Dan Werthman: Thank you, James and worship team.
Dan Werthman: I'm glad to be saying these words, and they're words that I'll be saying every Sunday for quite some time: please open your Bibles to the gospel of Mark.
Dan Werthman: We are beginning a new series this morning in the gospel of Mark, the second book of the New Testament.
Dan Werthman: If I was to give this series a series title-- actually, if there was a theme that I think Mark had for writing his account of the life and ministry of Jesus, I think it would be this:"amazed by Jesus".
Dan Werthman: Don't let that word pass you by,"amazed".
Dan Werthman: Some of your versions may use"astonished", but the word has an impactful meaning.
Dan Werthman: It means to be overwhelmed with wonder.
Dan Werthman: It means to be awestruck.
Dan Werthman: And over a dozen times, as Mark recounts what he has heard from the apostle Peter of the teaching and the ministry of Jesus, that's his response.
Dan Werthman: The people were amazed by Jesus.
Dan Werthman: I've got just a few of the ones listed up there on the screen.
Dan Werthman: Chapter One, Verse 22: when he begins to teach, he's teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum, and the people are amazed at his teaching, by what they're hearing coming from this man.
Dan Werthman: In Verse 27, he does something they've never seen before: he heals.
Dan Werthman: He casts out an unclean spirit from a man, and Mark records they were all so amazed, so struck with wonder.
Dan Werthman: Chapter Two, Verse 12, he heals a paralytic man.
Dan Werthman: Everyone was amazed, Mark records.
Dan Werthman: Chapter Five, Verse 20, he casts out a demon from a demonized man in Gerasene, and all the people were amazed, Mark records.
Dan Werthman: Chapter Six, Verse Two he is teaching in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth, people who are not predisposed to listen to him, a hometown boy, and Mark records,"and many who heard him were amazed." Chapter Six, 51, he walks on the water on the Sea of Galilee, and his disciples, Mark records, were completely amazed.
Dan Werthman: We could go on and on with all of these references, but time and time again, Mark can think of no better word to describe how people responded to what they were hearing from Jesus and what they were seeing from his ministry than the word"amazed".
Dan Werthman: Let me ask you, when was the last time you were amazed by Jesus?
Dan Werthman: Maybe for some of you, you've never been amazed by Jesus.
Dan Werthman: Maybe for some of you, you know, Jesus is just this person you hear about when occasionally you come to church or you hear cultural references to him, but nothing that would move you to that place where you'd be struck with wonder.
Dan Werthman: Maybe for some of you the last time you were amazed by Jesus is all the way back at the point where you first encountered him as Savior and Lord, and yes, that turned your world upside down at that point.
Dan Werthman: But a lot of time has passed, and you haven't been amazed by Jesus in a long time.
Dan Werthman: Maybe for some of you it's here and there, but you've been going through a dry spell, and it's been a long time since you've found any sense of amazement by Jesus.
Dan Werthman: I have chosen this gospel.
Dan Werthman: I wanted to do a gospel.
Dan Werthman: I've chosen it for a couple of reasons.
Dan Werthman: One, it's the shortest gospel.
Dan Werthman: It's condensed.
Dan Werthman: He makes his points very directly.
Dan Werthman: Secondly, it's written to non-Jewish people like you and me, so you know we can get through some of the cultural references that might slow us down in Matthew.
Dan Werthman: But I think I've chosen this really because this is what I think we need.
Dan Werthman: This is what I need.
Dan Werthman: I need to be amazed by Jesus.
Dan Werthman: And I think maybe many of you need to be amazed by Jesus.
Dan Werthman: Maybe some of you for the first time, maybe some of you afresh.
Dan Werthman: You need to be amazed by Jesus.
Dan Werthman: Who is this man who writes this gospel?
Dan Werthman: Who was Mark?
Dan Werthman: Well, we were first kind of introduced to him outside of his gospel in this, the 12th chapter of Acts.
Dan Werthman: In verse 12 of Acts 12, we see a reference to Mark.
Dan Werthman: He is the son of a woman named Mary.
Dan Werthman: Mary is a wealthy woman who apparently owned the large home in Jerusalem where the disciples gathered together, at least early in the church's history, and he's referred to there as one who is also known as John, or some of your versions may refer to him as John Mark.
Dan Werthman: The next time we see him is in that same chapter of Acts 12, in verse 25: Barnabas and Saul, who also becomes Paul, those two apostles, they think so highly of what they see happening in young John Mark's life That they invite him to go on to become a member of their missionary team on their first missionary journey.
Dan Werthman: And they take him along with them to serve with them on that missionary team.
Dan Werthman: They go to Cyprus, and then the plan is to go up to Asia Minor after Cyprus, modern-day Turkey.
Dan Werthman: And when they arrive at the Turkish coast, at the city of at that time Purdah, Mark deserts them, Mark fails, Mark runs back to his mother's house in Jerusalem.
Dan Werthman: It is a ministry failure on the part of this young man.
Dan Werthman: And that failure, by the way, had a ripple effect in the ministry of Barnabas and Paul.
Dan Werthman: Barnabas wanted to give Mark a second chance, and Paul disagreed.
Dan Werthman: Paul said,"He had his chance.
Dan Werthman: He has failed.
Dan Werthman: He is done." And so they split, and Barnabas took Mark and went one direction, and Paul took Silas and went another direction, but you can sympathize a little bit with Paul's point of view.
Dan Werthman: I mean, the man failed.
Dan Werthman: Maybe you can relate to Mark and his failure.
Dan Werthman: I know I can.
Dan Werthman: Maybe you've been at a place where God has given you some ministry opening, some ministry responsibility, and in the flesh you have, you have dropped the ball.
Dan Werthman: You've walked away from it.
Dan Werthman: You have blown it.
Dan Werthman: Maybe you, like Mark, at that point and people like Paul telling you,"You're done.
Dan Werthman: You had your shot.
Dan Werthman: It's over," maybe you doubted yourself.
Dan Werthman: Is there anything further that I can do?
Dan Werthman: I know I've had a Mark experience early in my ministry and Christian life.
Dan Werthman: But here's what I love about the New Testament picture of Mark: you think that Mark was done in his failure, but God loves to restore us.
Dan Werthman: God loves to use us once we've been broken and humbled by our failure.
Dan Werthman: In fact, there's a way that I believe that God can only really begin to use us when we've been broken, when we've been humbled by our failure, and that's exactly what we see evidence of in Mark's life.
Dan Werthman: The next time we see him show up in the New Testament is a reference by Paul, the one who was done with Mark, who thought his failure was disqualifying.
Dan Werthman: But in 2 Timothy Chapter Four, Paul is writing from a Roman prison, and he is lonely, and he wants encouragement, and he wants support.
Dan Werthman: And who does he think of to ask Timothy to send to him?
Dan Werthman: Only Luke is with me.
Dan Werthman: "Get Mark.
Dan Werthman: Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is a great help to me in ministry." He has come full-circle.
Dan Werthman: God has allowed this young man to become broken and humble, and now he has restored him to ministry.
Dan Werthman: Maybe you're here this morning and you've had a John Mark experience, and maybe you're at that place where you have failed and you wonder,"Is God done with me?
Dan Werthman: Am I sidelined?" Let Mark be an example to you that what God wants to do is shape you through that failure.
Dan Werthman: What God wants to do is do that beautiful kind of brokenness in your life, that humbling work in your life, so he can use you in a way that he could never have used you if you hadn't failed in the eyes of the world.
Dan Werthman: Mark also had a close relationship with the apostle Peter.
Dan Werthman: We see this, by the way, as Peter refers to him in 1 Peter 5:13 as"my son", and I believe that's where we get the gospel of Mark from.
Dan Werthman: I believe it's Mark's recording of Peter's account of his time with Jesus.
Dan Werthman: I draw that from-- there's an early church father, somebody in the First Century involved in the church in a leadership position.
Dan Werthman: His name was Papias, and he writes that Mark was Peter's recorder, that he wrote down what Peter remembered of the things that he saw Jesus do and heard him teach.
Dan Werthman: So Mark was with Peter for some time.
Dan Werthman: He was writing down all these accounts, and my theory is he compiled those, and that's what we have in the gospel of Mark.
Dan Werthman: We have the life and ministry of Jesus largely through the eyes of the apostle Peter.
Dan Werthman: Those eyewitness eyes as recorded by Mark, his transcriber.
Dan Werthman: Well, that brings us to our text today.
Dan Werthman: We're going to look at the first eight verses, and again, I encourage you to have your paper Bibles open or your Bible apps on and follow along as we go verse-by-verse through the gospel of Mark.
Dan Werthman: Remember, this is not just a man's words.
Dan Werthman: This is God giving us his divine revelation through the Holy Spirit, through the instrument of this man named Mark.
Dan Werthman: Mark One, Verse One:"The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:'Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way, a voice of one crying out in the wilderness,"Prepare the way for the Lord! Make his path straight."' John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
Dan Werthman: And the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were flocking to him, and they were baptized by him in the Jordan river as they confessed their sins.
Dan Werthman: John wore a camel hair garment with a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey.
Dan Werthman: He proclaimed,'One more powerful than I is coming after me.
Dan Werthman: 'I am not worthy to bend down and untie the strap of his sandals.
Dan Werthman: I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.'" So as we get into this text today, again, I want to come back to that theme, that, really, what should be our series title:"amazed by Jesus".
Dan Werthman: I want, I desire, I am seeking a fresh experience of Jesus, and I hope you are, too.
Dan Werthman: I hope in these coming weeks that that you become amazed again by Jesus, overwhelmed by wonder for who he is and what he did and what he has done for you.
Dan Werthman: Can we pray even as we go forward?
Dan Werthman: Lord, I pray, I pray first of all for myself.
Dan Werthman: You know how much I need a fresh experience of Jesus, and I pray for the brothers and sisters here, Lord, the ones who know Jesus and the ones who do not yet know Jesus.
Dan Werthman: I pray as you open your word through this gospel account that we would be overwhelmed with wonder once again, that as we hear Jesus teach, as we look through the eyes of Peter and see what he did, it would have a profound, overwhelming, astonishing impact upon us, and that we would not be the same.
Dan Werthman: We pray this, that Jesus would be lifted up and glorified in our lives and our church.
Dan Werthman: Amen.
Dan Werthman: Well, I believe these first eight verses reveal that Mark is amazed by Jesus.
Dan Werthman: And I see several points where I think that is drawn out.
Dan Werthman: First, I see that Mark is amazed, as he opens this gospel, by who Jesus really is.
Dan Werthman: That's in the first verse.
Dan Werthman: Before I get there, how does Matthew introduce Jesus?
Dan Werthman: Matthew, if you read his gospel, introduces Jesus as the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Dan Werthman: And if you're coming from a Jewish perspective, that's very powerful, and that's very needed for you to hear the link between Jesus and David and Abraham.
Dan Werthman: John, if you read John's gospel, John introduces Jesus as the word.
Dan Werthman: The word made flesh.
Dan Werthman: The word that was there at creation.
Dan Werthman: And especially if you come out of the Greek culture, and you're coming from the philosophical bent that John writes to, that is very impactful.
Dan Werthman: But if you're like you and me, where we're not from a Jewish background, and we may not necessarily think philosophically, I think this is the powerful title.
Dan Werthman: I think this is the powerful identification of Jesus, in Verse One:"This is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God." This is Mark's favorite title for Jesus.
Dan Werthman: He's going to use it over a dozen times throughout this gospel.
Dan Werthman: Jesus is the son of God.
Dan Werthman: Now, don't be confused by that.
Dan Werthman: We think"son", and we think a son's relationship to a father, to a parent, and we may attribute some inferiority to that, like the father is superior, the father is the one who has birthed the son with the mother, and so that somehow makes the son lesser or inferior.
Dan Werthman: But that is not the understanding here.
Dan Werthman: We need to look at this through the eyes of the people that Mark originally wrote to, in that time and that culture.
Dan Werthman: And I think we get a picture of that in John Chapter Five, Verse 18, how people at that time heard that phrase, that claim that Jesus is the son of God.
Dan Werthman: The religious leaders are in this particular passage, John 5:18, and what we see in this brief glimpse-- I'm not giving you the whole account-- is these religious leaders are murderously enraged.
Dan Werthman: And what are they enraged by?
Dan Werthman: By Jesus claiming to be the son of God.
Dan Werthman: Why did that fill them with such rage that they actually wanted to kill Jesus?
Dan Werthman: Because when they heard that, John tells us, they understood that that was Jesus claiming making himself equal with God.
Dan Werthman: That's the meaning of"Son of God" in the eyes and the ears of the original audience that this was written to.
Dan Werthman: The Son of God is a title that identifies Jesus as the heavenly eternal son who is co-equal with God the father.
Dan Werthman: The writer of Hebrews-- just one more reference on this-- the writer of Hebrews picks this up.
Dan Werthman: He also gives us this true sense of who Jesus is as the son of God when he writes in Hebrews 1:8.
Dan Werthman: But of the son, God the father says, of the son,"Your throne, Oh God--" he calls the son God--"Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,and a righteous scepter is the scepter of your kingdom." What is God the father saying?
Dan Werthman: God the father is saying of God the son, Jesus the son, that he is co-equal.
Dan Werthman: He is the second person of the Godhead.
Dan Werthman: He is the second person of the Trinity.
Dan Werthman: He is the one that has been given the scepter to rule.
Dan Werthman: He is the one that has been given authority to grant life, to grant spiritual life.
Dan Werthman: If you are a Christian, you would not be unless the authority had been given to Jesus to make you his child.
Dan Werthman: He is the one to whom the authority has been given to pronounce eternal judgment.
Dan Werthman: He is the one that determines whether you will spend eternity in heaven or eternity in hell.
Dan Werthman: He is the one who's been given the authority that will be clear all over the earth one day as he rules undisputedly over all.
Dan Werthman: And here's the amazing part of this for us sitting here today: because Jesus is the son of God, because he's not something lesser, he is so great that he can save us, that he can grant us eternal life.
Dan Werthman: If he was something lesser, like many of the cults preach, a created being, an angelic being, we wouldn't need him.
Dan Werthman: He could not save us, he would not have anything to meet the desperate spiritual condition that we are in.
Dan Werthman: Mark is amazed by who Jesus really is as the son of God, and so should we be.
Dan Werthman: Secondly, Mark is amazed by God's eternal plan to save us.
Dan Werthman: And now, give me a minute to unpack this for you, but let me just sum it up right now by saying that if you know Jesus as savior and Lord, that did not begin at the moment you prayed a prayer or some work was done in your heart; that began in eternity.
Dan Werthman: That began before the foundation of the world, when he chose you in Christ, and he has been unfolding it all through time.
Dan Werthman: That's what the Old Testament is all about.
Dan Werthman: It's about the unwrapping, the unfolding, of God's eternal plan to save you.
Dan Werthman: And so we can only understand what Jesus came to earth to do when we see how it's the fulfillment of this eternal plan, this great plan that God has been unrolling since the beginning of time, that God has been making more and more clear through the progress of the Old Testament, and it bubbles up in the prophets.
Dan Werthman: That's what we see in Verse Two.
Dan Werthman: In Verse Two, Mark is actually quoting the prophet Malachi.
Dan Werthman: He doesn't give Malachi credit here, but Malachi 3:1 is where the phrase comes:"Behold, I will send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me." That is God speaking to Israel, saying,"I am getting ready to save you.
Dan Werthman: I'm going to send one who's going to be the forerunner, Who's going to go ahead and is going to get you ready for me to come and save you." And by the way, it's not just for you, ethnic Israel.
Dan Werthman: It's not just for you, nation of Israel.
Dan Werthman: It is through you and through the one that I am going to send that I'm going to extend my salvation to all nations and all people.
Dan Werthman: So God was already promising to come to earth and save us through the prophets in the Old Testament.
Dan Werthman: And he promised specifically he was going to send one who would be a preparer, a forerunner.
Dan Werthman: Isaiah has more to tell us about this.
Dan Werthman: Isaiah, who Mark also quotes here, tells us about this forerunner.
Dan Werthman: In Isaiah 43:"He will be a voice of one crying out,'Prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness.
Dan Werthman: Make straight a highway for our God in our desert.'" That's what Mark quotes in Verse Three.
Dan Werthman: Isaiah goes on,"Every valley will be lifted up.
Dan Werthman: Every mountain and hill will be leveled.
Dan Werthman: The uneven ground will become smooth.
Dan Werthman: The rough places a plane." Why is God doing all this?
Dan Werthman: So that the glory of the Lord will appear, his salvation, his saving work.
Dan Werthman: And all of humanity, not just Jews, all of humanity will see this together.
Dan Werthman: And here's the rub: neither Malachi nor Isaiah knew who that forerunner would be.
Dan Werthman: Neither Malachi nor Isaiah nor any other prophet or anyone in the Old Testament knew who the Messiah, would be who would actually be God's saving presence.
Dan Werthman: In fact, Matthew records, Matthew 13:17, that the prophets longed to see what you now see through the lens of the New Testament, but they didn't see it.
Dan Werthman: But now Mark brings it all together for us.
Dan Werthman: He brings it together as he quotes in Verses Two and Three from Malachi and Isaiah to reveal who this forerunner actually is.
Dan Werthman: "As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,'Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you--" there's Malachi--"who will prepare your way, a voice of one crying out in the wilderness,'Prepare the way for the Lord.
Dan Werthman: Make his his paths straight.'" There's Isaiah.
Dan Werthman: The very next phrase, in Verse Four:"And John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness." Here's the forerunner that Malachi and Isaiah told us was coming, and here's the amazing part of this for you and for me today.
Dan Werthman: Again, all of this Old Testament history, all of this is like the unraveling, the unfolding of the plan for how God planned to save you, for how God planned to reveal Jesus to you.
Dan Werthman: This is God's eternal plan.
Dan Werthman: Again, Ephesians 1:4: if you are saved, God started that before you were ever born.
Dan Werthman: God started that before the creation of the world.
Dan Werthman: Ephesians 1:4:"He chose you in Christ before the foundation of the world." And Mark, thinking of how this has unrolled through the prophets like Malachi and Isaiah, is amazed that God not only wanted to save him, but he did this from eternity.
Dan Werthman: He planned it from eternity.
Dan Werthman: Third, Mark is amazed by how God draws us into the wilderness to save us.
Dan Werthman: Do you notice that?
Dan Werthman: In Mark 1:4, John did not appear in downtown Jerusalem.
Dan Werthman: John did not appear in the temple.
Dan Werthman: John did not appear in Cesarea, the wealth of Cesarea, where all the wealthy, the movers and the shakers live.
Dan Werthman: That's not where God called him to begin his ministry.
Dan Werthman: God called John to begin his ministry as a forerunner in the most barren place in Israel, the Jordan Rift Valley.
Dan Werthman: And if you've been there-- I was there for my first time last summer-- it is like the Badlands of South Dakota.
Dan Werthman: Other than the river running right through the middle of it, it is desert wasteland.
Dan Werthman: It is dry, and it is arid, and if you think about a place to draw a crowd, that would be the last place on your list.
Dan Werthman: But that's where God sent John.
Dan Werthman: That's where God raised up John as the forerunner, and that's not by accident.
Dan Werthman: Why is this significant for this?
Dan Werthman: For us?
Dan Werthman: Because I think time and time again, in the Old Testament, we see that God uses wilderness experiences.
Dan Werthman: See, over and over in the Old Testament, the wilderness is a place where God brings his people into, to bring about repentance in their lives.
Dan Werthman: The wilderness is a place that God brings his people into to show them his grace.
Dan Werthman: We see that through Moses leading the people of Israel through the wilderness.
Dan Werthman: We see this in the lives of the prophets like Elijah being called into the wilderness.
Dan Werthman: Why would God use wilderness?
Dan Werthman: I love what he reveals about himself in Deuteronomy 1:31:"It is there in the wilderness that you saw how the Lord your God carried you, just as a father carries his child." You may not think of wilderness in your lives.
Dan Werthman: We're like the people living in Jerusalem, the people living in Cesarea.
Dan Werthman: We have modern conveniences all around us.
Dan Werthman: We have everything that we need.
Dan Werthman: We have all of these distractions, and that comfort, those conveniences, those distractions, what they generally do is keep us from seeing our need for repentance.
Dan Werthman: They leave us feeling pretty self-sufficient.
Dan Werthman: They keep us from seeing our need for God's grace.
Dan Werthman: We think for the most part, we're doing pretty well by ourselves, but God does bring us into the wilderness.
Dan Werthman: Maybe not the physical wilderness of the Jordan Rift Valley, but God brings us into the wilderness of physical affliction.
Dan Werthman: Maybe some of you this morning, you are in the midst of the wilderness of a disability or an illness or an injury, and it has turned your world upside-down and made it an arid place.
Dan Werthman: Maybe some of you are in the wilderness, this morning, of financial difficulties, and that sense that you had everything that you need or you knew how to get it is gone from you.
Dan Werthman: Maybe some of you are in the wilderness, this morning, of relational breakdown, of the turmoil, the emotional turmoil of relational upset, which can be very much a wilderness.
Dan Werthman: Maybe for you it's the wilderness of trials and temptation.
Dan Werthman: Whatever it is, you are not there by accident.
Dan Werthman: God brings us into the wilderness to bring us to a place of repentance, to prepare our hearts, because when we have all the distractions and comforts around us, and life is going well, we really don't see a need for Jesus, but he brings us into those wilderness places so that we see what is really reality, that we do need Jesus, and he brings us into those wilderness places so that we can see how the Lord our God carries us as a father carries his children.
Dan Werthman: We see his grace, we see his faithfulness, we see his lovingkindness to us.
Dan Werthman: If you're in the wilderness this morning, Mark is speaking to you.
Dan Werthman: If you're in the wilderness this morning, John the Baptist and his message of preparation is a message of what God is doing in your life to bring you to a place where he can save you, where he can minister to you, where you can meet Jesus, maybe in a new and fresh way.
Dan Werthman: Fourth, I think that Mark is amazed by the work God does in our hearts to prepare us to meet Jesus.
Dan Werthman: Again, most of us when we first encounter Jesus, this is certainly true of me for many years hearing about Jesus in church: I didn't need him.
Dan Werthman: He was, you know, that character that you hear about in church, but I was going on about my life in my own way.
Dan Werthman: My heart was not prepared to meet Jesus.
Dan Werthman: My heart was not prepared to be saved by Jesus, but Isaiah gives us a very fitting description of the kind of work that God does to prepare our hearts to meet Jesus.
Dan Werthman: Isaiah, again, whom Mark is quoting here.
Dan Werthman: I read this earlier, but Isaiah gives this very visual image in Isaiah 44:"Every valley will be lifted up.
Dan Werthman: Every mountain and hill will be leveled.
Dan Werthman: The uneven ground will become smooth, and the rough places a plane." That's what God does in preparing us and bringing us to repentance.
Dan Werthman: When God brings repentance in our lives, it knocks us down from the mountaintops of prideful independence that too oftentimes we live at.
Dan Werthman: But God also meets us at the place of repentance where we are down in the valley of shame and guilt and lifts us up.
Dan Werthman: And when we turn away from ourselves and from running life our own way apart from God, which is the real meaning of repentance, that's what he does.
Dan Werthman: He lovingly knocks us down from that false, prideful place of independence.
Dan Werthman: Those cliffs, those mountaintops, he lovingly lifts us up from the valleys, from the pits of shame and guilt and despair.
Dan Werthman: He smooths out the rough places of the brokenness in our lives.
Dan Werthman: And in doing that, he prepares us for what we really need.
Dan Werthman: And that is Jesus.
Dan Werthman: But that's the preparing work that has to be done.
Dan Werthman: The people of Israel were not ready to meet the son of God until they were brought to a place of repentance, and neither are we.
Dan Werthman: And so maybe, what it is that God is doing in the midst of the wilderness that he has you in right now is he's bringing you down from that mountaintop, where you think you're doing life just fine on your own.
Dan Werthman: You think you've got things under control.
Dan Werthman: You think that you are a pretty good person and you can handle this spiritual thing on your own, Thank you very much.
Dan Werthman: Or maybe what God is doing in the midst of the wilderness that he has you right in is he is smoothing out the rough places, and he's lifting you out of that pit of shame that you've been trapped in for so long, and he's turning your eyes off of yourself and off of the things in your past that shame you, and he's turning them to the one who can smooth out the rough places in your life, which is Jesus.
Dan Werthman: Has God brought you to the place of repentance in your lives?
Dan Werthman: Has God changed your mind from, you know,"I want to do life my own way.
Dan Werthman: I'm pretty good being in control," to,"Lord, I need you.
Dan Werthman: Lord, I can't do life on my own.
Dan Werthman: Lord, in spite of the many things that I have, if you don't show up in some significant way, I'm lost"?
Dan Werthman: Has God brought you to that place of repentance, of changing your mind?
Dan Werthman: Have you stopped defending yourself and blaming others for your failure and your sins?
Dan Werthman: Have you come to that point where you admit that you have no excuses for the choices that you have made, that no one else is to blame, that your sin and your guilt is what you have brought upon yourself, and that if God doesn't show up to cleanse you from it, that you are lost?
Dan Werthman: If so, God has prepared you for Jesus.
Dan Werthman: That is when we are ready to receive Jesus.
Dan Werthman: Mark is amazed by that preparing work that God does in the wilderness places of our lives.
Dan Werthman: Fourth, or actually fifth, finally, Mark is amazed by how John points us to Jesus.
Dan Werthman: It may seem obvious, as John the Baptist's ministry, that is certainly what Mark does all through this gospel, but Mark seems to be amazed by how John highlights Jesus.
Dan Werthman: Remember John, by this point, is drawing great crowds.
Dan Werthman: We're told by Mark that all of Jerusalem is coming out to see him, which is probably a bit of a hyperbole, but at the other hand, great masses of people were drawn to this man.
Dan Werthman: People were coming from all over to hear every word that this man preached.
Dan Werthman: People were coming from all over to be baptized by this man.
Dan Werthman: This man was, you know, a big deal at that time.
Dan Werthman: He could have, if he'd had a heart different than he did, he could have made his ministry go on and on and on.
Dan Werthman: But he sees who he is, and he doesn't point to himself.
Dan Werthman: He points to Jesus.
Dan Werthman: Verse Seven, he proclaimed,"One more powerful than I am is coming after me." It almost seems to be implied in there,"You know, you come to hear me, you have come because you think I'm a big deal.
Dan Werthman: "I am not a big deal.
Dan Werthman: The one who is the big deal is coming after me.
Dan Werthman: The one who is the big deal, the more powerful one, the most powerful one, is the one that I've come to prepare you to be able to hear and receive.
Dan Werthman: The most powerful one, the only one who has the power to save you, to restore you, to grant you eternal life." He even goes on to say,"I am not worthy to bend down and untie the strap of his sandals." And culturally, that was a task, taking off the dirty footwear of someone, that even a pupil would not do for his teacher.
Dan Werthman: Even slaves were not generally expected to stoop that low and do that kind of deed.
Dan Werthman: And yet Mark says,"Even that lowly, distasteful deed, when I think of doing that for the most powerful one who comes after me, I am not worthy, because he is the worthy one." And for you and for me, if Jesus was not the worthy one, if he was not the blameless, righteous one, he could not save us.
Dan Werthman: We are saved in our unworthiness because of his worthiness.
Dan Werthman: And look at how John points us to Jesus in our last verse today, Verse Eight:"I baptize you with water." John had a great ministry going of baptizing people, representing spiritual cleansing, representing people who wanted to make a moral change, a moral transformation, and turn from their direction away from God and turn to come back to God again.
Dan Werthman: But as powerful and as impactful as that ministry was in people's lives, John says, that's nothing compared to what he's gonna do.
Dan Werthman: "I baptize you with water--" this moral cleansing--"he baptizes you with the Holy Spirit." And what does he mean by that?
Dan Werthman: Well, we see various references, but I'll leave you with this one: 1 Corinthians 12:13, Paul describing what is a reality to you, whether you realize it or not, if you know Jesus Christ,"We have all been baptized into one body by one spirit, and we all share the same spirit." If Jesus has become your savior and your Lord, whether you recognized it or not at that moment, that you were saved, he came in to live in you through the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Dan Werthman: He sent by his authority, the third member of the Godhead, of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit into your life.
Dan Werthman: And that is, by the way, why you responded to him.
Dan Werthman: None of us would respond to him.
Dan Werthman: None of us would repent except for the work of the Holy Spirit.
Dan Werthman: And that is why you have the power to follow him.
Dan Werthman: We could not live the Christian life.
Dan Werthman: We could not grow in Christ and be his disciples without the enabling power of the Holy Spirit in us.
Dan Werthman: John points to Jesus, the most powerful one, the worthy one, the one who baptizes us with the Holy Spirit.
Dan Werthman: Mark sees that, and he is amazed by that.
Dan Werthman: He is amazed by what John has done, but more importantly, he is amazed by Jesus.
Dan Werthman: So as I close this morning, let me ask you just these questions that, really, I'm repeating what I said earlier.
Dan Werthman: When is the last time you have been amazed by Jesus?
Dan Werthman: When is the last time you have been overwhelmed with wonder by who Jesus is, by what he's done, by what he's done in your life, by what he's doing in your life?
Dan Werthman: Do you know him, really, as the son of God, as who he really is?
Dan Werthman: Do you see him in the bigger perspective of God's eternal plan to save you, that before the foundation of the world, God chose you in Jesus Christ to save you?
Dan Werthman: Has God drawn you into the wilderness?
Dan Werthman: Are you in the wilderness this morning?
Dan Werthman: If you are, here's the good encouraging news I can give you: it's not by accident.
Dan Werthman: It's not for punishment.
Dan Werthman: It's to save you.
Dan Werthman: It's to bring you to the place where you see him as a father caring for you, his child.
Dan Werthman: It's to bring you to the place where he prepares your heart, either for the first time or maybe anew, to be able to see Jesus.
Dan Werthman: Is God doing a work of repentance in your life in what you're going through, in the wilderness of your life right now?
Dan Werthman: If he is, he's preparing you to see Jesus.
Dan Werthman: God wants us.
Dan Werthman: God wants to use Mark and his gospel in our lives, individually and as a church, to point us to Jesus, to be amazed by Jesus.
Dan Werthman: Let's pray.
Dan Werthman: I am awestruck, Lord God, that you would reveal yourself in your written word, and I'm so thankful for your Holy Spirit who makes your word live.
Dan Werthman: We can't fully give it justice, and so I ask that your Holy Spirit would take these words, Lord, and this gospel, and do the work in each of our lives that you desire to do.
Dan Werthman: I ask most of all, Lord, for myself, first, for those here, for our church, that we would be amazed afresh by Jesus, that we would not be able to come away unchanged from this.
Dan Werthman: Do this work, Lord.
Dan Werthman: Create in us awestruck wonder for who Jesus is, that we might never see him the same again.
Dan Werthman: We pray this, that he would be lifted up and glorified in our lives.
Dan Werthman: Amen.