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Hi, this is Pastor Tom Holiday and I want to welcome you to Day 2 of our look
together through the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 1. I am so excited you've joined us
for this study because I really believe that my life, your life, can be changed
by the life of Jesus as we look through it. He can give us new life in a brand
new way.

And today, as we begin in verse 1, we're really talking about the beginning. In
fact, that's how the Gospel of Mark begins. Mark 1 says the beginning of the
Gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

And you're going to see as we walk through this Gospel of Mark together that
Mark is a guy who gets to the point quickly. In the first chapter, he begins
with the beginning and he says it's the Gospel about Jesus and he tells us who
Jesus is, the Son of God. He's a man who does not mince words, he just gets
right to it.

In this first chapter, he's going to present to us Jesus's credentials as a
servant Messiah. He shows us the kind of life that Jesus offers us. There is in
Mark, Chapter 1, no genealogy.

Like you see in Matthew, for instance, Matthew lays out the genealogy of Jesus.
And here's the difference. Jesus, in the book of Matthew, is presented as the
King of Kings.

And a king needs a genealogy. You have to outline where he came from, his
ancestry, to show that he is a king. And Matthew clearly shows that.

Mark presents Jesus as the servant of all. A king needs a genealogy, but not a
servant. A servant is known by his actions.

And this first chapter of Mark is filled with the actions of a servant. As we go
through the entire book of Mark, you're going to see that the entire book is
filled, it's crammed with events from the life of Jesus. And as you move from
one event to the next, like scenes, one after the other in a movie, you get to
see the life of Jesus unfold before your eyes.

And as you see this, you see a servant. You see one who came to serve, who came
to love. In this first chapter, Mark outlines for us who Jesus really is, and he
introduces Jesus to us.

In fact, there are five important introductions in this first chapter of Mark.
He begins by introducing Jesus as one who had been prophesied well before. And
then he shows us the introduction of the Father of Jesus.

And then he shows Jesus' introduction to Satan and temptation. And then he shows
the introduction of Jesus and the disciples. And finally, he shows the
introduction of Jesus to the world.

Let's begin with that first introduction, which looks backwards. It's the
introduction of Jesus by John, fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah. Let me read
for you Mark chapter 1 verses 2 to 8.

It is written in Isaiah the prophet, "I will send my messenger ahead of you, who
will prepare your way, a voice of one calling in the desert. Prepare the way for
the Lord, make straight paths for him. " And so John came, baptizing in the
desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him,
confessing their sins they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore
clothing made of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and he ate
locusts and wild honey. And this was his message, "After me will come one more
powerful than I.

The thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize
you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. " Mark begins to
introduce Jesus, and he introduces him first by this fulfillment of prophecy,
showing that Jesus had been expected for a long time, hundreds of years, and
also showing that Jesus had been expected in the recent history of the people of
Israel.

Jesus was prophesied by Isaiah, who lived 700 years before Jesus. There are many
prophecies that Isaiah gave of Jesus, but Mark picks out the prophecy of one who
would come before Jesus to prepare the way for Jesus. And he shows that that
prophecy was fulfilled by John the Baptist.

Now you read about John the Baptist in these verses, and he sounds like a weird
kind of a guy. He wore clothing made of camel's hair. He wore a leather belt.

He ate locusts and wild honey. He sounds like some kind of throwback to the
hippie generation or something. What is this all about?

Well, you need to know that that was a common path of many people in this day.
They were tired of what life offered. They knew that the answers to the problems
that they were facing were not in the systems of power.

So they left the big cities. They left those systems of power. They went out in
the countryside, and they sort of forsook all the ways that people had been
trying to find the answers, and they reduced themselves to the minimums.

And this was a minimum, clothing made out of the very minimums, eating just
locusts and wild honey that he could find. The important thing about John is not
that he had forsaken these governmental systems, these worldly systems of power,
though. The important thing about John is his message.

Don't lose the message in the locusts and wild honey. This was his message.
"After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs whose sandals I'm not
worthy to stoop down and untie, I'm going to baptize you with water, he's going
to baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

" John was a man of deep spiritual understanding. He knew that Jesus would
baptize with the Holy Spirit before most people understood the Spirit or Jesus,
either one. And he came giving this message of one who was to come, but he also
came giving this message of what needed to happen in our hearts.

John's baptizing was a baptizing that looked to what was happening in people's
hearts. There were, by the way, a lot of baptisms before Jesus came along.
Baptism is something that represents something different in Christianity than
happened before Jesus, but there were other people that baptized before this.

It just meant they were immersed in water to recognize some kind of change had
happened in their life. And in this case, John was saying you're recognizing
repentance and forgiveness, repentance and forgiveness. And that's how you and I
get introduced to Jesus, through repentance, the knowledge that he can turn my
life around, that I'm not going to keep heading the same way anymore.

There is a new direction I can head in life. And forgiveness, the knowledge that
he can forgive my past, he can set me free. And in that freedom, I can live the
new life that he's given.

Isaiah and John point to Jesus and they point us to how Jesus can be at work in
our lives. But as Jesus is being introduced in this first chapter of John, he is
next introduced by someone far greater than John the Baptist and far greater
than Isaiah the prophet. Listen to what happened in verses 9 to 11.

At that time, Jesus came from Nazareth and Galilee and was baptized by John in
the Jordan. As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn
open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven,
"You are my Son, whom I loved.

With you I am well pleased. " Here in the second great introduction in this
first chapter, Jesus is introduced to the world by the Father, "You are my Son,
whom I love, with whom I am well pleased. " And he was introduced at his
baptism.

Now many people ask, why was Jesus baptized? Well, it was not because he needed
to be forgiven. He lived a perfect life.

He is sinless. He was baptized both as a witness but also as a testimony. He's
baptized as a witness to us to fulfill God's righteousness, the Bible tells us,
to show you and I what it means to be baptized so that when I'm baptizing, I'm
encouraging other people to follow Jesus Christ and to do the same thing that he
did.

He did it as an example, as a witness, but he also did it as a testimony. This
was an opportunity for the Father and for the Spirit to give testimony to the
significance, the incredible power of Jesus' ministry. And so you have here, as
many people have recognized, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit all recognized
together, the Trinity.

This is one of the glimpses of the Trinity that we have throughout the Bible.
Now it's very important to understand that Jesus didn't receive the Spirit here
when he descended like a dove. The Spirit descended like a dove to give
testimony to Jesus.

This isn't the idea that Jesus didn't have the Spirit before this point, not at
all. It's just a testimony to who Jesus is. It was the affirmation of the
Spirit, and it was the affirmation of the Father of who Jesus really is.

It's the good news of Jesus Christ. Everything as you look at these first
paragraphs, everything is about anticipation, a messenger who will prepare the
way, John baptizing in the wilderness looking forward to something, someone
coming who's going to be greater than John, a dove descending on Jesus, a Father
saying about Jesus, "I am well pleased with him. " There's this anticipation of
what the life and the ministry of Jesus is going to be.

So how about you? How about me? What are you anticipating in your life right
now?

Are you anticipating the good news of Jesus Christ? I didn't just say good news.
There's all kinds of good news.

We can have good news we want in our work and good news we want in our family,
and that may happen, that may not happen, but this good news of Jesus Christ, it
is certainly going to happen and will happen all the way into eternity. Are you
anticipating that good news? This is what John 1 is all about.

Am I going to live a life of settling for what is, or am I going to live a life
of anticipation for what really is the good news of Christ in my life? As we
take a minute to pray together today, let's anticipate the good news together.
Jesus, strengthen my heart to decide to anticipate your good news in my life
today, and then the next day, and then the next day.

You have prepared me to live a good news life, and I want to live that good news
life. So strengthen me to live that life today, the life you've given me.
Strengthen me to live life as a gift from you.

Not my life. It's yours. You brought me into this world.

You gave me new life in Christ. You will give me new life in Christ if I'll only
choose it today if I haven't yet. And in this new life that you've given me,
Jesus, you have given me good news, the good news of forgiveness, the good news
of peace, the good news of significance, the good news Jesus of your love.

Strengthen my heart to anticipate that good news in my life today. I pray this,
Jesus, in your name, amen. Tomorrow, we're going to continue these
introductions, beginning with a very surprising meeting that the Spirit arranges
for Jesus.

Amen. Amen.