The Gospel Begins with Jesus
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Intro
We are going to begin a sermon series in the gospel of Mark.
I’m looking forward to sitting in this book with you for a while and getting to stare at Jesus.
The big theme we’ll be tracing all year is
The king, the kingdom, and us
As I said, we’re going to get to closely examine Jesus, the king. The Christ.
We’re going to see his humanity. When he gets tired, angry, and sad.
We’ll see his divinity. His power and authority.
We’ll see his how his story ends in defeat, but really his defeat is God’s victory over sin and death.
We live in a world where we are told to look at almost anyone else but Jesus, but we want to be those who behold Christ.
Our world today says the most important thing is getting to know yourself. But the Bible says the most important thing is getting to know Jesus because in Jesus we get to know God and when we get to know God, then and only then can we know ourselves.
We’re going to learn about the kingdom of God
How well do we know the kingdom?
We talk a lot about the gospel, and rightly so, but Jesus talks about the kingdom. It’s wherever God reigns.
How well do we know the kingdom?
Do we know the ideologies of the kingdom as well as we know our own political ideologies of the day?
Reading Mark will help us see the kingdom and learn about what it’s like when God comes.
We’re going to learn about us
In Mark, you Jesus, you have the kingdom, and then you have people.
You have people who follow Jesus - the disciples.
They follow Jesus and are comically bad at it.
We’ll learn in a moment that Mark wrote this gospel likely from the testimony of Peter - one of Jesus’ closest disciples. And it seems like Peter does not hold back showing at how imperfect the disciples were.
You have people who rejected Jesus.
Ironically, the people who knew their Bibles the best. The religious leaders.
The ones you’d expect to have the best Jesus-goggles shockingly saw him and saw red. They wanted his blood early on.
You have people who run to Jesus.
The sick, the social outcasts, the failures, women, those below the poverty line.
One commentary I read was those in Mark who are deemed faithful are the desperate.
If you are desperate this morning, or find yourself desperate any time in the next 9 months, remember that Mark is for you and he says run to Jesus.
If you are like me and often find yourself not desperate, it is perhaps a curse of the age of Costco that we can think we’re totally fine as long as there’s food in the fridge and money in the bank.
Mark urgently wants us to know that there is so much more to life than money, success, and trying hard to be good enough for God.
We must be desperate for Jesus.
The king, the kingdom, and us
This morning we begin in Mark 1, and the gospel begins with Jesus
We’ll see the gospel
predicted in Scripture
identified by the Father And the Spirit
announced by the Son
Body
1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Let’s walk through these first few words
Beginning
Reminiscent of Genesis 1:1
In the beginning
Mark is telling us this is a new creation kind of story
John starts his gospel the exact same way, but then expounds in a different way
Mark has this sense of urgency
He’s like that teacher that walks in the room, doesn’t dilly dally but just says, “Let’s begin!”
He has good news for us and he doesn’t want to waste our time.
Some authors start books with looooong introductions about nature, about random characters that are out and about, and you don’t really know what in tarnation is happening until 50 pages in.
Not so with Mark.
Church history agrees that Mark wrote this gospel through the eye witness testimony of Peter, one of Jesus’ closest disciples.
And if you know Peter, he doesn’t mess around. He gets to the point. He talks a lot. He has a sense of urgency to him, even to his own detriment.
Realizing that this week helped me humanize this book even more. We can hear Peter’s tone in this book.
Gospel
The gospel is good news, or simply ‘news.’
It’s where we get the term evangelical because it’s the Greek word euangelion.
We are to be gospel people who always begin with Jesus.
It’s a word, like beginning, that links us to the Old Testament.
9 Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!”
It’s a word that means ‘good news, God is here!’
Think Gandolf coming over the mountain. We see him blazing white. He’s here! Good news! Good news for the good guys, not so much for his enemies.
Jesus
The name we came for.
One name people are famous - Ichiro, Cher.
Jesus was actually a very common name, but this name is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew name Joshua which means, “YAHWEH is salvation.”
So to say the gospel begins with Jesus is to say the gospel begins with God saving.
Christ
Not Jesus’ last name.
It’s a title.
We could read “Jesus the Christ.”
Christ means anointed one.
You anointed someone with oil because it was showing God has chosen them for a specific service to God and others
Aka chosen one
That’s what the Christ is. Chosen one.
The problem is Jesus comes up against false ideas of what the Christ should be like.
Even false ideals held by his own disciples!
In one of the most famous moments of the story, Peter himself will pull Jesus aside in Mark 8 and say, Jesus you can’t die, you’re the Christ!
And Jesus will say - get behind me Satan, you’ve got it wrong.
Son of God
The son of God in Mark means a divine one.
Someone with a unique relationship with God.
God will anounce it himself later in chapter 1, the demons recognize it throughout Mark’s gospel, Jesus will teach it later in chapter 12, reveal it directly to the High Priest when he’s on trial in chapter 14, and then most famously, the Roman centurion will confess it at Jesus’ crucifixion in Mark 15.
I like stories that are about me, or I can relate to, but this story, this gospel begins with Jesus.
Who he is.
He is God come to save us.
The King.
The Divine Son of God.
What would change if we believed that the answer to all the world’s problems - political violence, hatred, racism, fear, inequity of wealth, anxiety, depression, suicide, the list goes on - had nothing to do with getting people to change their behavior?
What would change if we remembered that what God wants most for us this morning is not to do something?
But to know someone?
The good news begins with him.
Like the hero in the movie riding over the hill, coming to save the day - the gospel begins with him. Jesus.
He is our message, he is our hope, he is our king.
TRANSITION: This story doesn’t just begin out of nowhere.
It was predicted in the Scriptures
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,’ ”
Before Jesus shows up in the right side of the Bible, he is predicted in the left side of the Bible, what we often call the Old Testament or the Jewish holy writings.
But what is also predicted about the coming of the Christ is that a messenger would come and prepare the way for him.
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.
What do you do when you want people to know about an event? You put up a sign! There will be a messenger who will act like a sign letting people know the main event is coming.
Isaiah the prophet put it this way:
3 A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
In Isaiah 40, we hear that a voice will come from the wilderness to prepare the way for the LORD, or YHWH, Israel’s unique God.
It doesn’t say Jesus, it says God’s personal name.
But who will show up on the scene in a few verses? Jesus! So Mark is saying, dear reader, when you see Jesus, you are seeing YHWH.
So who was the one that will prepare the way for YAHWEH?
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.”
John was incredibly famous in the day when Mark wrote this gospel
Mark wrote this gospel in the late 50’s AD
And John was doing his thing in the 20’s and early 30’s.
So it’d be like people talking about Billy Graham.
And Mark is saying - “If you believed Billy Graham was from God, he was! And his whole point was to show that he wasn’t the guy, he was just pointing to the real event!”
John was not the Christ. He was the messenger of the Christ.
What did John do?
He Baptized!
He led people in spiritual renewal getting them ready for when the real story begins.
Like a trainer who gets an athlete ready for a game to begin, John got people spiritual ready for the real start.
Mark wants us to see that this is a new beginning - a new promised land.
In the Old Testament, God rescues Israel from wandering in the wilderness and a man named Joshua comes and leads them across the Jordan.
Now Israel is coming out to the wilderness and crossing the Jordan where they will meet a man named Joshua - or in Greek Jesus.
A new beginning is happening.
What makes John truly great is not the massive crowds he gathered
The fame he had
But it’s that despite his fame he know he was not the truly famous one.
Despite his greatness, he knew he wasn’t actually that great.
He knew the gospel did not begin with him.
“Someone greater is coming. Don’t waste your time getting excited about me.”
You think baptism in water is cool? Wait until He comes and immerses you in the living water of the Spirit of God.
The gospel begins with Jesus, and not with us.
John got that.
What if we got that?
What if we were less consumed with getting people to look at us, and rather we spent our time, energy, and thoughts on getting people to look at him?
What if we said with our words and our lives, don’t look at me, look at him!
TRANSITION - The Scriptures predicted the gospel would begin in Jesus, but is that the only way we know?
No, he was also identified by the Father and the Spirit.
The King Identified
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.”
This is like that scene in the movie where we find out who the chosen one really is
Their identity is revealed and now we know who the hero of the story is. Right here.
Verse 9 begins in those days
So Mark is grounding us historically in the time when John’s revival was happening, likely in the summer of AD 30.
Jesus - YAHWEH saves - comes from Nazareth of Galilee
In other words - completely out of left field.
In John’s gospel, the disciple Nathanael says, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”
The gospel begins with Jesus, and often in the places we least expect.
I had a conversation with a friend this week who described God working in someone’s life that I least expected.
And I thought, wow, what if God starts something there, where I totally wrote him off?
Jesus starts off in Mark being baptized
Not to cleanse him from sin, but to identify himself with the people of Israel.
In order to save us, he became like us in every respect. He stands with us to save us.
Jesus went where we went, but where we failed, he succeeded.
Jesus is immersed in the Jordan River by John
And coming out John sees this portal into a parallel universe opened.
And the Holy Spirit comes down on Jesus like a dove.
Notice the overwhelming presence of the Holy Spirit throughout these 15 verses
He’s everywhere
Which reminds us that if the gospel begins with Jesus, it begins with the Holy Spirit, too.
This voice then speaks
From heaven - does that make it louder? Probably? I don’t know.
You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.
Mark said Jesus was the Son of God, and here God himself affirms with an audible voice - and the Spirit affirms with his presence coming down - that Jesus is the Son.
The Son the Father deeply loves.
Parents you love your kids. And it’s an intense kind of love. It shocks you sometimes.
It’s that and more from the Father to the Son.
But it’s more too because it echoes Abraham’s love for Isaac in Genesis 22, which hints at how like Isaac, Jesus will be sacrificed.
In verses 9-11 we see the king identified by the Father and the Spirit.
It’s Jesus
He’s God’s son that he loves
The son who will die to save us.
Is it any wonder Mark begins with such urgency -
The gospel begins with Jesus!
You have to know him - the precious son of God sent to save us!
I want you to know - God loves you. He has come and he is for you!
TRANSITION - Where do we go from here?
The Gospel Announced by the Son
12 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.
God’s Spirit
Immediately - a favorite word of Mark’s, he uses it over 3 dozen times.
Drives him - doesn’t invite him, doesn’t suggest maybe if he’s available next Saturday - he forces him out into the wilderness.
Again, Jesus is identifying with Israel in order to save them and just as Israel came out of the water and went into the wilderness, so Jesus went into the wilderness.
And Jesus then experiences what Israel experienced in the wilderness - temptation.
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.
Why temptation?
To identify with his people.
Israel spent 40 years in the wilderness. So Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness.
Jesus understands temptation. He knows what it’s like to feel the pull away from God.
And, to fight evil.
If the gospel begins with Jesus, it means that there REALLY IS good news because there REALLY IS evil in the world.
The last few weeks in our country and our world have been devastating. Charlie Kirk’s death, school shootings, the murder of the Ukrainian refugee woman.
We’re seeing evidence of the demonic. Demonic forces at work.
Our problem is we demonize people and forget that there are real demons at work. Our enemy is not people. It’s Satan.
And Jesus came to beat him.
The gospel begins with Jesus and it begins with him battling evil, and eventually beating it forever on the cross.
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.”
John was arrested
Hint hint, Jesus will be arrested, too.
The first thing Jesus does
Is not get a spa treatment after a hard 40 days with Satan.
He plunges back into no-man’s land - Galilee - and preaches.
You’d expect him to go to Jerusalem and say “Boom baby! I’m the king!” But instead of chasing stardom, he becomes a nobody, a small-town preacher.
The gospel begins with Jesus and with him preaching.
What would we expect him to say when Mark writes he began preaching the gospel of God?
“I died for your sins! I rose again!”
But he doesn’t say that. How?
Jesus says
The time is fulfilled
The kingdom of God is at hand
Repent and believe the gospel
How can Jesus preach the gospel before he goes to the cross?
Again, gospel is not just a New Testament word.
It comes on the scene before the cross and even before John the Baptist.
Here’s something the prophet Isaiah said about 600 years earlier
7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” 8 The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice; together they sing for joy; for eye to eye they see the return of the Lord to Zion. 9 Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted his people; he has redeemed Jerusalem. 10 The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
The gospel begins with Jesus, and it was promised long before.
The gospel is the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel - I am coming.
I am king.
My kingdom is here.
That was the great hope of the Jewish people is God’s forever kingdom coming to earth. This place and reality where God is king.
Get excited, I am here to comfort you.
I will show my strength to the world. You will see my salvation.
And the gospel that Jesus preaches here in Mark 1:15 is that these promises are coming true in him.
The first thing we see about the kingdom is that it’s wherever Jesus is! Jesus says the Kingdom has begun because I am here.
So he tells them to do what?
Repent and believe
Repent - change your mind.
Turn from sin and turn to God
Turn from thinking you know how the world goes, and learn to see the world how God sees it
Turn from thinking you know who is right and who is wrong, and let God define good and evil
Reconsider the goals and purposes of your life and ask if they align with what God says matters? Things like self-sacrifice, loving your enemies, and loving God?
And
By believing
To believe is not to take a leap of faith and go against your better judgment
To believe is not to neglect the facts
It’s to look around, to see the evidence, to think critically and say, “God is here because Jesus is here.”
And this repent and believe message was not just the message then, it’s the message preached by Jesus’ disciples after his time on earth, and it’s the message the Holy Spirit is speaking even now as we read these words.
The king is here. The kingdom is here. And then there’s us. How will we respond?
The Gospel Begins with Jesus
The good news begins with Jesus.
Our world is fascinated with news.
24/7 we are bombarded with what we are told is news.
Some news lasts more than 2 weeks, but hardly any.
This news - the good news of Jesus - has lasted more than 2 weeks, it has lasted 2,000 years and will last into eternity.
It’s good news because it isn’t about us, it’s about a good God who came onto the scene to show he is passionate to save us.
It’s kind of shocking to realize the story of the world begins with someone other than me.
I begin my day and end my day thinking about me.
And usually in the middle I think about me, too.
Every Disney movie says the ultimate aim of your life is finding out who you really are
And everyone will live in harmony and happiness when we look at me and accept me as I am.
Everything will be right in the world when I buy that Truck that’s advertised in the commercial break.
Everything will be right when things are right to me.
But this selfish view of the world is actually the problem itself. When I get fixated on myself, I hurt others, and my life only gets worse. And so on and so on, for 8 billion people on the planet, for thousands of years.
But the Bible says the story begins when we realize it’s not about us.
We were made not to find ourselves, but to find him.
And that’s when the good stuff starts.
When we realize we are truly loved. Not just for the stuff we put on social media, but for who we are.
When we take our eyes of ourselves and look to him.
The King. The Son of God.
The one who came to show us that God is here and he has come to save us.
The story is not about us, and yet it demands a response.
What would it look like this morning to repent and believe in light of the reality that the story does not begin with me and my life, but with him and his life?
What would it look like to turn from selfishness and pride and putting myself at the center of everything and putting him at the center of everything?
What would change about how we see the story of our world?
That it’s not about competing political ideologies, but at the center it’s about Jesus, who came to defeat evil itself, and now is calling the world to follow him and follow him to love our enemies.
What would change about how we see relational conflict?
That if the story is about Jesus, who died for his enemies, then maybe we can do likewise.
What would change about our fears?
If the gospel begins with Jesus, our fears shrink. We do not bear the weight of the world because Jesus actually did on the cross.
He is stronger than our fears and we can run to him for help.
What would change about our aims in life?
If the gospel begins with Jesus, then the best thing for us is not getting the thing - more money, more happiness, more health (all good things - because when we chase the things we never are actually satisfied.
If the gospel begins with Jesus then we ought to begin with putting him at the center of our lives, as opposed to anything else.
As this gospel says, it starts now.
