths straight? If you are traveling on a path, you want it to be a smooth and safe path. If there is someone who is ahead of you and they are clearing things and getting it ready for you, then it should be an easier path. You would want a path that is straight. One that doesn’t have a lot of twist and turns in it. One that is level, smooth, and straight. So that is how Mark is describing what John is doing. He is preparing the way. And he does that by pointing to the one who will come.

For us, we have a different perspective than John the Baptist. Jesus has come.

(Application) So how do we help prepare the way for Jesus to come into the lives of people around us.

The life that we live (words, actions, reactions to tough situations)

prayer

read and know scripture (be ready in season and out of season)

tell others about Jesus and the forgiveness that he has for people

We do these things to prepare people for Jesus.

2. We Point to Forgiveness

Mark 1:4–6 ESV

4 John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 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. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey.

You can ask my wife, I have always been fascinated with shows about people living in Alaska. For me, growing up here in North Carolina, it intrigued me about the difference in lifestyle. I love the bushcraft style of living. If it came down to it and actually had to do it, it probably wouldn’t be my favorite. But there is something unique and intriguing about these people. They live their life differently. They dress differently and eat differently. To most of our culture, they are strange.

John lives a strange life to us. He wore strange clothes and his appetite reminds us of a 5 year old who got lost in the woods. He is eating bugs and honey. He is dressed in camel’s hair. But for the people in his time, they would have known exactly why he was dressed the way that he was. He is dressed just like Elijah would have dressed. He was dressed just as many of the people in the dessert would have dressed. They would have seen him and heard the message that he was preaching and have immediately thought of Elijah. So it wasn’t exactly as strange to them. So this is who John is.

I want us to go back verse 4.

It says that John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness. Like I said last week, Mark doesn’t take time to give a backstory here. He gets right to the point and we are introduced to John as he was already doing ministry. He was baptizing people. Was he doing this for the sake of ritual? No, because there was something behind it. Mark tells us that he was baptizing them out of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This is not some kind of ritual that was cleansing people, just like our baptism is not today. This was a sort of precursor to the baptism that we have today as we will see next week. He was baptizing as a sign of repentance.

This is a word that has become less and less popular in the church. You hear me talk about it a lot here, and that is because it is the essence of salvation. It is declaring sin to be what God says it is. It is saying that sin is opposing to God and that you hate it. But just like John did, we must preach a message of repentance. Behind every great move of God, there is a consistent message of repentance that is being preached. If we want the kingdom to grow and we want to impact our community, we must continue to preach a message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. If you have been here for some time, you have seen many people come and go. Our instinct is to change how we do things to appease the ones who are leaving, maybe even preach a softer message. The message will never change. If we want to see people come to faith and then grow in their faith, we must preach a message of repentance. And continue to do it. Because repentance is not a one time event. It is a lifestyle. It means that you are constantly looking at your life and identifying sins. Gossip, anger, arrogance, pride, bitterness, filthy language, addiction. We should always be on the lookout and see the sins that are in the way of us and God and be killing our sin. Fighting temptation. And yes, this is me talking about me. The preacher does not have it all together. I struggle with sin the same as you. We all must identify sin and turn from it.

I want to take a moment and set the scene that we have here in scripture. It says he was in the wilderness. This may seem strange for us. We all know that if we have a message that we want to get to people, we need to go to where the people are. The people aren’t in the wilderness, they are in the city. Where John is at is about 20 miles outside of Jerusalem. So why the wilderness? The wilderness is of significance to the people of God. Throughout the story of the bible, the wilderness played an important role. The wilderness is where the people of God journeyed on their way to the promise land. So the people were coming to the wilderness and that is where God would us John to preach this message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

When I prepare a sermon, I try to make the points in the sermon somewhat memorable. Maybe I use alliteration, or maybe a key word that ties in with the passage. When I was preparing the sermon this week, I could have said that we are to point to repentance. That we need to show others how sin has separated them from God and they need to turn to God to find restoration. This is of course part of the gospel message. But when looking at the text, I saw Mark talk about the forgiveness of sins. And I thought to myself that it is not very difficult to show someone sin and their need for a savior. But what is often difficult is getting someone to understand that their sins can be forgiven. Maybe you have struggled with this or are struggling with this. You just don’t see how God could ever forgive you of your sins. You understand sin but you have a hard time seeing forgiveness. 1 John 1:9 “9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

If we confess our sins, God will forgive us. And if we read the text here, what are the people doing at their baptism? They are confessing their sins. Talk about discomfort. In our flesh, we absolutely do not want to do this. We do not ever want to say that we have done wrong, especially to the one that we have done wrong to. Maybe you are hearing this right now and are getting squirmy in your seat thinking that we are about to have a confession party. You can rest assured that we are not. Because it doesn’t say that they were openly confessing their sins. Are there times when we need to do this, absolutely. If I do something to someone that is a sin, I need to go confess it and make that right. But the sin in question here was not a sin towards someone else. Just as David confesses in Psalm 51:4 “4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.” We confess our sins to an almighty God who forgives us. If you are struggling with this today, know that God is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

I had said that the location was important. And that means that there is something special about where he was baptizing them as well. He is baptizing them in the Jordan. The Jordan river comes up often in the Old Testament and that is because it was the gateway from the wilderness to the promise land. So the people of Judea and Jerusalem came into the wilderness and were baptized in the Jordan. This is symbolism that they are going from the old life to the new life. From captivity to freedom. Maybe this is you right now. You have never followed through with believers baptism. You have never made that public profession as a believer that you were no longer captive but free. The baptism that you have as a believer now is not a sign of your parents faith like it would have been if you were baptized as an infant. But this is a declaring of you repenting for the forgiveness of sins. You are declaring to the world that forgiveness is possible and that you have experienced this personally. We point to forgiveness.

3. We Point to the Mighty One

John the Baptist continues his message here. The people have came to hear his message. This makes what is happening even more miraculous. People only go somewhere when they are interested so we know that the crowd that is around him is open to his message, and they have traveled a good distance just to hear the message that John is preaching. Even greater than that, the audience is a Jewish audience and they are following through in baptism of repentance. And now, John says some of the greatest words to describe Jesus. Remember, he is paving the way for the one who is to come, and we know that is Jesus. So here is what he says.

Mark 1:7–8 ESV

7 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. 8 I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

In one of the gospel accounts, they record that the crowd around John is asking him questions about who he is. He has to tell them that he is not the Messiah. He has to tell them that he is not Elijah. So they are looking at John as someone who has power. There is power in what he is saying. They are following through with baptism. But he reassure them that he is not the one they are looking for. The one who is coming is Jesus. I have 3 things in these verses that I want to point out that John says about Jesus.

a. Jesus has Might

He says that the one who is coming is mightier than he is. John was a bold preacher. He called the Pharisees a brood of vipers. His words had power. But he says the one who is coming is mightier than he was. It reminds me of a kid and his dad. John is looking at Jesus and the might that he has just as a kid would their dad.

b. Jesus has Worth

When I think of worth, I think of how we are taught to chase the American dream. We need to have a job that pays $80,000 a year, and a 4 bedroom 2 bath house, and 3 cars that are no older than 5 years a piece, and our 401k, and, and, and. Then we will feel like we have worth. But in reality it never ends. But for John, he saw what truly had worth. He said that he was not worthy of strapping up Jesus’s sandals. Because Jesus was the one that had the worth. We are not worthy of what we receive. We are not worthy of honor and praise. But Jesus is. And John saw that and was telling the people that.

c. Jesus has power

First, John tells them that he baptizes them with water. But Jesus will come and he will baptize them with something greater. The Holy Spirit. And this happens only because of Jesus giving himself up on the cross. And then he gives us the Holy Spirit.

We point to the mighty one. We point to Jesus Christ. This is what we do as Christians.

Conclusion

I have said that we point to prepare, we point to forgiveness, and we point to the mighty one, Jesus. So how do we do that?

Maybe you are here today and want to know how to be part of the family of God. Maybe you are here and have made a profession for Jesus but it was not a real one. Maybe you are struggling with some sort of sin that just seems to have taken over your entire life. The solution is the same for everyone. Repent and believe. Turn from your sin because you know that sin is what is separating you from God and come to the point where you hate sin. And turn to Jesus. Could you do that today? Can you commit your life to Jesus? Can you commit to taking the next step in your walk with Jesus. Because that is what this message is about.

How do we point to Jesus? By the display of our faith.

Baptism

inviting people of church

telling someone a gospel truth

sharing the gospel with someone (gospel presentation)

Will you commit to taking a step in your faith?