An Introduction to Mark

Mark 1:1

If you brought your bibles turn with me over to the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Mark chapter one and in a moment, we are going to read verse one.

Today we are going to begin a study in the Gospel of Mark, but I want to give you a brief introduction first.

     It is important that you understand that there is only one gospel. We have four different gospel writers: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And each one gives you an account, from their perspective of the gospel.

However, there is only one gospel. The Apostle Paul told the church at Galatia, “If I or an angel from heaven preach to you any other gospel, let him be accursed.” So, we have one gospel given to us from four different perspectives.

     Matthew wrote his Gospel story to a Jewish audience. Luke wrote his account to the Greeks. John to the churches, and Mark’s Gospel was written primarily to the Gentiles.

It was the first of the four Gospels written and is believed to have been used as a source or a reference by Matthew and Luke.

     We believe it was written because of the growing opposition to Christians in Jerusalem. Many people believed the destruction of the city and the temple was imminent, and it happened in 70 A.D, just as Jesus predicted that it would, and They believed this was a sign of Christ’s return.

     So, Mark thought that it was important to get this information out, that he writes this story. But whatever the motive for the writing of the Gospel of Mark, it shaped the traditions in a way that told the story of who Jesus was. That this was the Son of God.

     Mark is a fast-paced Gospel, and it is the shortest of the four accounts. There are no stories of a baby in a manger, No long genealogies to study. It is just a hard-hitting fast-paced.

That is probably because it was written from Rome, and the Romans lived a fast-paced lifestyle much like we do today.

You do not see the Jewish traditions stories like you find in Matthew and no medical human interest stories like you find in Luke. But Mark is quick and to the point, and his gospel probably has a greater impact on its readers because of that.

     Mark himself is an interesting character because he went from being a deserter to being a converter. We read in the book of Acts 15 that he caused dissention between Paul and Barnabas because he becomes home sick on their first missionary journey.

The next time Paul and Barnabas started to go out again, Barnabas wanted to take John Mark, but Paul didn’t and the two of them parted ways.

     Mark went from being a disappointment to Paul to being a protégé of Peter. In 1 Peter 5:13 Peter calls him his son in faith.

Tradition has it that Mark’s gospel is a record of what Peter preached and taught him. And there is some validity to that, Eusebius a Christian historian wrote in the third century that Pappias, an early church father and contemporary of the Apostle John told him that Marks gospel was a record of what Peter preached.

So, we believe this to be the Gospel of Mark as handed down by Peter.

     But the whole story of Marks life is an example of the gospel. Because as much as he had messed up and deserted Paul and Barnabas when it came to serving God and spreading the gospel. He was used by the Holy Spirit as one of only four men to write the story of Christ. That He is the Savior of the world.

So, Mark’s story itself is a story of redemption. And that is what this Gospel is about, and that is what we are going to study today, The Good News of Jesus and His unique relationship to man and God.

Mark 1:1 KJV 1900

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;

(Pray)

Our passage this morning serves as a tittle for the letter itself. Because it tells us what it is going to be about. It tells us; it’s about the beginning of the gospel.

It’s about Jesus and His unique relationship with mankind because He is the Christ. And It tells us about His unique relationship to God as His Son.

     When we think of the Gospel we think of the passion of Christ. We think of those final three days that we celebrate every Easter; the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus and we call that the gospel.

But Mark saw the entire story of Jesus as the Gospel. The Good News of Jesus and His unique relationship with man and God. I want to study this today to help us understand the importance of the gospel to our life. Three unique truths about the Gospel.

I. The Gospel had a Beginning. Vs. 1

Mark says this is the beginning of the Gospel.

The moment Jesus arrived on the scene the good news began.

 However, Mark teaches us a deeper truth here about the beginning of the Gospel. It began in the mind of God long before the incarnation. Look at Vs. 2-3.

Mark connects the beginning of the good news about Jesus with the prophecy of Isaiah. There is a promise of God we find throughout the Old Testament that He would send His messenger ahead of the Messiah to prepare the way for the gospel.

“Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me” (Mal. 3:1)

“The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Is. 40:3)

The point is the Old Testament and the New Testament all serve one purpose, to point us toward the gospel of Jesus Christ!! The significance of this cannot be overstated.

God knows exactly what He needs to do to get the gospel through to man. He needs a forerunner, and He promised that and He planned that. The same thing is true in our lives today. God used someone in your life and mine to prepare the way for the Gospel, and He uses us to prepare the way in other people’s lives.  Now, that does not diminish our responsibility to respond and obey.

What Mark is teaching us here is; the moment Jesus comes into our life the good news begins. Life can never be the same. Christ invites us to find our satisfaction in Him, and not from the things of the world.

He invites us into a relationship with God that gives us peace and hope throughout our lives despite the turmoil of the world around us. He invites us into something different than what the world has to offer.

     We have diminished that message today. We have made the Gospel message into just being about a method that gets us to heaven. We have made the gospel message into just being something that allows us to spend eternity with God when we die.

And while I am so grateful for that aspect of it. The Gospel is so much more than that. It is something that affects every decision I make in life.

    The problem is; many Pastor’s teach that the Gospel is about going to church and changing your moral behavior, and they make being a Christian a works- based religion, but, that’s not the Gospel.

     If I could live a life that is pleasing to God by the things that I do, Jesus would not of had to come and die for my sin. I could have just lived according to the law. I could have just kept the Ten Commandments. But all of those things were just meant to teach us that we need Jesus.

     The Gospel is that Jesus did for me what I could not do for myself. Isaiah 64:6 says, that we have all become unclean, and our righteousness is as filthy rags before God.

Romans 3:23 says, All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That means that the best works of my life, the things I brag about and think I deserve credit for, do not score me any points with God. That is what He expects me to do.

But what earns me credit is when I repent and trust in Jesus.

     The Bible teaches us that every sin, every thought and every word ever spoken, is going to be judged one day. And you will either stand and bare the burden of your sin, or it will be credited to Jesus and what He did on the cross.

     God is both the Judge and the justifier. That’s the gospel. That God sits on the throne and passes the death penalty on you, and then because you know Jesus, He gets up and comes around and climbs into the electric chair on your behalf. That’s the good news.

     We have been set free from the burden of this life. We have been set free from trying to live up to a standard that cannot be achieved. That’s why a true Christian can never be self-righteous. They know they are no good. And we are humble followers of Christ.

     I was reading the other day about the battle of Bataan, during WWII in the Philippines. How 10’s of thousands of American troops surrendered to the Japanese. They had spent months fighting without any rations or supplies, completely cut off from the world.

They had no choice. What happened next is known as the Bataan death march. Where the Japanese marched them over 65 miles to a Pow camp in extreme heat. And for five days, they didn’t eat or drink, and many were randomly killed, just to set an example for those who tried to escape.

     In the camp despite it being illegal by the worlds standards they were forced into labor by the Japanese and beaten and tortured. As the Americans began to gain control of the Philippines, the Japanese army would move the prisoners back toward Japan.

But at one point there were 500 prisoners who couldn’t be moved, because they were too weak to walk.

     These men were hopeless. They were just waiting to die. They knew that the Japanese to kill them at any moment. Because if the Americans attacked, they would kill them. If the Japanese fled, they would kill them. So, they had no hope.

     Then in 1945 a group of 100 American soldiers under General McArthur came up with a plan to rescue them, but it wasn’t going to be easy the camp was thirty miles away behind enemy lines. And the Japanese had burned everything down so they could see if anyone was coming.

Every bush, every tree had been burned. To make matters worse there were 100 Japanese in the camp and thousands of Japanese soldiers just across the river.

     Then in the middle of the night, they sent an American fighter jet over the camp and it acted like it was in trouble. It was spitting and sputtering like it was going to crash to distract the Japanese.

Meanwhile, the American soldiers crawled on their bellies into the camp and carried two or three of the P.O.W’s out at a time and put them on ox carts and hauled them 30 miles back to safety.

 That’s the story of the Gospel. Men who have no hope are rescued. That’s the picture of what God does for us. How can I be saved? I cry out to the Lord to save me. That’s what the Gospel is all about.

So, Mark tells us, the gospel had a beginning,

II. The Gospel is about a person Vs 1

This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

it is about a person. A very unique person who has a very unique relationship with us.  His name is Jesus, which in the Greek means Joshua, and Joshua is translated as “Jehovah saves.” So, the name of Jesus literally means salvation.

     In Matthew chapter one in the famous story we celebrate every Christmas, an angel appears to Joseph, and tells him not to worry about taking Mary to be his wife, because the child she is carrying is of the Holy Spirit. And in verse 21 he says, “she will bear a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”

     In the Gospel of John, as John the Baptist was talking with two of his disciples, he looked at Jesus and said, “behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Acts 4:12 says, “There is no other name given among men by which we must be saved.” It’s only in the name of Jesus that we can have salvation. He is the Lamb of God. He is the one who saves His people from their sins. People will always say, “what about someone who has never heard of Jesus.” It’s only in the name of Jesus that we can be saved.

     We call Him Lord, or we call Him Christ, but that is His tittle. That is His relationship to us. He is the anointed one. In the Greek that means “Christ.” In the Hebrew that means “Messiah.”

     The anointed one means He was someone special who came to do something special. And that’s who Jesus is. Throughout the Old Testament we get hints of them looking for Him. Isaiah talked about one who would come from the root of Jessie, the suffering servant who would be wounded for our transgressions. Daniel talked about the Ancient of days, the coming of a Messiah who would be a prince.

     In the New Testament when the Pharisee’s come to John the Baptist and say, “who are you” He says, “I am not the Christ.” Why? because they were looking for Him.

     But then, when He showed up on the scene, they didn’t recognize Him. They didn’t think He was special, and they killed Him because, He wasn’t what they expected Him to be. The question is will you recognize Him when He shows up in your life? Will you reject Him because He is not who you expected Him to be?

     My brother always makes this joke about me. He says, “Oh, I see you found Jesus, I didn’t know He was lost.” And I don’t say anything, but I can’t help but think to myself “Jesus wasn’t the one lost, I was, and we don’t go looking for Him. We would never do that. He comes, and He finds us.

     If we want to understand how God feels about us, ask yourself this; how would I feel if I lost my child?

     I heard a story this week about a Six -week- old baby kidnapped from a Chicago health clinic. Her parents were an emotional mess for a week. They couldn’t sleep and they couldn’t eat. All they could think about was their baby. Then they got a phone call. An abandoned baby was found in a local church. And it turned out to be their daughter.  She wasn’t hurt and she was doing well. Imagine the joy that family felt to have that baby back in her mother’s arms.

     But that’s how Christ feels about us. We are the ones lost, and He is looking for us to bring us back to Him. (Lost coin)

So, the gospel is about Jesus and His unique relationship with us.

III. The Gospel is of the Son of God Vs. 1

This speaks of His unique relationship with God the Father.

     He is the Son of God, and that is a tittle given to Him to emphasis His deity.  We see it used over and over again throughout the gospels, but especially in John’s writing, (John 3:35) The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hands.”  (1 John 1:3)  “What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also that you may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.”

     There are a lot of people today that say, Jesus never claimed to be God’s Son. That this was something that was made up by the early church at the council of Nicea, but (John 5:18) “For this reason the Jews were seeking to kill Him, because He was not only breaking the Sabbath, but also, was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.” They wanted to Kill Him because He claimed to be the Son of God.

     If someone doesn’t believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and has equality with God, they can look at the things He did and know that He wasn’t a mere man. The virgin birth, the resurrection, the miracles He performed, all testify of who He was that He was one sent by God with the full authority of God Himself. C.S Lewis said it like this.

     “I am trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else He would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about Him being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to”

     So, what does this mean to us? Well, if Jesus was and is the Son of God, then the implications are enormous; It means that God exists, and we can know Him through Jesus. If Jesus is God, It means that He would rather die than to live in eternity without us. If Jesus is God, It means that Jesus is alive, and He is here with us right now. It means He has shown us the way of peace and purpose in life.

Conclusion

     So, as we come to this study in the Gospel of Mark. Remember, that the gospel had a beginning. For Mark it was the moment Jesus arrived. But it also has a beginning in our life. The moment we are found. The moment we are rescued. The moment we ask Christ to come and make a difference in us, the Gospel begins.

     The Gospel is also about Jesus and His unique relationship with us. He is our Savior, our Messiah. He is God’s anointed one sent to restore our relationship with God and set us free. He is the head of the church and the one we worship.

     And the Gospel is about His unique relationship with God. He is the Son of God. And that is more than a tittle. It is the very nature of His being. He carries the full weight and authority of God in the world, and we can put all of our faith, all of our hope and all of our trust in Him.