Jesus Christ, the Son of God | Mark 1:1-20

[Introduce series]

Gospel of Mark

Entire school year

Take a look at the life of Jesus

[Life books]

Just the gospel of Mark

They have these cool little comments from these characters they made to illustrate the book of Mark

We’re gonna give you three of these

CHALLENGE: Give them to your friends

We have more

Open one to Mark 1

[Scripture Reading]

Mark 1:1–20 ESV

1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 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.” 9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And when he came up out of the water, immediately 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 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him. 14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” 16 Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.

Have y’all noticed that we pretty much always judge what we hear based on the reputation of the person we’re listening to? For example, you’d probably prefer to learn acting from someone who has won an Oscar instead of someone who has only ever acted in a school play. And we do this for just about anything. Just think about it for a moment, for medical advice we trust doctors more than anyone else, for fitness tips we’ll probably go to someone like a gym trainer, we vote into office those who have the best reputation in politics. Even if our friend is just telling us a story of something that happened to them last week, if we know them to occasionally bend the truth, we probably won’t completely trust that their story is accurate. We do this with everyone. And it’s mostly good thing. We wanna get the best advice. We wanna surround ourselves with the most trustworthy people.

But here’s something strange. We often avoid asking advice from the most reliable source ever. We often distance ourselves from the smartest, most trustworthy, most reliable source in the world: God! We avoid praying to God, reading His Word, talking with other Christians. And there are many excuses we can come up with as to why. But the truth is, we just don’t have a high enough view of God. We don’t view His reputation as being that great. “I don’t need God. I’ll figure this out some other way because I’m not gonna like His answer anyway.” The truth is we need to come to a place where we have such a high view of God that He is the first person we run to; always, no mater what stage of life we’re in.

And this is why Mark, the writer of the gospel of Mark, spends a ton of time in the first half of his gospel showing us that Jesus is the Son of God. For 8 and a half chapters, Mark is going to show us who Jesus is: His identity, His authority, His nature. He’s going to show us that Jesus is the Son of God that is above all things. And in the second half of Mark we’re gonna see why Jesus came to Earth. From chapter 8 till the end of Mark, we’re gonna see Jesus displayed as the Suffering Servant prophesied by Isaiah in Isaiah 53.

And John hits this right off the bat in chapter 1. We open up the gospel of Mark with...

Mark 1:1 ESV

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

So right off the bat Mark is making it clear to us that this is the beginning of the gospel (or good news) of Jesus Christ. And as we talked about last semester the term Christ means that Jesus is the Messiah prophesied about in the Old Testament. Then He says Jesus is the Son of God.

Now something about the book of Mark is it doesn’t waste any time. It is very fast moving. So this one verse is the introduction to the entire book. The gospels of Matthew and Luke spends a couple chapters diving into Jesus’ ancestry and His birth. John decides to open his gospel with 18 verses summarizing creation and the nature of Jesus as the revealed Word of God from Heaven. Mark gives 1 sentence.

Mark 1:1 ESV

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

But that’s because Mark’s purpose in his gospel is to show us that Jesus is the Son of God through the story of Jesus’ life.

Then Mark spends the next 19 verses giving us 6 testimonies that Jesus is the Son of God.

The first testimony we see in our passage is…

1. The Prophets’ Testimony: Fulfilled prophecy (Mark 1:2-3)

In verses 2 and 3, we see Old Testament prophesies being fulfilled.

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,’ ”

These prophesies are actually about John the Baptist. John would be the one to prepare the way for Jesus. We’ll talk more about John the Baptist when we get down to verses 4 through 8 here in a minute, but I do just wanna take a minute and think of how cool it is that we see these prophesies that God gave these prophets back when the nation of Israel was rocking and we see their fulfillment 4, 5, even 6 hundred years later.

These particular prophesies come from both the book of Malachi and Isaiah.

Malachi 3:1 (ESV)

1 “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me…

Boom right out of Mark 1:2.

Isaiah 40:3 ESV

3 A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Right out of Mark 1:3.

So Mark takes a moment to show us that all these things happening prove Jesus is the Son of God because they were prophesied about in the Old Testament prophets many hundreds of years before.

Now let’s take a look at who God uses to fulfill these prophesies in John the Baptist. Our second testimony is…

2. John’s Testimony: Preparing the way (Mark 1:4-8).

Mark 1:4–8 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. 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.”

So this guy John shows up and starts baptizing people. This baptism was meant to be a declaration that the one being baptized was repenting of their sin. So they were acknowledging they are a sinful person and were asking for forgiveness for their sins. Repent is a word that means turn away from. So they were not just confessing their sin, but they were making a declaration that they were turning away from their sin and towards God because only God has the ability to forgive sin.

Now we know that just that points to Jesus being the Son of God because Jesus was the way in which God forgave sin. So this baptism was meant to point towards Jesus. God didn’t just sweep our sin under the rug, the Son of God had to die to pay the price for our sins.

In verse 6, we get a description of John the Baptist. Dude was clothed with camel’s hair, wore a leather belt around his waist, and ate locusts and wild honey. That right there makes you question what you’re willing to do for God. You set aside ten seconds of your 24 day to say a quick prayer to God? John wore camel’s hair in the wilderness. You chose to not get ice cream so you could have that money to give to the church? Homeboy was eating locusts and wild honey.

I’m not saying those aren’t good things. Just saying sometimes we can take what God has blessed us with for granted. We always have room to grow in our devotion to God.

Then John goes on to say in verses 7 and 8…

Mark 1:7–8 (ESV)

7… “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.”

That’s a pretty bold statement. John the Baptist wasn’t a nobody. In verse 5 it says people from the entire country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going to get baptized by John the Baptist in the wilderness. And Judea was roughly the size of Athens, times 9. There were about 80,000 people living in Jerusalem in Jesus’ day (which is the capital of Judea). So a lot of people knew who John the Baptist was and followed him. Yet John the Baptist says that he isn’t even worthy to strap Jesus’ sandals. Like he has a following of a ton of people, he’s willing to eat locusts for God, yet he’s not even worthy to strap Jesus’ sandals.

And He goes on to say that he can only baptize with water, but Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

I hope you’re beginning to see how just these 20 verses exalt Jesus as the Son of God. Deserving of all that we are and all that we have. Let’s move on to the third testimony we see in this passage in verses 9 through 11.

3. The Father’s Testimony: You are my beloved Son (Mark 1:9-11).

Mark 1:9–11 (NASB95)

9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee (which by the way was pretty far away from Judea) and was baptized by John in the Jordan.

10 Immediately coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens opening, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him;

11 and a voice came out of the heavens: “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.”

Jesus travels this great distance to get baptized by John. And we know from the book of Matthew that John was reluctant to baptize Jesus because he felt so unworthy to baptize him. But he finally decides to do it, and as he baptizes Jesus, the heavens open, the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus, and the Father from heaven declares that Jesus is His Son, and that He is well pleased with His Son, Jesus.

What an incredible thing! Imagine being there while that happened. This dude walks up to John the Baptist, this great prophet in the wilderness as you’re watching in the crowds. All of the sudden as John is baptizing this dude, God shows up and says, “This DUDE is God’s Son.” We’d be trying to figure out who this guy is and we’d be following Him with our lives.

And we see the Holy Spirit is part of this scene as well. Which leads us to our next testimony…

4. The Spirit’s Testimony: The descent and the wilderness (Mark 1:9-13).

The Spirit of God descends on Jesus as He is baptized; it says He descended on Jesus like a dove. That’s why you see people using a dove to describe the Holy Spirit; that comes from this passage.

Then we move on to verses 12 and 13…

Mark 1:12–13 ESV

12 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.

So the Holy Spirit just descended from Heaven and into Jesus. And immediately the Spirit compels Jesus to the wilderness for forty days. And keep in mind, Jesus was already in the wilderness. John the Baptist’s ministry was in the wilderness. So the Spirit compels Him deeper in the wilderness. So this was no vacation spot. Jesus was fasting so he was hungry, there were wild animals, Satan was tempting Him. This was a difficult time. I think it’s safe to say we would’ve complained and desired to turn back if we were in Jesus’ shoes.

Which is exactly the point of this story. If y’all remember, after the Israelites were saved from their slavery in Egypt in the book of Exodus, they roamed the desert for 40 years. And the Israelites complained like crazy. They did not trust God at all, to the point where they were saying they should go back to Egypt and be slaves again.

We are the Israelites in this scenario. We’re the complainers. We suck. But thank God that Jesus is the Son of God and was able to endure the temptation, the danger, the hunger in the wilderness for those 40 days so that He could take our place and die for our sins. Jesus did what Israel couldn’t do. He did what we couldn’t do. And then He died for our sins so that we could spend eternity in Heaven with Him.

The Spirit compelled Jesus to go to the wilderness to prove that Jesus is the Son of God.

Now we have two more testimonies before we break out into small groups. The next testimony is...

5. The Son’s Testimony: The time has come (Mark 1:14-15).

Or Jesus’ testimony. In verses 14 and 15 after Jesus comes out of the wilderness, Jesus went back to Galilee where he was before He got baptized by John to proclaim the gospel, or “good news”. Jesus said,

Mark 1:15 (ESV)

15 … “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

To understand why this is such a big deal, we need to rewind a bit in Israel’s history. Throughout the history of Israel, many prophets came through and prophesied that there would be a Messiah (or Savior) that would come and save Israel. And in the time between the Old Testament and the New Testament (which was about 400 years), Rome took over and oppressed the Israelites. So the Israelites (at this point just called the Jews) were eagerly waiting for this Messiah to save them from Rome. Now we know that the purpose for Jesus’ coming wasn’t to save them from Rome but from their sin, but that’s what they were expecting in their selfish minds.

And in these verses Jesus was telling everyone, “Hey you know the time that you’ve all been waiting for for generations? To finally be saved by the Messiah? The time has come. But I’m not here to save you from Rome, I’m here to save you from your sins. Repent of your sin and believe in this good news.”

Jesus was saying to the Jews that they don’t have to wait any longer, the time is here, He’s the guy! Yet another testimony that Jesus is the Son of God.

Then we see our sixth and final testimony that Jesus is the Son of God…

6. The Disciples’ Testimony: Making fishers of men (Mark 1:16-20).

Mark 1:16–20 (ESV)

16 Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon (Simon is Peter by the way) and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John (the writer of the gospel of John, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, and Revelation John) his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.

It is really easy to just gloss over these verses thinking, “Well Jesus was just gathering His disciples, not really big deal.” This is a big deal and it continues to prove to us who Jesus is as the Son of God.

Again, let’s imagine being in this story looking on as bystanders. Peter and Andrew are fishing. You see them out there fishing all the time because you know they’re fisherman. It’s their jobs. But this day was different. This guy walks up to Peter and Andrew’s boat and says, “Leave everything and follow me. I will make you fishers of men.” And they get up out of the boat and immediately start following Jesus.

What? They just left everything to follow this dude they just met? The gospel of Luke even tells us in chapter 5 that they had fished all night the night before and didn’t catch anything. When Jesus showed up He told them to cast their nets one more time and their nets started breaking with how many fish were in the net. The catch filled two boats. And Peter, Andrew, James, and John left it all to follow Jesus. James and John left their father by himself with his hired servants.

They left everything with reckless abandon to follow after Jesus. When they saw who Jesus was, nothing in their life came close to comparing to how great Jesus was. So much so that they didn’t even think about it. They immediately left to follow Jesus.

And that right there is the purpose for the 5 stories in these 20 verses we just read. Showing us that Jesus is the Son of God; deserving for us to leave everything to follow Him.

So I wanna ask you tonight, what are you willing to give up to follow Jesus? Are you willing to sacrifice comfort, security, you desires, maybe even who you’re friends with for Jesus? For the sake of spreading the gospel.

We know the 12 disciples weren’t perfect. We’ll see them screw up quite a lot as we continue on in these chapters, but even they were willing to sacrifice their livelihoods to follow Jesus.

Jesus is worthy. He’s the Son of God. How will you respond to how great He is?