Intro to Gospel of Mark: Jesus Was A Preacher

Mk. 1:1-15
Introduction to the Gospel of Mark

Transcript

The best way to actually understand Jesus is to read the historical documents
about him, and those are the Gospels. So with that in mind, we are beginning a
new sermon series this morning through the Gospel of Mark. Before we get into
the passage itself that Ryan just read, I'm going to give you a little bit of
background about the Gospel of Mark that will help you as we work through the
series. So this is background information that's going to help you hopefully
throughout the series. Mark is almost certainly the first of the four Gospels
that was written. We would date it around 53 to 55 AD, about 20 years after the
resurrection. So Mark functions as source material for Matthew and Luke, which
were written a little bit later in the first century. And the author, John Mark,
is a biblical character, but not one of the 12 disciples of Jesus. He was a co-
worker of the Apostle Peter, who was one of Jesus's three closest disciples. So
the Gospel of Mark is not written by Peter, but it clearly seems to be the
eyewitness testimony of Peter given to Mark. That's the report of the early
church that Mark wrote accurately, all that Peter remembered. And if you read
Mark closely, you'll see that Peter is very close to the action. Peter's
proximity to Jesus, and then particular Peter's weaknesses are on full display
in Mark. Some of the details that are in this Gospel, particularly like if you
read Mark 14 and the account of Peter's betrayal of Jesus, it would require a
first-hand account. So Mark's the shortest Gospel. It's the first Gospel. It's
the written testimony of the Apostle Peter. And its style as the shortest is
what we'd say, like urgent and action-oriented. So by comparison, it features
much less of the extended teaching that you see in the other three Gospels.
There is a lot of action and focus on Jesus's power and authority in motion.
Mark uses the word immediately 41 times. Mark's purpose in writing is to show us
who Jesus is as directly and as concisely as possible. And the point of the
speed in Mark is to emphasize what Jesus said in Mark 1, 14 to 15. The time is
fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. There's this idea that God is
breaking into human history to save his people. There's a speed and urgency and
power there. And when you think about the structure of the Gospel as a whole of
Mark, there's really kind of two major parts. Chapters 1 through 8, so like the
first half, emphasize Jesus's authority over all things. We see Jesus's
comprehensive authority in those chapters. He's announced Jesus Christ in the
very first verse. That means he is this anointed royal figure. And when people
hear Jesus teach, they recognize that he has this inherent, not like derived,
authority. In chapter 1, he's teaching and the crowds respond to this authority
and it says, they were astonished at his teaching for he taught them as one who
had authority and not as the scribes. In other words, he is not sort of saying
or repeating or rephrasing what others have said. He speaks as one who has
inherent authority. And as the early chapters go by, Jesus demonstrates his
authority over the spiritual world, over the physical world, over the religious
teachers and manmade traditions of his day. His authority we see as
comprehensive. So chapters 1 through 8 are about Jesus, the king who has
authority over all things. Then at the midpoint of the gospel, at the back half
of chapter 8, we take a turn. We see that this king who has been sent from God
and has absolute authority over all things has come to die. His identity is king
over all things, sent from God the Father. But his purpose does not seem very
kingly. By chapter 8, as the structure turns, he's telling his disciples that he
must suffer and die. And Peter takes Jesus aside and rebukes him for that.
That's the last thing that Peter would expect. It's the last thing that would be
expected of a king. But this is a different kind of king. Those who follow him
must die to themselves. In Mark 10.45, Jesus explains his purpose. He's the king
who came to serve, to suffer and to die. Mark 10.45, Jesus said, even the Son of
Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for
many. So with that kind of brief background for the gospel, Mark, as a whole,
I'm going to get into these introductory verses that we just read. Peter has a
focus on Jesus' identity throughout the gospel. What I want us to see today is
that Jesus was a preacher. Jesus was a preacher. And I'll explain to you what I
mean and why that matters as we go through the text. The passage 1-15 has three
sections that build towards the fourth in verses 14-15, where Jesus' public
ministry begins. So first, John the Baptist comes and prepares the way. Second,
Jesus is baptized. Third, Jesus is tempted. And all those things are necessary,
and they culminate in verses 14-15, which is where we'll land. So let's look at
this. John the Baptist prepares the way. Mark 1, verse 1, going through verse 8.
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in
Isaiah the prophet. Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will
prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of
the Lord, make his path straight. John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness,
and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the
country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him, were being baptized by
him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with
camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild
honey. 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. I have baptized
you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. That first verse,
the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is one of the only
times that Mark editorializes. He says what he thinks and wants the readers to
believe. In this introduction, Mark says, this account that I'm writing to you
is about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Matthew and Luke begin with Jesus'
genealogy or birth story or family history. John begins with a theological
perspective on who Jesus is as the eternal Word of God. Mark who is just faster
and more concise, makes an amazing claim right away. He says, this person that
I'm writing about in 55 AD, only about 20 years after the crucifixion
resurrection is the anointed one, the Messiah and God's Son. And after verse 1,
Mark keeps his opinions to himself. He just describes, it's more like a
documentary drama. The voice of the narrator disappears, he's not, he's just
showing, not telling after that. But we see Mark's claim in Mark 1.1 get
bookended at the very end of the gospel. As Mark's account ends, and we see
Jesus dying on the cross, Jesus cries out with a loud voice. The curtain in the
temple is torn in two, signifying access to God's presence. And there is a Roman
centurion who's standing by, a man who certainly had seen plenty of bloody
deaths before. And he looks on Jesus and says the same thing that Mark wrote in
1.1. He says in 1539, when the centurion who stood facing him saw that in this
way he breathes his last, he said, truly, this man was the Son of God. So Mark
wants his readers to know Jesus's identity, and he starts by saying he is God's
anointed one, the Christ, God's Son. So unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark gets right
into Jesus's adult ministry. The events of Mark concerning Jesus cover only
about two and a half years. And a good percentage of that focuses on the last
weeks of Jesus's life. That's where the emphasis is. But before Jesus speaks or
acts, Mark begins with Jesus's predecessor, his cousin John the Baptist, and he
immediately quotes his Old Testament prophecy, which is a combination of Isaiah
and Malachi. As the prophets promised, there would be a messenger sent from God
who would prepare the way for the coming Lord. And when Mark makes this quote,
the voice of the one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make
his paths straight. He's rooting Jesus's life in Old Testament prophecy. He's
telling us that God is breaking in, but he's not doing something brand new. He's
fulfilling what had been promised. The voice of the one crying out in the
wilderness was John the Baptist. And we see John described as this preacher of
repentance. All the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and
were being baptized in the River Jordan. In the book of Joshua, when the
Israelites stepped into the Jordan River, they were doing that as they were
about to go into the promised land. When they did it, they were about to cross
over into the land that God had promised. They were about to experience God's
salvation and inherit the land. And now we see God is bringing about salvation
in a much greater and more dramatic way. And God's people are going out to the
Jordan River. John's unusual clothing and diet tell us he's a prophet and his
message is one of repentance, but it's also anticipation. He tells the crowds
and everyone that's gathering, there's one coming who's mightier than I, the
strap of who sandals, I'm not worthy to stoop down and untie. In the Jewish
culture, it would be the lowliest of servants who would stoop down and untie the
strap of a traveler's sandal and touch their disgusting feet. And John's using
that image to say, the one who is coming is much greater than I am. He's
baptizing with water, which is an outward symbol of inner repentance. The one
who's coming would have power to baptize with the Holy Spirit, which means inner
cleansing and regeneration. So John is baptizing the crowds and then one day
Jesus himself comes to be baptized. Mark does not describe the dialogue between
John and Jesus the way Matthew does, but he describes the scene for us. In those
days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the
Jordan. 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 and a voice came from
heaven. You are my beloved son with you. I am well pleased. You see explicitly
God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit in this passage. And when the
world is created in Genesis 1, we read about the presence of the Spirit of God
at creation. Genesis 1, 1 through 2 say, in the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void and darkness was over
the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the
waters. The creation of the world was a creation of the triune God, God the
Father, the Spirit, and the Word of God, which is Jesus. Now at the baptism of
Jesus, we're getting a reference back to creation as the Spirit of God, which
hovered or fluttered over the waters in Genesis, is now descending on Jesus like
a dove. And we hear the voice of the Father and we see the presence of the
Spirit at Jesus' baptism. And here's why the specific mention of the three
persons of the God had mattered. What we're seeing is just as the creation of
the world was a work of the triune God, so will the redemption of the world be a
work of the triune God. God the Father sends his beloved Son filled with the
empowerment of the Spirit for the accomplishment of salvation. It's amazing. And
what's surprising is that the leadership of the Spirit doesn't manifest maybe
the way that we think it would. Jesus does not immediately go and heal someone
or do a miracle or say anything. Instead, he goes out into the wilderness. Verse
12 tells us the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was
in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by Satan and he was with the wild
animals and the angels were ministering to him. So led by the Spirit, Jesus goes
out into the wilderness. So in verse 10, in his baptism, the Spirit descends on
him. In verse 12, the Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness. If you recall the
Old Testament, the wilderness is this place of wandering. It's this place of
testing and it's this place of ultimately failure for the people of Israel.
Before Israel was established in Canaan in the land that God had promised, they
had to go through wilderness testing and it was a time of, it was difficult, it
was unpleasant, it was dangerous. And Jesus is now in the wilderness for 40
days, which mirrors the 40 years of wandering. Israel was tested and now Jesus
is being tested in this analogous way so that he might be prepared to deliver
God's people. So it's the Spirit who directs Jesus to this place and for 40 days
in the wilderness, he is being tempted by Satan. Even that helps us to see that
even though Satan is absolutely opposed to God in every way, even though his
intent is absolutely evil, he is operating within, let's say, the framework of
God's absolute overall sovereignty. And like Adam, Jesus experiences temptation.
Unlike Adam, Jesus' temptation does not happen in the context of this perfect
harmonious garden where everything is provided for him. It's much worse. He's in
the wilderness alone, except for the presence, except for the dangerous chaos of
these wild animals. And yet, Jesus endures this temptation. Unlike Adam, he does
not succumb to temptation. His sinlessness through temptation is a signal that
this is the type of Savior we need, the one who obeys God's law perfectly and
resists temptation. So all these episodes, John's ministry, Jesus' baptism,
Jesus' temptation, they are all necessary precursors leading up to Jesus' public
ministry. These three accounts build towards verses 14 and 15. It's interesting,
in verse 1, we see that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and then for the
next 13 verses, we don't really hear Jesus speak. He doesn't say anything. But
those 13 verses function as kind of a prologue for what we will now start
hearing about Jesus. After John the Baptist disappears from the public scene,
after now John the Baptist disappears, things start to change. There's no more
wilderness. They're now wearing ordinary towns and villages. We don't really see
heavenly visions like when Jesus was baptized. All the focus shifts away from
John onto Jesus. And what we've seen so far is that Jesus is the Christ, the Son
of God, filled by the Spirit, the one who perfectly endures temptation. Then in
verse 14, we hear from him as his public ministry begins and we see Jesus was a
preacher. Verse 14 and 15. Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee
proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom
of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. So he comes into Galilee.
His public ministry is beginning. These two verses function as kind of like a
summary of Jesus' ministry. And he's identified not as like a healer or a mystic
or even a teacher, but as a preacher, a proclaimer. This is a meaningful
distinction. A teacher provides instruction and Christian preaching contains
instruction, but is primarily proclamation. It's not first. Here's how you ought
to live. It's not first instruction. It's first proclamation. In other words,
it's a heralding of not what needs to be done, but what has been done. Jesus
comes proclaiming the gospel. He's the Christ, the Son of God, filled by the
Spirit. He's resisted temptation. He has authority to proclaim and what he
proclaims, the text says, is the gospel. That word in Greek is pronounced Eu-en-
gal-ian and it means news that brings joy. That was not necessarily a religious
phrase at the time. It could be used in the sense of news about something that
has happened in history that has meaning today. Some of you who are fathers
might resonate with this example. So if your wife is giving birth to a child,
nowadays, and I mean like as in the last 60 years, the father is allowed to be
in the hospital room with the mother, but 50, 60 years ago or further back, that
was not the case. The father would have stayed in the waiting room or meet even
maybe back at the house waiting for the news. Modern men go to birth classes in
preparation, I guess because we like the idea that we can do something to help.
But either way, whether it's 2025 or 1965, we really contribute nothing to
what's going on. There's nothing we can do. You're just waiting for that
announcement. And when you hear the good news, the phone call, the announcement
for the doctor, what do you need to do? Just receive it. Just be glad. Just
believe it. Just start passing out the cigars, right? That's all that really
needs to be done. This is where we see one of the most profound differences
between Christianity and any other religion or belief system. The gospel is not
instruction or advice. It's a proclamation of great joy about what has been
accomplished. I knew a young couple, a young married couple, that they had
together racked up, they were in their 20s, and they had together racked up
about $300,000 in student debt. In talking to them, the crazy part was that
their earning power was like, this was a little while back, but their earning
power was like $50,000 or $60,000 a year together. And their expensive
educations were basically just like they were paying their bills, but they had
no way of making any headway on this crushing debt that was hanging over them.
And in their financial situation, in the predicament that they had gotten
themselves into with their undergrad master's degrees, they were badly in need
of advice. Like how can we cut our expenses? And how do we maybe increase our
earning power a little bit? Or what do we need to stop doing? What do we need to
start doing? And in one sense, advice was going to be helpful. But the truth
was, as you looked at the situation, they had dug such a hole that there was not
going to be any real hope that they would be getting out in the foreseeable
future. They were looking at bankruptcy. And what they needed more than advice
was really a miracle. They didn't need someone to tell them what to do because
they had created a situation that was unfixable. They needed someone, really, to
do something for them. If you tell someone that's $300,000 in debt, that they
should start, they should think about like clipping coupons, that is advice.
It's not even necessarily bad advice, but it's ultimately going to be powerless
to the type of problem they're dealing with. And the gospel is not good advice.
It's good news. To use my illustration, it's someone intervening on behalf of
this couple, not to give them instruction, but to just write a check and erase
the whole thing. The message of the gospel is that God has come to intervene, to
save, and to rescue. Advice is here is what you need to do. Advice can be
helpful. Sometimes it can be crushing, but it never saves. The gospel is not
here's what you have to do. That is basically every other religion or philosophy
on the good love. It's an announcement. It's news. Here is what God has done for
you through His Son, Jesus Christ. Here's what God has done for you. Now you
might, as you read this, you might legitimately wonder, how is Jesus being
described as a preacher of the gospel of God and telling people to repent and
believe at this moment? I don't know if some of you are thinking about this in
the room, but like how is Jesus proclaiming the gospel at the moment when He's
not yet died on the cross? Or He hasn't died, He hasn't risen, how is He
preaching the gospel? Well the key to understanding that is this phrase of the
Kingdom of God is at hand. So when we read the beginning of the Bible in Genesis
1 and 2, we see a world where God is King. God creates by His good pleasure. He
creates this beautiful harmonious world where men and women are created to know
Him, to reflect Him, to relate to Him, to rule over His creation as His
representatives. And then in Genesis 3, we see essentially men, women, and the
angelic beings say, we don't want God to be King. We want to be our own kings.
We want to be our own authorities. We want to live in a world where we define
what is right and what is wrong. That is the fall of Genesis 3 and it only gets
worse as you progress through the Old Testament. That's the essence of sin, our
prideful rebellion against God's authority. When Jesus arrives on the scene and
steps into public ministry, 400 years have passed without any prophetic voice,
right up until the arrival of John the Baptist. From Genesis 3 on, we have this
whole history of sin and rebellion marked by God's grace and by God's compassion
and by God's patience. But it culminates in this period between Testaments where
it seems like God is just silent. And when God, when Jesus comes and says, the
time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand, he is saying that the rule
and reign of God are breaking in in this new way. That's good news of great joy.
God's not forgotten his people. He's intervening to save. And as we read this
text and get oriented to Mark, the application for us as modern listeners is
right here in the text. Jesus proclaims and then he instructs, he says, repent
and believe the gospel. And you could interpret this or think about this or pose
the challenge to yourself like this. Are you living for yourself and your
kingdom? Or are you living for the Kingdom of God? The Kingdom of God is
completely different than the Kingdom of self. That's why repentance is needed.
Confidence means turning. It means reorientation. It means very purposely
changing direction. If you're not a Christian, then this message is an
invitation to believe the good news. It's an invitation to be a better person.
It's an invitation to believe the good news that Jesus is king and God has sent
Jesus to save and to rescue and that by faith in him, you can be restored to
God. Repentance means confessing that you have been living for yourself and it
means turning and changing direction. Repentance means to turn around. If you're
not a Christian, it's a life-giving invitation. But I would also say if you are
a Christian, if you are a follower of Jesus, it remains a life-giving
invitation. Repentance is more than a one-time initial decision. It's the work
of a lifetime because really we all slide gravitationally towards living for the
Kingdom of self. What Luther said in his 95 theses was that when Jesus said
repent, he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance. All of
our lives we recognize I've been living maybe in this area of my life, maybe in
my thoughts, maybe in my work, maybe in these set of actions. I've really been
living for my own Kingdom. Jesus, we start to see his identity. He is the
Christ. He is the Son of God. He is the one filled with the Spirit. He endured
temptation. He is a preacher of good news. Each one of us need to hear his
message. The Kingdom of God is at hand. It's breaking in. Even now, God has come
to save his people. Repent and believe the Gospel. Let's pray.