Who Is Jesus, Part 1: Jesus The Sovereign Authority Series

41. Who Do You Say I Am, Pt. 1: Jesus the Sovereign

Mark 1:16-2:14

Good morning. Please open your Bibles to Mark 1.

This morning, we start a series of messages going through the gospels. This is like a series within a series. We are still rocking through the bible chronologically, but for the next several weeks we are going to be looking at Jesus.

In Matthew 16, Jesus was walking with his disciples in a region called Caeserea Philippi, and he turned to his disciples and asked them, “Who do people say I am?” In other words, what’s the word on the street? And they responded with what the talk of the town was: Some say John come back to life. Some say Elijah. Some say Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

Then Jesus made it personal: But what about you? Who do YOU say I am? And that’s the question I want us all to wrestle with over the next several weeks: Who do you say Jesus is? What do you believe about Jesus, and more importantly, is your behavior consistent with your belief?

So we are going to be in Mark this morning, one of the four gospels. The word “gospel” literally means “Good News.” It’s a combination of two Greek words—eu, which means “good” (eulogy, euphemism) and angellion “message.”

The question that comes up for a lot of people when they open the Bible is, “Why do you need four gospels? The story is the story, right?”

Well, yes and no. The story is the story, in that there is only one Gospel—one good news. But each of the four gospel writers—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John came from different backgrounds. You can think of them as four distinct views of the one good news. Each had a specific audience. And each emphasized some details from the life of Jesus and ommitted others in order to make the point they were trying to make.

As we continue in this series, we’ll spend more time on what makes each gospel distinctive. And I know some of you are a little frustrated with the reading plan because it doesn’t have us in any one gospel, but instead tells the same story from multiple gospels in one day’s reading, and it can get a little repetitive. So as you are going through these next few week’s, I hope you’ll keep your listening guide today as a cheat sheet. There’s a really good infographic on the back of the listening guide that will help you understand what’s distinctive and unique about each gospel, but you can remember it this way: [advance each one]

• Matthew: A Jew, writing to Jews, about Jesus the Messiah

• Mark: A Roman, writing to Romans, about Jesus the Son of God

• Luke: A Gentile, writing to Gentiles, about Jesus the Savior of All

• John: A Disciple, writing to the Church about Jesus the Word made Flesh

So this morning, we’re going to begin with Mark—A Roman, writing to Romans, about Jesus as the son of God.

Now, if you were here last week, we talked about Ceasar Augustus proclaiming himself to be god in 9 BC. He also added a new month to the calendar and named it after himself—August, Here’s a denarius from the time of Jesus—It says “Augustus Divus” (not diva). That means Augustus the Divine.

Augustine proclaimed that

Never will another gospel surpass the gospel that was announced at his birth. He is not only Lord of the Empire, but Lord of the Earth and of the calendar and of time itself.”

So how much more “in your face” could Mark be with verse 1:The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

What Mark is setting up here is a question every single one of us have to answer, and that is, who am I going to acknowledge as the authority in my life? On the one hand, you have Rome. The Emperor. Remember Mark is is writing to Jews living in Rome. This is a group of people that understands authority. They understand abusive and oppressive authority. Any one of them could probably reach into their pockets (I don’t know—did togas have pockets?) and pull out one of these coins with Ceasar’s image on it—Caesar is Lord.

Now, the Romans were actually tolerant of Jews. Their official policy was to allow freedom of religion for any religion that was already established. So as long as Christianity is still seen as an offshoot of Judaism, they were kind of grandfathered in.

Only now, Mark is raising the stakes. In these first chapters, he’s going to show how the gospel of Jesus Christ supersedes the gospel of Caesar. He’s going to show that Jesus has authority in every area of life. There’s seven areas where Mark shows Jesus authority in these first two chapters. Let’s look at them together.