Pleasing the Father

Open your Bibles with me to Mark chapter 1

This is our second week in our series on the Gospel of Mark

Last week, we talked about Mark’s desire for us to meet Jesus Christ, the Son of God, through the reading of His Gospel

We met John the Baptist, the prophet who came in the spirit of Elijah

We talked about how John pointed us to our need for Jesus, and how our relationship with Him can start

confessing our sins and repenting from them

Seeking Jesus’ forgiveness and accepting His Kingship

Receiving the Holy Spirit, which happens the moment you decide to follow Jesus.

And we talked about Baptism and what it represents.

The difference between John’s Baptism and Believer’s Baptism

God’s command for us to be baptized.

This morning, we are going to talk a lot about one of the earliest and most important concepts in following Jesus, and the is our obedience and dependence on God.

How do children show that they love and respect their parents?

They express love verbally.

They give physical affection.

They might give gifts, even as simple as art that they make for them.

They are kind and polite in their words and responses

But one of the greatest single expression of love and respect that a child can give to their parents is obedience.

A child’s obedience shows appreciation and thanks for their parents

Obedience shows trust that the parent knows & wants what is best

Obedience shows love and a desire to please their parents

Obedience shows submission and honor to a parent’s will over their own

In short, a child’s obedience is a proof in the pudding. It is where the rubber meets the road in the action of loving their parents.

If you are a follower of Jesus, you are God’s child, and God says the same thing is true about our relationship with Him

John 14:15 CSB

“If you love me, you will keep my commands.

1 John 5:3 CSB

For this is what love for God is: to keep his commands. And his commands are not a burden,

We don’t obey God to make Him love us-He already loves us. We obey God’s commands because we love Him.

So, let’s jump into our passage together. We’re going to start right where we left on, which happens to be verse 9 of chapter 1, and as we read together, I invite you to stand with me in honor of the reading of God’s Word:

Mark 1:9–13 CSB

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. 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. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well-pleased.” Immediately the Spirit drove him into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and the angels were serving him.

Pray, invite people to sit.

Jesus demonstrated His love and dependance on God the Father through His obedience.

and

Today, Jesus wants us to love Him by obeying and depending on Him.

In today’s passage, we get a front row seat to watch Jesus live out what obedience and dependance on God should look like.

And in through this, Jesus both reveals to us truth about Himself and 4 steps that we can follow Him in as we obey and depend on God.

Let’s look at them together, starting in verse 9

Mark 1:9 CSB

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John.

If we want to walk in faithful obedience and dependance on Jesus, the first step is to

Step out in faithful obedience.

Jesus is the only human being in History that didn’t need to confess sin or repent from them.

Jesus didn’t need to be baptized, so why was He?

He was baptized as an act of submission and obedience, showing His dedication and surrender to the Father

He was giving us an example to follow

In choosing to die to Himself, He was foreshadowing His death and resurrection our Baptism immolates

You and I need to follow His example in our surrender to obeying Him

Luke 6:46 CSB

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do the things I say?

Remember, we don’t obey God to earn His love, we obey Him because We Love Him

We obey Him because He is our King.

If you call God your Father, if you call Him your King, but you don’t obey Him, is He really acting as your Father and King?

I know that it seems overly simple that the first step in obedience is to step out in obedience, but…

There is huge difference between saying you will obey and actually doing it.

Jesus told a parable about this once in Matthew 21:28-32

He said a man had two sons that he told to go work in his vineyard.

The first one say Nope! Not going to do it. But when dad left, he had a change of heart and went out to work.

The second said Sure thing, pops! But then, we ran off to go do whatever else he could think of to do.

And He asks the question, “Which of the two obeyed the Father?”

And this is the point. Too often we say we will do something that we never do.

If you are going to live in loving obedience to the Father, the only way to start is to actually begin trying to obey.

How is God calling you into obedience right now?

For someone here today, it may be to take the first step of surrender to Jesus

Maybe you have to confess your sins and repent. Maybe you have yet to receive the forgiveness and grace that can only be found in Jesus, and He is calling you to Himself and you need to answer.

Or, maybe you need to follow the Lord in Baptism

If Jesus, the Son of God, could submit to the Father in Baptism, you who are His follower need to as well!

Or, if you’ve been walking in Christ for a while, Jesus is calling you to go deeper in knowing and sharing Him, and you have yet to step into that calling.

If you are in Christ, you don’t need my suggestions, because I know that God is already telling you what you need to do, and we’ll talk about that more in a moment.

Let’s look at verse 10:

Mark 1:10–11 CSB

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. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well-pleased.”

The second step to living a life in loving obedience and dependance on God is this:

Be filled with the Holy Spirit and Focused on His Kingdom

To a first century Jew, these verses would clearly point to the coming of God’s Kingdom and the Messiah.

Where verse 10 reads that the heavens were torn open, that phrase is only used in one other place in Scripture, in Isaiah 64

Isaiah 64:1 CSB

If only you would tear the heavens open and come down, so that mountains would quake at your presence—

This passage is a prayer and a prophecy for this moment, when the presence of God would be physically present on the earth. It is a plea for God to forgive His people, secure their prosperity, and bring justice to the wicked.

Returning to our text, where it says that the Spirit was descending on Him, echoes the promise of God’s loving delight in the Messiah, on whom He promised to put the Holy Spirit on in Isaiah 42:1

Isaiah 42:1 CSB

“This is my servant; I strengthen him, this is my chosen one; I delight in him. I have put my Spirit on him; he will bring justice to the nations.

The Jews were watching and waiting for one on whom God’s Spirit would descend, and here it was happening.

As our passage continues into verse 11, a voice calls from heaven “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” referencing the prophecy of Psalm 2:

Psalm 2:7 CSB

I will declare the Lord’s decree. He said to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.

Together, what we have in verse 10-11 is a clear moment when God The Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are together in a moment of sweet communion together at the Baptism of Jesus.

Jesus is filled and wrapped in the love of God completely

His focus is clearly and sharply fixed on His purpose, the Kingdom of God

As followers of Jesus, His Kingdom is our purpose as well.

When you make Jesus King in your life, you become a citizen in His Kingdom

When you invite Him into your life, and He dwells inside of you, You become the territory of His Kingdom

As a followers of Jesus, the growth of His Kingship in you and the spreading of the His Kingdom to others is the primary focus of our lives.

If you are a follower of Jesus, you have the Holy Spirit with you. And yet, we must choose to allow Him to continually fill us

Too easily, we start trying to do things in our own strength, and when we do that we rob ourselves of the Spirit

The Holy Spirit is the power of God alive and working in our lives.

If Jesus, the Son of God, needed the presence of the Holy Spirit, we need Him all the more.

Maybe you are here this morning, and you’ve yet to experience the Holy Spirit because You’ve yet to believe

If that’s you, I pray today would be the day you choose to follow Jesus

I pray that today you would begin to experience what it is like to be filled with the Spirit.

For those of us that are followers of Jesus, let this morning be a time that we seek the Spirit to fill us.

But let it be that this becomes a life-long pursuit, that we could live constantly seeking His presence.

Let it be that as He fills us, we allow Him to keep the growth of His Kingdom in us and in the world around us as our primary focus and purpose in life.

We need the power of the Spirit and our focus on the Kingdom to walk in obedience and dependance on God.

Let’s look at the next step, in verse 12

Mark 1:12 CSB

Immediately the Spirit drove him into the wilderness.

This is a key verse for us to consider and understand. It is the Holy Spirit that drove Jesus into the wilderness.

The wilderness is a desolate, dangerous place

I enjoy hunting. Since we came to Idaho, I’ve been on a few hunts.

I’ve yet to get my first Elk, but it will happen in time.

But a rule that we have in hunting is that preferably you never go alone,

and if you do go alone, you tell others where you are going and how long you’ll be gone, so that if you don’t come back they can find you.

In the wilderness, things like a hurt ankle could be life or death if there is no help

In Scripture, the wilderness is a dangerous place, but it is also where people often draw closest to God.

The Holy Spirit took Jesus out into the wilderness so that He could prepare for His ministry

His time in the wilderness was not about the troubles He would face, though we’ll get to that in a minute.

His time in the wilderness was so that He could be alone and draw close to the God the Father.

For those of us who follow Jesus, we have nothing to fear in the wilderness, for it is in the wilderness that we feel the closest to God.

You and I don’t live in the wilderness everyday, but our lives can sometimes feel like it.

Crazy schedules, crazy traffic, stressful jobs, hard relationships,

In all of the crazy, sometimes it can be hard for us to stay on the right path, and this is why we need to take our third step with Jesus. If you want to live a life of loving obedience and dependance on God, you must

Spend time alone with God and let Him drive you.

You may not get to go spend 40 days alone with God, but you can have a daily quiet time.

You can spend time reading the Bible

You can spend time praying

You can sing spiritual songs or sit before Him in silent meditation

When we get alone with God, He changes everything.

He changes our thought patterns

He changes our priorities

He reveals sin

He prepares us for sharing the Gospel with others

He encourages us

When we get alone with God habitually, the Holy Spirit climbs into the driver’s seat of our lives and He sets our direction.

Let’s look at the last verse together quickly:

Mark 1:13 CSB

He was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and the angels were serving him.

It is not a coincidence that Jesus faced trials and temptations in the wilderness.

Jesus had spent the 40 days in the wilderness fasting and praying, putting His complete dependance on God, and our enemy couldn’t stand that.

When you strive to be with God and to follow His will, Satan always gets in the way.

In the Matthew 4:3-11, the Bible tells us more about these temptations from Satan.

In Matthew 4:3-4, he tries to use Jesus’ hunger to put His needs over God

In Matthew 4:5-7, he tries to twist Scripture to make Jesus rebel against God in an act of testing

In Matthew 4:8-11, he offers Jesus the power and wealth of the world if He will worship Satan over God.

In each of these cases, Satan tried to use scripture to trick Jesus into sinning.

Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh. He is God the Son, He is every word that has come from the mouth of God.

If Satan would try to use scripture against God Himself, you and I need to know our Bibles inside and out, and we need to do what Jesus did.

Our fourth step in following Jesus in a life of obedience and dependance on God is this:

Cling to Jesus in your temptations, trials and troubles, and for all that you need.

The temptations of Satan weren’t all that was facing Jesus in the wilderness.

This verse tells us there were wild animals that could rip Him apart.

We know a thing or two about wild animals in Idaho, don’t we?

The elements

He had no tent from REI!

Even if it wasn’t a temptation, Jesus was assuredly hungry 40 days with no food

Most of us have a hard time fasting for a whole day, much less 40, but in the wilderness there wasn’t any food.

And of course, there were the temptations that we just talked about.

But did you catch the last part of the verse? The angels were ministering to Him

God was taking care of Jesus.

God was providing

All the shelter He needed

All the protection He needed

He was His spiritual food

He was His defense against Satan (He used the Word of God! And He was prayed up from time alone with God.)

God provided everything that He needed.

You and I can turn to God for everything.

James 4:7 CSB

Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Matthew 6:33 NASB95

“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

God will be your fortress. He will be your defender. He will provide for you all that you need.

So, what you and I need to do is to step out in obedience, seeking His Spirit to fill us everyday and keeping His Kingdom as our top priority.

We need to spend time alone with God as desperately as we seek food and water, and cling to Him in the troubles we face.

And when we live in this kind of faithful obedience and dependance on Jesus, we will not be disappointed because He is all that we need.

An altar is a place for making sacrifices and laying down offerings to God

This morning, let the place where your sitting be an altar to God

Maybe today is the day that you decide to follow Jesus, and you are ready to lay everything down to follow Him in obedience and dependance this morning.

Or Maybe you are a follower of Jesus for a long time, but you’ve slowly been picking up burdens that aren’t yours to carry

Sin habits you struggle to let go of

Needs that you can’t stop focusing on

Desires that fight to take God’s place in your life

But this morning, you can lay these things down at the altar in the wilderness. You can have a moment alone with God, right here in this place, and a renewed walk of obedience and dependance can start right now.

Christian and I are going to lead a song of reflection

I invite you to pray and spend time talking to Jesus, or to let Him lead your heart to worship

But in all things, let’s go together to cling to Him

PRAY