A Voice for God
Series: Mark, Sermon 1
Chuck Sligh
November 3, 2019
TEXT: Please turn in your Bibles to Mark 1:1-8 – "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; 2 As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. 3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 4 John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. 5 And there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 And John was clothed with camel’s hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey; 7 And preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. 8 I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost."
INTRODUCTION
Today we begin a series in the book of Mark. Before we launch into today’s text, first let me share some introductory details about the book.
The author of this Gospel was John Mark who had spent a significant amount of time with both Paul and Peter. Early on, he had a rocky relationship with Paul because he had abandoned Paul’s missionary team on their first missionary journey. But later, Paul spoke favorably of him on several occasions.
We don’t know when, but at some point, Mark became Peter’s assistant and protégé. The early Church Father Papias tells us that Mark’s Gospel was Peter’s first-hand memories of Jesus’ life and ministry. So, a more accurate title for this book would be “The Gospel According to Peter, as Recorded by Mark.”
Mark’s Gospel was the first record of Jesus’ life, and Matthew and Luke most probably used Mark as their primary source, while John writes from his own memory.
There are several significant characteristics about Mark’s Gospel:
First, Mark is the Gospel of REALISM.
Mark offers little in the way interpretation or explanation.
It’s an on-the-spot, unvarnished, eyewitness account, with few embellishments.
Second, Mark the Gospel of ACTION.
The key word you find over and over again in Mark is the Greek work euthús (e????), which means straightaway or immediately. This word occurs over 30 times, painting a vivid, fast-moving record of Christ’s life. It rushes from one event to the other in breathless fashion. For this reason, its main target is thought to be ROMAN readers who were a people of action, while Matthew targeted JEWS and Luke targeted GREEKS.
Third, Mark is the Gospel of Christ’s EMOTION.
Though Mark’s purpose was to prove that Jesus was the Son of God, paradoxically, no other Gospel emphasizes the human side of Jesus, especially emphasizing His varied human emotions.
Finally, Mark is the Gospel of the EYEWITNESS.
Mark adds many details to Jesus’ life that could come only from an eyewitness. [The Preaching & Outline Bible, Chattanooga: Leadersthip Ministries Worldwide, p. 1.]
While Matthew begins his Gospel with the genealogy narrative, and Luke begin with a lot of backstory before birth of Christ, as well as a genealogy, Mark begins as if he is in a rush, saying in verse 1, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” That’s the entirety of his introduction—short and sweet. See what I mean that his gospel story is unvarnished and to-the-point?
In this first verse, Mark tells us the purpose of His book: To show that Jesus was THE SON OF GOD, and to prove it by His life and miracles. The term “Son of God” does not mean Jesus was born by God in a human sense; that is by procreation resulting from an act of sexual relations. It’s a term of endearment to show God the Father’s special relationship with Jesus, the second person of the Trinity. The Jews understood it to mean that Jesus was claiming to be God Himself, and that’s how Mark used it. In Mark it is used to point to Jesus’ deity, and it is used in the rest of the New Testament as a title to show that Jesus was fully God, with all the characteristics and attributes of God the Father and God the Son.
Mark begins His Gospel by telling about John the Baptizer. He is often called “John the Baptist,” but denominations were not in existence then, so he was not really the first Baptist preacher as we often jokingly say!
Illus. – When I was a teen, several of the classmates in my Christian school were members of the Nazarene denomination. We would sometimes spar over doctrinal differences and one day I jokingly said to one of my Nazarene friends, “Well, you know John was a Baptist, right?”
He replied, “Yes, but Jesus was Nazarene.”
Well, I lost that line of reasoning!
Who was John? What was his role in the Gospel story? And can we learn from him?
We want to answer those questions today and see three important spiritual lessons about him that I think have relevance our lives as well.
I. FIRST, JOHN TEACHES US WHAT OUR CALLING IS: TO PREPARE THE WAY FOR CHRIST IN PEOPLE’S LIVES AND POINT THEM TO JESUS. – Mark tells us in verses 2-3 “As it is written in the prophets, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way you.’ The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare…the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Prepare…the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
Now John’s role was unique in all of history. First, his job was to prepare the way for the Messiah’s coming. He fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy that a forerunner would come to prepare the way for the Messiah.
In Isaiah 40:4 it says, “Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill shall be made low;…the crooked places shall be made straight, the rough places a plain.”
Think of John as a highway builder.
Illus. – In the old days in the U.S., the old highways followed the paths of the old roads from former days before cars came on the scene. They winded around mountains with hairpin turns in steep inclines up and down mountains. But later came modern interstate highways. Interstate builders cut straight through mountains, tore down whole hills, built bridges across little valleys, and overall, smoothed and straightened the way.
John’s job was to prepare people for the Messiah’s coming. If they repented of their sins and centered their lives around God and His will and Word, the coming of the Messiah would be smooth. They would be ready and primed for some extraordinary shifts in their former ways of thinking when the Messiah came.
John’s Gospel, in chapter 1, verse 29 says that one day Jesus came to where Jesus was baptizing, and when John saw Jesus, he shouted dramatically, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
John’s job was to prepare the way for the coming of Jesus and to point people to Him. That’s where John’s life intersects with ours, if we’re followers of Jesus.
We too are called to prepare the way of Jesus in people’s lives and point them to Jesus. After all, there was someone who pointed the way for you and me. It might have been a parent, a pastor, or a loving Sunday School teacher. But someone helped us find and follow God. And now that WE know the Lord, it’s our job to carry the Good News to others. All of us who know Jesus as the Lamb of God should be pointing Him out to others.
Illus. – An old Methodist evangelist named Sam Jones used to tell the story about the time when paddlewheel riverboats steamed on the Mississippi River. When two riverboats passed on the river, the passengers would gather on the rail and wave to the passengers on the other boat.
One day as two paddlewheels were passing, a fireman who fed the boiler ran up onto the deck and pointed to the other boat. “Look! Look! There’s the captain! The finest captain on the Mississippi!”
A well-dressed man looked at the grimy fireman and said, “How would you know he is the finest captain?”
The fireman said, “Last year I was on the deck of his boat, and a storm blew up. I fell overboard and I can’t swim. I was crying, ‘Help me! Help me!’ The captain himself jumped in the water and saved my life. Ever since he saved me, I just love to point him out!”
That’s my story, too, and yours as well. As an old hymn said, “I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore. Very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more. But the master of the sea heard my disparaging cry; From the waters, lifted me; now safe am I!”
Brethren, that’s why I love to point out the captain of my salvation, the Lord Jesus.
Are you pointing people to Jesus? God has called us to be highway builders, smoothing the way by our godly lives for others to come to Christ, and signposts, pointing them to Jesus as the answer for sin.
II. THE SECOND TRUTH WE SEE IN THIS PASSAGE THE PREREQUISITE OF SALVATION: REPENTANCE. – Mark says in verses 4, “John…came baptizing in the wilderness, and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
Mark’s phraseology, “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” sounds like John was preaching baptism for salvation. But a closer look at the Greek indicates the idea of baptism being an outward manifestation of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.
John’s audience were Jews who were familiar with baptism. When a Gentile proselyte came into the Jewish faith, he had to undergo three things:
First, a circumcision, the mark of the covenant people.
Second was a sacrifice had to be made for him, for he stood in need of atonement, and only blood could atone for sin.
Third, he had to undergo baptism, which symbolized his cleansing from all the pollution of his past life. – This baptism could not be a mere sprinkling with water, but a bath in which his whole body was bathed. [Barclay, William, The Gospel of Mark, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975, pp. 13-14.]
So, the Jews understood baptism—namely that it was not baptism that saved, but THE SACRIFICE, and the baptism was merely symbolic of the washing on the inside.
What was unusual about John’s baptism was that he was asking Jews to submit to that which was only required of a Gentile coming into the Jewish faith. John was foreshadowing Paul’s concept that being one of God’s people was not an issue or race or ethnicity; it was a matter of a heart relationship with God. One could be born a Jew, but not be in God’s family.
The centerpiece of John’s message was repentance. The word “repent” means to have a change of mind about your relationship with God, to make a U-turn and turn away from sin and towards God.
People don’t like to hear that they need to repent. They think they’re fine just the way they are. There are some churches today that no longer talk about sin. They’re simply centers for human improvement.
But the message of the Bible is that we are all sinners and if we want to experience God’s forgiveness, we must admit we’re sinners and turn toward God.
The message of repentance is found throughout the Bible. Noah was a preacher of righteousness. He told the people, “Repent, or you’re going to drown.” But they laughed at him and died in their sins.
Jonah went to the wicked city of Nineveh and preached, “Repent, or God is going to destroy your city.” – In that case, the people did repent, and God spared them His wrath against sin.
But the Bible teaches that repentance alone will not save. We must put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ as the only hope for our salvation, not trusting in any work or merit on our part.
Yet the prerequisite to come to Jesus is to admit your sinful condition before God, to realize that He’s not just a jolly old guy who’ll just say to you on Judgment Day, “Aw, it’s alright. Come on into heaven. I’ll just overlook your sin.” You must turn from your sin to God and trust in His Son who died in your place.
Repentance means that you’re going in one direction, away from God, but then you hear the Good News, turn from your sin and turn to Jesus as your remedy for sin.
Have you turned from sin to Christ? God has not repealed his call to repentance! Turn from your sin; turn from your dependence on yourself and your self-effort and your own good works and turn to JESUS as your only hope of salvation.
III. THIRD, JOHN TEACHES US IN THIS PASSAGE THAT KINGDOM LIVING IS MORE ABOUT JESUS AND LESS ABOUT ME. – Verses 5-8 – “Then all the country of Judea, and all of Jerusalem, went out to him and were…being baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel's hair, and with a with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And he was preaching, saying, ‘After me comes one mightier than I after I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I…have baptized you with water: but he will baptize you with the Holy spirit.”
Verse 5 tells us that John’s ministry was wildly successful. People from all over Judea and Jerusalem were repenting of sin and being baptized to testify of their turning from sin to be ready for the coming Messiah. It would be easy for John to get the big head and think he was a hot shot. But he didn’t: He minimized his role and magnified the role of the One to come.
We see it first in the description of John in verse 6, which is startling to us today. From this description you might be tempted to think he looked like a cross between a homeless man and Bigfoot. That’s probably a little too much, since everyone in those rough days probably looked a little like that.
But what’s with the odd garb and strange diet? William Barclay says, “He was a man who lived his message. Not only his words, but also his whole life was a protest.” [Barclay, p. 15.]
Remember that John was a Nazarite from birth, which means he had dedicated his whole life to God. To fulfill the Nazarite vow, a Nazarite could not eat of any product of the grape, fermented or unfermented, could not cut his hair and could not come near a dead body to avoid defilement.
John chose to live by these strict rules so that when he preached his message of repentance, he would have credibility. He didn’t just call people to repent and turn to God; he lived every day a life of self-denial and commitment to God. He realized that Kingdom living was not about having things and enjoying the pleasures of this world, but in knowing and serving God. Rather than playing the megachurch pastor card and dressing in the latest fashions and wining and dining, he lived a life of simplicity and self-denial.
He also recognized that his job was to magnify Jesus even as his influence would dim. He said he was not even worthy to untie the sandal strap of the One who was to come after him. The job of the lowliest slave was to stoop down and untie the leather strap of his master’s stinky sandals. John said he wasn’t even worthy to do the lowliest task of a slave for the Messiah.
If he had claimed to be the Messiah, many of his followers would have believed him. But John didn’t have a Messiah complex. He was willing to step aside and give all the glory to Jesus.
The Gospel of John tells us that John lost disciples to Jesus once Jesus came on the scene. Some of his disciples complained to John about it. But John knew exactly his role: He said he was only the friend of the bridegroom, and the bridegroom should get all the attention at the wedding.
And then John said this: “I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him...He must increase and I must decrease.” (John 3:28, 30)
We live in a culture where nobody is satisfied to be number 2. When the L.A. Rams lost to the New England Patriots in this year’s Super Bowl, the L.A. players weren’t running over the field in jubilation shouting, “We’re number 2! We’re number 2!”
We don’t like to be number 2. But God wants to be number 1 in our lives and He wants us to be number 2!
As we grow in Christ, He must increase, and we must decrease! He must take center stage and we must step back behind the curtain. His will must take priority in our lives. and our will must diminish.
And the truth is, the greatest joy in our lives comes when we put Jesus first place.
Is Jesus the Ruler and Controller and Lord and Master of your life? If not, I beg of you to find the greatest joy in life: To lose yourself in the life of God.
CONCLUSION
John’s message was “repent and be baptized.” Later Jesus said, “Unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish.” God is giving you the opportunity today to turn to Him and trust in Him for forgiveness.
Illus. – Wabush is a town in a remote part of Labrador, Canada, that for years was completely isolated. But a few years ago, a road was cut through the wilderness to reach it. Wabush now has one road leading into it, and only one road leading out. For all who travel this unpaved road for six to eight hours to get into Wabush, there’s only one way they can leave, and that is by turning around.
Each of us, by birth, arrives in a town called Sin. There is only one way out—a road built by God Himself. But in order to take that road, one must first turn around. That complete about-face is what the Bible calls repentance, and without it, there’s no way out of God’s judgement and the ultimate destination of Hell. [Source unknown, cited at https://www.family-times.net/illustration/Repentance/202250/.]
I urge you to turn from sin and self-sufficiency and pride and turn to Jesus!
If you’re already saved, can I ask you a few questions?
Are you smoothing the way for others to be saved by a godly life that is consistent with how a Christian is supposed to live and act?
And are you pointing them to Jesus through your witness?
And finally, are you allowing Jesus to be magnified in you as you are submitting more and more to God and His will in your life? – May the testimony of your life not be, “It’s about me,” but rather, the testimony of John, “He must increase and I must decrease.”
