The Inauguration of the King

Mark 1:9-13

If you brought your bibles turn with me over to the Gospel of Mark chapter one. The Gospel of Mark chapter one and in a moment we are going to read verses 9-13 of the Gospel of Mark chapter one.

We are continuing our study in the Gospel of Mark and this morning we have come to two very significant events in the life of Jesus; His baptism and temptation.

The tittle of this message is the inauguration of the King because that’s what these events represent. Christ is the inaugurated King who proved Himself to be the Messiah for us.

Mark 1:9–13 KJV 1900

And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan. And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness. And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.

(Pray)

January 20th of this year was a very special day in America. We inaugurated the 47th President of the United States. It was day of great celebration with a lot of fanfare.

It does not matter who you voted for because we respect the office of the Presidency. So, it was a day of celebration.

I remember the very first time I watched a Presidential Inauguration. It was in 1980. I was in Junior High School and Ronald Reagan was elected President.

I remember how it marked a new beginning. A new era for our country. It gave people hope and was a sign that things were changing. We were coming out of the cold war and people were anticipating change.

 The same thing is true in our passage this morning. Jesus is the King who is being inaugurated by God. He is ushering in a new era in the economy of God. He is ushering in the era of grace. It is a sign of a new beginning, of hope and peace.

 That’s the significance of the events we read in this passage. That is how important the baptism and temptation of Jesus are. They represent the inauguration of The King. Who proved Himself for us, and He did it in three significant ways.

First He proved it by:

I. His Obedience in Baptism Vs 9

This is the first appearance of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. We have already been introduced to Him in Vs. 1.

We know this is the Messiah the Son of God. But now Jesus takes center stage and Mark begins with His baptism.

Notice Vs. 9, “And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan.”

The phrase “in those days” is telling us that this is taking place at the height of John’s preaching and baptizing.

In fact, John has probably been baptizing for about 6 months at this point. So, day after day, week after week there are people coming out to him from every direction, and then one day here comes Jesus.

 There are a number of things that are very different about the baptism of Jesus from everyone else in this story. For example, He was from Nazareth in Galilee.

If you look back at verse 5 you see that others were coming out to John from the country of Judea and Jerusalem. Nazareth was a very little place in the middle of nowhere.

Nazareth is famous to us because we know the story. We’ve heard of Nazareth, so it’s not obscure to us, but to the people of Jesus day, Nazareth was an obscure little village of Galilee in the very northern point of Israel.

It was never mentioned in the Old Testament and never mentioned by Josephus or any of the writings of the Rabbi’s.

In fact, Nazareth was a place with a bad reputation, the Jewish people had contempt for Nazareth.

When Phillip began following Jesus in the gospel of John chapter one, He went to his brother Nathaniel and he said, “we have found the Christ, Jesus from Nazareth.” What did Nathaniel say? Vs. 46 “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

So, the Jewish people didn’t think very highly of Nazareth. Yet here is our Savior, the Son of God and He is coming from a place of poor reputation and contempt.

The people from that area spoke a different dialect. If you remember from Peter’s denials; when Christ was arrested, and Peter was following close behind Him.

Matt. 26:73 says, His accent gave him away and the bystanders said surely you are one of His followers because you sound like you are from Galilee.

So, Jesus baptism was different because of where He was from. But, it was also different because John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.

The people who came to John were confessing their sins and being baptized for forgiveness. Jesus did not have to do it. He did not have anything to repent for. He didn’t need to be forgiven.

2 Corinthians 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

In fact, Matthew 3:14 tells us that John tried to prevent Jesus from being baptized. He said, “I have need to be baptized by you and you come to me.”

The I and the you in Matthew 3:14, are emphatic meaning John was continuing to try and stop Christ from doing it. In other words, he was doing everything in his power to talk Him out of it. Jesus says, “permit it at this time to fulfill all righteousness.”

So, why did the sinless Christ have to be baptized by the sinner John? We are told it was to “fulfill all righteousness.”

In other words, it was the right thing to do. Because Jesus came to do the will of the Father and He was obedient to the will of the Father every step of the way.

Can you say that today? Can you say that you fulfill all righteousness? I wish I could say that about my life. I wish that I could say I bring glory to God in everything I do but I can’t. But I praise God that Jesus can and He did.

 You see the sinless Lamb of God submitted Himself to a baptism for sinners. Because it for shadowed the fact that He would soon submit Himself to a death deserved by sinners.

His baptism looked forward to the cross and was a precursor for what He would do. He identified with us by being submerged under the water, and soon He would be submerged under the wrath of God for your sin and for mine.

You see Jesus was on a mission. It was a mission of obedience and the first step was His baptism.

He teaches us a great lesson here. He teaches us that obedience has nothing to do with convenience. Sometimes it means doing the right thing even if it is not something required of you. That’s what it means to fulfill all righteousness.

As a Pastor I cannot tell you how many people have come to me that were sprinkled as a child and want that to be accepted as their public profession of faith, and really, it is just a matter of pride that prevents someone from being obedient to God, and identifying with Jesus in Baptism.

  I heard a story this week about a husband and wife who were planning a trip to the Holy Land. The husband said, “wouldn’t it be great to stand on Mount Sinai and shout the Ten Commandments? And his wife said, “wouldn’t it be better to stay home and actually do them.”

We are obedient to God when it is convenient for us. We share our faith when there is nothing threatening about it. We read our bibles when we are at church on Sunday. We pray when we have time, and think about it, at least for a couple minutes.

What God wants from us is to set aside our lives and be with Him. That is what it means to be sanctified. It means to be set apart or made holy for God’s purposes.

There are two main ways sanctification takes place in our life. 1. We are positionally sanctified. This happens instantly at the moment of faith when a believer is declared righteous before God.

2. We are progressively sanctified over time through the work of the Holy Spirit as a believer pursues holiness through scripture, prayer, and fellowship. The goal is that we would live according to the will of God and grow in our relationship and service to Him.

The point is; He wants us to be bold enough to step out in faith, and do what He has commanded us to do. To learn to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Jesus is the inaugurated King who proved Himself to be the Messiah for us by being obedient in baptism. The next thing I want you to see in this passage is; Jesus proved Himself by;

II. His Witness from Heaven Vs. 10-11

There are two witnesses from heaven that declare this to be the Son of God.

Notice Vs. 10-11, “And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

There are two witnesses that come down from heaven and Jesus is empowered by the Spirit and He is acknowledged by the Father.

It is important we understand, when Jesus came up out of the water it was symbolic of Him coming up out of the grave. The water couldn’t hold Him.

The cross they hung Him on couldn’t hold Him and the tomb they laid Him in couldn’t keep Him and on the third day He rose again. Everything we see taking place at His baptism is symbolic of that.

 We are told in Vs. 10, that coming up out of the water, He saw the Heavens opening. That doesn’t quite do justice to what we are reading.

This word for “opening” Is the same word that was used in Matthew 27:51 when Jesus was crucified, and the veil in the temple was torn open from top to bottom.

That’s the picture in this scene.  The heavens are being torn apart violently, and the Holy Spirit descends upon Him. It is a visible witness of the anointing of God coming down to empower Him for His mission.

 Isaiah 42 :1 says the Messiah would be the anointed one. He says, “Behold My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put my Spirit upon Him He will bring forth justice to the nations.” Just as God’s Word said in Isaiah the Spirit of God came down and rested on Christ.

     Jesus would say the same thing Himself in Luke 4 :18 the first time He went into the synagogue to teach. He sat down and said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor to heal the broken hearted and to set the captives free.”

 When Jesus came up out of the water the Spirit came down. In fact, every time Jesus goes up the Holy Spirit comes down.

I can’t help but think about how before He ascended into heaven and He told the disciples to go to Jerusalem and wait for the promise of God. And then after He ascended into heaven, on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came down in the sound of a rushing mighty wind.

He does the same thing in our life. When Christ is raised up in our life the Holy Spirit comes down and indwells us and empowers us. He gives us strength so that we can overcome the world and persevere against the sin in our life.

If you find yourself struggling lift up the name of Jesus and watch as your praise empowers you to overcome.

 There was a second witness that day. When Jesus came out of the water, He was acknowledged by the Father.

The Father said, “This is my beloved Son in You, I am well pleased.” God acknowledges Christ because He wants everyone to know His deity. He wants them to understand who this is.

 He wants us to know He is equal with God (Phil. 2:6). He wants us to know He is eternal with God (John 1:1). He is the image of God (2 Cor. 4:4), and He is the radiance of God (Hebrews 1:3).

He wants us to know that this is my Son and when you see my Son, you see Me. So, all three members of the Trinity converge at once in this moment, and He is empowered and acknowledged for His mission.

God’s program is the summing up of all things in Christ. God’s program is really pretty simple. His agenda is to bring everything, everywhere, every how under the authority and the dominion of Christ.

Matthew 28:18 “And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.”

Have you surrendered to His authority today? Have you been empowered by the Spirit and acknowledged by the Father that you are a child of God?

Jesus is the Inaugurated King who proved Himself for us by being empowered by the Spirit and acknowledged by the Father.

III. His Victory in the Wilderness Vs. 12-13

Notice the beginning of verse 12. It tells us He was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness.

You see God the Father had been waiting for this moment. From the very beginning, at the fall of man in the garden Eden, when Satan defeated Adam and divided man from God.

God was waiting for this moment, now it was time and Jesus goes on the offense. The Spirit drives Him out to prove who is in charge.

 The wilderness is a desolate place that stretches from the Dead Sea westward across the country. It represents death and desolation. There is no food there. There is no fellowship there. There was nothing there but Satan, the enemy of God and man, and all that good in the world.

And that’s where Satan wants to confront us. He wants to confront us when we are isolated. When we are separated from God and God’s people.

When we are weak and vulnerable. He wants to confront us when we are hungry and thirsty for more out of life and tempt us to find our satisfaction in something other than God.

It is in those moments when we need to focus on Christ the most. That’s when we need to turn and trust Him in prayer and fellowship and service.

 Jesus was sent into the wilderness to be tempted. To be tempted means to be tried, tested or proven. But, there is something very different about Jesus being tempted and our temptation.

We are led by an inherited sin nature. James tells us, we are tempted when we are drawn away and enticed by our lust. But Christ was sinless. He wasn’t led by lust. He has no lust.

 Jesus was fully man and fully God. And the Bible tells us He was tempted in all manner the way that we are.

He was tempted so that He could identify with us. He was tempted so that He could sympathize with us. He was tempted so that He could intercede for us.

But understand Christ was never going to lose this battle. Because if He had given into this temptation He would have ceased to be God. Because God can not be tempted by evil.

So, I love how brief Mark’s account of the temptation of Christ is, because really there is nothing more to be said. I love that he doesn’t go into stories about stones, and temples and worshipping Satan. Because really, this was no battle at all.

Our temptations are battles, but for the Son of God this was a fore gone conclusion that was decided all the way back in the book of Genesis 3:15, and God was just waiting for this moment.

 Also, it’s no accident that Jesus was tempted for 40 days. This was the sovereignty of God just as Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.

And there is no doubt that Jesus had this on His mind, because He quoted Deuteronomy 6 and 8 when defeating Satan.

So, it tells us that He was thinking of their experience. The only difference is the children of Israel ate food from heaven and Jesus ate nothing, only the Word of God.

40 days is a motif that runs throughout the Bible. We see it In the days of Noah, God caused it to rain on the earth for 40 days.

When God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, Moses was on the mountain of God for 40 days. When Elijah fled from Jezebel, He had nothing to eat for 40 days. Probably the most famous is the story of Goliath coming out to taunt the armies of Israel for 40 days.

     We all know how that story goes. David takes his sling and he goes over and chooses five smooth stones from the river. But, he only needs one. And he runs at Goliath and he slings his stone and he strikes him right between the eyes and he slays the giant.

that is a picture of what takes place in the wilderness of temptation. Jesus slays the giant of our life. He conquers the enemy.  He defeats Satan and by doing so, He defeats sin and death for us.

He wins the battle that Adam lost in the garden and becomes the champion of man, our redeemer. And He asks us to put our trust and confidence in Him.

Conclusion

Jesus is the inaugurated King who proved Himself for us. He proved Himself by being obedient in Baptism. He said that He came to do the will of the Father and that is exactly what He did.

Every step of the way in His life, He was on a mission to fulfill all righteousness. Even though He knew the results would be the cross. Even though He knew the end would be death and sacrifice. He did it for us.

  He was empowered by the Spirit and acknowledged by the Father. There were two witnesses that came from heaven declaring His divinity.

The Spirit came down and anointed Him for His mission and God the Father wanted everyone to know that this is my Son, and that He is loved.

And He was victorious in the wilderness. He defeated Satan and therefore defeated sin and death for us. He proved Himself to be God’s champion for mankind.

And because of His victory, His death, burial and resurrection mean that we can be forgiven. That we can be saved and spend eternity with God in heaven.

 That is the significance of His baptism and temptation. His ministry and His mission all began here, at the inauguration of the King.