Mark 1:1-8 - Who Is Jesus?

Please open your Bibles to Mark 1:1-8 which we will read in a few minutes.

The Gospel of Mark is fast paced.

It is the shortest of the four Gospels filled with miracles and action to show the power of Jesus the Messiah.

The Gospel of Mark emphasizes the super-human power of Jesus.

Mark presents Jesus as God’s Son in action, demonstrating His divinity by His miracles.

For example, there is an account of a man born blind who was healed by Jesus.

The Pharisees claimed that Jesus was a sinner and that they did not know where He came from.

Mark uses the word “immediately” almost 40 times in the Bibles that are more literally translated. It’s like a young child at a zoo running from cage to cage yelling, “Look at this! Can you believe it? This is incredible!”

Now, you might be wondering who Mark is!

Those who lived in that time and were closest to the people and events of Jesus’ day believed he was a young man who was one of the hundreds of disciples who followed Jesus but he was not one of the Twelve.

Many people scholars believe that Mark included himself without identifying himself in the Gospel that bears his own name. That identification takes place in the garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was arrested.

And it says in Mark 14:51-52:

“A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind.”

No wonder he didn’t include his name in the text!

It is also believed that Mark who wrote the Gospel is the same as John Mark who traveled with Paul and Barnabas and later again with Barnabas.

While all of this conjecture is interesting it is nothing on which we rest our eternal souls. Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.

I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name!

With that in mind let’s go ahead and read Mark 1:1-8

Mark:

Declares the good news about Jesus

Immediately shows Jesus fulfills prophecy

Declares Jesus’ deity through John the Baptist and mighty miracles

Mark 1:1

“The beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

What is the Gospel, the good news?

We don’t have much good news these days, do we?

People are so confused that they don’t even know what gender they are!

Those who want “sexual freedom” keep pushing the boundaries so much that they will soon run out of letters of the alphabet to put into their identity acronym.

Just listen to this:

An 8-year-old second-grader in Los Angeles is a typical patient. Born a girl, the child announced at 18 months, “I a boy” and has stuck with that belief. The family was shocked but now refers to the child as a boy and is watching for the first signs of puberty to begin treatment, her mother told The Associated Press.

Did you know that there is a cure for that? The cure is for the Dad and Mom to tell the girl, “No, you’re not. You’re a girl.” But the parents are so deceived by the wickedness of this world that they can’t even do that!

We now have to pass laws to keep doctors from killing babies who have miraculously survived abortions! God Help us!

Standing in line in a pharmacy you can see paternity test kits. Kits that are made specifically so a woman can determine exactly which man is the father of her child!

That is craziness! This is BAD NEWS!

Teenagers now have to be warned that eating laundry detergent is harmful and may be fatal!

You can now get the white portions of your eyes tattooed. They can be red so it looks like your eyes are always bleeding or black or really any color you want.

You can now pay a doctor to turn your outie bellybutton into an innie!

You can get eyelash transplants

You can have your palm lines modified to change your future

You can have your tongue split

A terminally ill patient wanted a face lift so that she would look good in her casket

We may laugh but that is BAD NEWS!

Drug related deaths last year more than 70K

Alcohol related deaths NOT including homicides, auto or other accidents more than 30K

100,000 persons die each year from alcohol-related causes: drinking and driving crashes, other accidents, falls, fires, alcohol-related homicides and suicides. (NCAAD)

Suicide rates are skyrocketing!

We in this country are saturated with sin sickness!

How it must grieve the heart of God that the souls for which He bled and died are abusing themselves and others to death!

We need some Good News!!!

Jesus is the Good News and the world thinks we are insane for believing that!