An Unlikely Author Of A Gospel Series

A. One day a woman was cleaning her house and singing Gospel songs as she worked.

1. She began singing, “Soon and very soon, we are going to see the king...”

2. A few minutes later, she heard her young son in the next room and he was singing the same song, but something a little off.

3. Listen to the preschooler’s version: “Soon, and very soon, we are going to Burger King...”

B. I’m excited that we have a king named Jesus – He’s not the Burger King – He’s our servant king.

1. And I’m excited that there seems to be a renewed interest in Jesus in our present culture.

2. The huge success of the crowd-funded television series about Jesus and His disciples called “The Chosen” is a sign of this growing interest.

3. Another sign is positive reception of the “Jesus Revolution” film that hit theaters last weekend.

a. One headline read: “Jesus Revolution performs miracles at the box office, receives rave reviews from audience.”

b. The faith-based film was forecasted to earn around $6 or $7 million in ticket sales, but ended up with more than $15 million.

c. Despite mixed critic reviews, the movie was awarded an A+ CinemaScore and a 99% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes from the general audience.

C. Because I have such great faith in Jesus and because I love Him with all my heart, I have always loved reading and studying the Gospels.

1. To me, the Gospels are the most exciting, most important, and most powerful books in the Bible.

2. The Gospels give us the clearest picture of Jesus that exists anywhere in this world.

3. Although Matthew, Mark and Luke are the most alike, each of the Gospels is unique.

4. Two of the Gospels are written by apostles of Jesus – they are Matthew and John.

5. The other two Gospels are written by important followers of Jesus – they are Luke and Mark.

6. It goes without saying that all four of the Gospels are inspired and protected by the Holy Spirit.

D. Today, we are starting a new sermon series on the Gospel of Mark that I am calling “Learning to Follow Jesus, Our Servant King.”

1. I’m very excited about this opportunity for all of us to grow in our love for Jesus as we grow in our understanding of who Jesus is and what Jesus did.

2. As those who claim to be followers of Jesus, we are called to become like Jesus in our thinking, our actions and our words.

3. It should be our goal that people will be able to see Jesus in us and through us.

4. I hope and pray that that will become a greater possibility because of our study of the Gospel called Mark.

E. But let’s start by asking the question: Who is Mark and why would David title this introductory sermon “An Unlikely Author of a Gospel of Jesus Christ”?

1. The name “Mark” occurs eight times in the New Testament and is always used to identify the same man.

2. Sometimes the references are only “Mark” and sometimes they are “John who was called Mark.”

3. These two names bear reference to Mark’s relationship with two worlds.

a. “John” was his Jewish name and “Mark” was his Roman name.

4. We are first introduced to Mark by name in Acts 12:12, where we are told that he was the son of Mary of Jerusalem.

a. There are many Marys in the Bible, but this Mary is distinguished as being the “mother of John who was also called Mark.”

b. Apparently, Mary was a wealthy woman because she owned a house in Jerusalem large enough for the early Christians to meet in and because she had at least one servant.

5. From Colossians 4:10, we also know that Mark was the cousin of Barnabas, the encourager.

F. But the thing we remember most about Mark, other than the fact that a Gospel is attributed to him, is that he had a big black mark on his resume.

1. When Paul and Barnabas were set apart by the Holy Spirit and embarked on their first missionary journey, they took John Mark with them as their helper.

a. It was probably Barnabas’ idea to take Mark, since he was his cousin.

2. Unfortunately, not far into the journey, Mark abandoned Paul and Barnabas and went home.

3. Scripture doesn’t tell us why Mark abandoned them, but we know that when Paul and Barnabas were preparing for their second missionary journey, they got into a sharp disagreement because Barnabas wanted to give Mark a second chance, and Paul refused to do so.

4. In Paul’s opinion, Mark was a deserter and a failure and Paul wasn’t about to put himself in a position to be left high and dry again by Mark.