Mark Chapter 1:
Are You Ready for the Real Action? (Mark 1:1-8)
We are going to begin a study of the Gospel according to Mark.
The word Gospel means the message or the good news.
Mark is going to tell us something about Jesus.
Yeshua, the carpenter’s son from Nazareth.
Today we will get a brief introduction to Mark the writer of the gospel.
We will hear from the last of the old Testament prophets,
With his message of two baptisms,
And of the one who is coming after him.
Finally today I want you to leave here assured that you are ready for the real
action.
Who is Mark?
We actually know a lot of stuff about Mark.
In Acts 12:12 we learn that he is the son of a wealthy lady named Mary.
He lived in Jerusalem.
He was raised in a Christian home.
His uncle was Barnabas.
The Apostle Paul accompanied Barnabas on what we call Paul’s first
missionary journey.
Mark also went on that expedition to spread the gospel,
the good news about Jesus.
You can read about that in Acts 12:25.
But on this trip something happened.
We don’t know what but Mark decided to return to Jerusalem.
On Barnabas and Paul’s second expedition,
Barnabas wanted to take Mark with them again but Paul refused.
The two saints could not see eye to eye on the issue of Mark so
the took off in different directions.
You can read about that in Acts 15:37-40.
Mark with Barnabas and Paul picking up a
new traveling companion Silas.
Tradition says Mark started the Church in Alexandria of Egypt.
But we don’t hear much about Mark until all of a sudden he’s back
with Paul.
Paul is in prison in Rome and Mark is there with him (Colossians 4:10).
In Paul’s letter to Philemon he refers to Mark as his co-laborer
(Philemon 1:24).
When Paul is facing execution he tells his protégé
Timothy get Mark and come before they kill him
(2 Timothy 4:11).
Mark is tied in with Paul.
When we read 1 Peter 5:13 we also learn that Mark was very close to
Peter.
Peter calls Mark his son.
Some of the experts believe that much of the gospel according to
Mark is his recollection of Peter’s sermons, teachings and
stories about Jesus.
If this is true and there is really no reason that it is not.
Then Mark’s writing is the earliest writing we have to an actual
eye account testimony of the earthly ministry of Jesus.
One of the interesting facts about Mark is that the end his writing is missing.
The earliest most accurate manuscripts that we have come to a conclusion
with Mark 16:8.
Scholars know that Mark 16:19-20 were added at a later date for two
clear reasons,
that portion only appears in later manuscripts
and the style of the language changes.
We also know that the gospels according to Matthew and Luke drew heavily on
what Mark wrote. Basically they used Mark’s gospel as a primary source in
writing their own accounts of the life and times of Yeshua the
Messiah.
Scholars place the time of Mark’s writing the gospel somewhere in the mid 60’s,
Not 1960’s but 0060 to sometime before the Fall of Jerusalem in AD 70.
This is what Mark wrote inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Mark 1:1-8 (MSG)
1 The
good news of Jesus Christ—the Message!—begins here,
2 following to the letter
the scroll of the prophet Isaiah.
Watch closely: I'm sending my preacher ahead of you; He'll make the road smooth
for you. 3 Thunder in
the desert! Prepare for God's arrival! Make the road smooth and straight!
4 John the Baptizer
appeared in the wild, preaching a baptism of life-change that leads to
forgiveness of sins. 5 People
thronged to him from Judea and Jerusalem and, as they confessed their sins, were
baptized by him in the Jordan River into a changed life.
6 John wore a camel-hair
habit, tied at the waist with a leather belt. He ate locusts and wild field
honey. 7 As he
preached he said, "The real action comes next: The star in this drama, to whom
I'm a mere stagehand, will change your life.
8 I'm baptizing you here
in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. His baptism—a holy
baptism by the Holy Spirit—will change you from the inside out."
I want to do some housekeeping work just so that you can know what the scholars
have known for a long long time.
When you translate from one language to the next the words are
not always an exact fit.
We have that happening here.
Jesus, such a familiar name to us.
But Jesus is the Greek translation for the Hebrew name Yeshua.
So if you could travel back in time and ask to see Jesus,
Folks would have no idea who you asking for.
Yeshua in Hebrew means “salvation.”
The name is tied to “Yahoshua” which means “the Lord who is
Salvation.”
Christ, is not Jesus’ last name.
It would be more like Yeshua ben
Yosef
Christ is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word
Māšîaḥ,
Which translated into English we say Messiah.
Messiah is a title within Jewish theological thought.
It means “anointed one” especially referring to a king in the line of
David, the first great King of Israel.
Jesus Christ, Masiah Yeshua
ben Yosef, with my apologies to all who speak the
Hebrew for murdering the language.
Mark does not begin his good
news about Jesus with a birth narrative.
Instead he travels back even further to the prophets.
Its deep in the Old Testament that the good news of
Jesus begins.
Malachi 3:1 (MSG)
"Look! I'm sending my
messenger on ahead to clear the way for me. Suddenly, out of the blue, the
Leader you've been looking for will enter his Temple—yes, the Messenger of the
Covenant, the one you've been waiting for. Look! He's on his way!" A Message
from the mouth of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
Isaiah 40:3 (NIV)
A voice of one calling: "In
the desert prepare the way for the LORD ; make straight in the wilderness a
highway for our God.
The good news about Jesus
begins some 300 to 500 years before his birth.
The prophets foretell of the
coming of the Messiah.
First comes a messenger to clear the way.
Mark 1:4 (MSG)
4 John
the Baptizer appeared in the wild, preaching a baptism of life-change that leads
to forgiveness of sins.
John the Baptist is clearing
the way by preaching a baptism of life-change,
a baptism of repentance,
that leads to the forgiveness
of sins.
Repentance is life-change.
To repent means to change one’s thinking.
I have taught you that we can best understand the concept of sin is
from a relational perspective.
When we look at sin
relationally,
original sin is estrangement
from God caused by egoism.
Egoism is our desire to be like God, to be our own God.
You see it first crop up in the 2 year old’s vocabulary,
“Mine” and “No”
You see it crop up in the temper tantrum when your little angel
doesn’t like your decision.
This doesn’t go away as we get older, we just disguise it.
We still want to be in charge,
We still want to be the one who decided what is right and
wrong,
what is good and what is evil.
Egoism always puts self first.
I think before there can be
forgiveness of sin there has to be awareness of sin.
I have taught you that sin is
anything that deters, damages or destroys a right
relationship.
If your relationship with someone was once good and now it is not,
Its because of your sin.
Even if its 99.9% the other persons fault,
That 1% makes you a sinner.
The scripture takes the issue
of sin very seriously.
Romans 3:23 (NIV)
“…all
have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…”
Every one of us has messed up
our relationships.
There are four primary ones:
Our relationship with God,
Our relationship to Others,
Our relationship to the Earth,
And our relationship to our self.
The scripture takes the issue
of sin very seriously.
Romans 6:23 (NIV)
We know what death of the body
is like,
But death of the spirit, what’s that like?
I think its something to be feared,
it is not something you want
to experience.
To be forgiven is to have your
sin debt canceled.
It’s like standing before the judge,
Guilty, no doubt, the verdict is in,
you’ve done the crime and now
the sentence.
The judge says acquitted you’re free to go.
The scripture tells us that to
be forgiven of sin is an eternal blessing.
John the Baptist message is to
change your thinking about egoism.
Unless you know yourself to be a sinner,
You’ll have no need to be forgiven.
John Wesley said: “Know your
disease, know your cure.”
Too many of us are convinced
that we are living a pretty good life.
We are doing enough good deeds to rack up salvation points in heaven.
We think, sin is not a big deal,
everybody commits sin once in
a while.
We think nobody is perfect so
what if I mess up every now and then.
We take forgiveness for
granted.
My friends a mindset like that
will close the door to forgiveness.
An attitude will keep you from
eternal life.
That’s why I think when we
partake of the Lord’s Supper the Apostle Paul
admonishes us.
1 Corinthians 11:27-28 (MSG)
Anyone who eats the bread or
drinks the cup of the Master irreverently is like part of the crowd that jeered
and spit on him at his death. Is that the kind of "remembrance" you want to be
part of? 28 Examine
your motives, test your heart, come to this meal in holy awe.
Examine your motives, test
your heart because only you can gauge the sincerity of
your commitment to be a follower of Jesus.
Only you know if you treat spiritual things with holy awe or
As just one more thing you do to look good.
Sin is not to be trifled with,
You don’t see how close you can get to the edge before falling off.
Forgiveness is a priceless
treasure, its not free, its not automatic, its not guaranteed.
The door to forgiveness is
opened when we repent of our egoism.
When we change our minds about who will be allowed to direct our lives.
Repentance prepares you for
forgiveness,
and Baptism is the physical
manifestation of your repentance.
John the Baptist, the
messenger the prophets spoke of is preaching,
Preparing the way for the Messiah.
The people are coming, responding to the message.
Mark 1:5 (MSG)
People thronged to him from Judea and Jerusalem and, as they confessed their
sins, were baptized by him in the Jordan River into a changed life.
Could it be that John was decked out like Elijah in coarse clothes? (2 Kings
1:8)
We wore what the working poor wore.
He looked like a prophet.
Is that why the people came?
Was it because of his diet?
Locust and wild honey is poor man’s food,
here was a preacher who practiced what he preached: simplicity.
Was it because people could relate to him that they came?
Maybe it was because for the past 300 years there was no recognizable prophet in
Israel?
There was no authentic word for God to guide the rulers of the nation
and to direct the hearts of the people.
John spoke with a purpose, and that purpose wasn’t exalting himself.
Fiery but humble he was pointing to something other than himself.
Could that be the reason the crowds came and responded to his
message?
I think something supernatural is going on.
God was calling. (Hosea 2:23)
Those sensitive in heart were responding.
They saw that the life they were living was not what they had hoped it would be.
They wanted to change. (Romans 1:18-32)
As they gathered John’s voice thundered across the river.
7 …
"The real action comes next: The star in this drama, to whom I'm a mere
stagehand, will change your life.
8 I'm baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for
a kingdom life. His baptism—a holy baptism by the Holy Spirit—will change you
from the inside out."
Two baptisms:
The first is a baptism of
repentance for the forgiveness of sin.
“Turning your old life for a kingdom life.”
In our doctrine we call this justification.
A fancy theological word that describes what God does for us when
we accept the fact that we are sinners in need of change
we believe that forgiveness is only found through Jesus
we commit to saying no to egoism and yes to following Jesus
When we ask God to accept our faith,
He forgives us of our sin,
He reconciles our relationship to Him,
Adopting us as His child,
We are now the righteous of God.
Righteous by the way means rightly \
related to or in harmony with.
It is a baptism that opens the door to kingdom life.
The second baptism,
the one John said that his message was just a prelude to was the baptism of
the Holy Spirit,
a baptism that would empower you to
change from the inside
out.
The “Star of the Drama” was coming and he could deliver this baptism.
Of course theologians devised a fancy name to describe this too.
We Wesleyans call it initial sanctification.
Justification is what God does for us,
It’s a declaration of a change in relational status.
Sanctification is what God does in us,
It is the power to live up to our declared change,
Now that we have become the righteous of God.
Ephesians 4:30 (NIV)
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were
sealed for the day of redemption.
This sealing with the Holy Spirit, this baptism,
is what God does in us,
empowering a believer to live their life to the full.
The Holy Spirit gives you the desire and the power to
change from the inside out.
We become spiritually alive. (Romans 8:9-10)
We become a new creation. (2 Corinthians 5:14)
We can discern the ways of God. (1Corinthians 2:14-15)
Two baptisms
One for reconciliation, one for power to become like the “star of the
drama.”
This is how Mark introduces the “star.”
From the writings of the old testament prophets,
To the words of the last prophet,
“get ready the real action” is coming.
If you have asked God to accept your faith,
Forgiving you of your sins,
Not sins in general or in theory,
But the things that you have done that have deterred, damaged
and even destroyed relationships.
Not the devil made me do it sins,
But the sins of egoism, of wanting it your way, no matter what.
And if you have the desire to change from the inside out,
Then you can be assured that you are ready for the real action.
You feel in your heart that you have been forgiven,
You see with your eyes that you are becoming like Jesus.
Assurance that you are ready for the real action is both subjective and
objective.
Subjective in that only you know if having accepted, believed and
committed God has accepted your faith.
Objective in that any one can see the changes that are taking place in
your
life, that you are becoming more like Yeshua ben Josef the Messiah.
If that assurance is missing you are most likely spiritually dead and your body
is
just waiting to catch up. Are you ready for the real action?