Mark 1:1-13 The Divine King

This sermon began a new series (my first series) at Twynholm Baptist Church entitled "Who do you say that I am?"

The audio is NOW available here
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Are all religions the same? I mean, obviously the religions have differences; but are they the same at their hearts?
I was at a university mission once, and was talking with a young woman who shared this view... “so, do you think that we are all on different paths leading to the top of the same mountain?” I asked. “No, no, no” she replied, “We are all on the same path, but we are all wearing different coloured clothes.”
Is that right? Are we all heading in the same direction, though we look rather different?
We live in a world that assumes that though religions appear different, the differences are superficial and the similarities are fundamental. I mean we might disagree upon the small things like different articles of dogma, but don’t we agree on the fundamentals like the centrality of love, or justice, or worship of God?
- It’s all about a bit of ritual... conversation with a photographer in the local press... he wanted the stained glass window in the background, “that’ll work well” he said, “it’s quite religious”.

- Like many other religions we might have a special day upon which we meet each week to encourage one another to keep true to the faith. We have what might be perceived as religious rituals. In the mosque Muslims bow down in unison in prayer. In the temple Buddhists burn incense, in the chapel Christians take the Lord’s supper, or have bring and share lunches after the service!

- But though Christ instituted baptism and the lord’s supper, Christianity is not fundamentally about religious ritual.

- We can agree with many other religions that murder, adultery, usury and theft are wrong. But Christianity is not fundamentally about a particular set of morals.

- Fundamentally Christianity is not even about a religious experience, though it clearly produces one – no less than the immersion in the Holy Spirit of God that we are going to read about in our passage today.

Fundamentally, Christianity is news about a person.
Turn with me to Mark’s gospel, Chapter 1.
Read 1:1.
That is how our passage begins: it is about the gospel, or good news about one person, Jesus Christ.
And that news is so outrageous in its claims that it must be heard.
You might think that news is rather a mundane thing - but actually think about your life: almost all of the most life-changing experiences we have are the result of news: good or bad.
“She said yes!!”
“It’s a girl”
“You failed”
“You got the job”
“I’m sorry, he’s not going to make it.”
What has been the news that has changed your life more than any other?
However life-changing the news you have received in the past, the writer of Mark’s gospel wants us to know that there is no news that is as life-changing as the news that he is going to tell us.
Mark show us that this good news makes all the difference between heaven – an eternal life enjoying God’s loving rule, and hell, an eternal punishment excluded from God’s loving presence.
Jesus’ claim, that Mark reports in his gospel is that the fundamental decision we face in life is how we take this news. How we respond to this news makes the difference between heaven and hell. So whether we agree on the importance of love or justice or worship becomes less important.
We could agree with someone on almost everything except the gospel, and our agreements would be superficial, and our disagreement fundamental. If we agree on the gospel, then our agreement is fundamental, and our disagreement superficial.
That’s why he begins his gospel telling us about this gospel, this good news.
Turn with me please to Mark, chapter one. You’ll find it on page 1008 in the church Bibles.
Read Mark 1:1-13
1The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, ("Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way,3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,'"
4 John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. 7And he preached, saying, "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8(P) I have baptized you with water, but(Q) he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."
9(R) In those days Jesus(S) came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10And when he came up out of the water, immediately he(T) saw(U) the heavens being torn open(V) and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11And(W) a voice came from heaven,(X) "You are my beloved Son;[d] with you I am well pleased."
12(Y) The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13(Z) And he was in the wilderness forty days, being(AA) tempted by(AB) Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and(AC) the angels were ministering to him.
Mark was a good person to write down this news about Jesus. He himself had almost certainly been an eye-witness to at least some of what happened in the gospel account. The rather strange figure who flees from Gethsemane in chapter 14 is almost certainly Mark himself. But more importantly even than mark’s own experience, we know from very early sources that Mark was a close colleague with the apostle Peter. Simon Peter had been there throughout Jesus’ ministry. Glance down at verse 16 that we’ll be looking at next week. So, in a very real way this is as much Peter’s gospel as Mark’s. He would have been the major source for Mark, he undoubtedly would have read over the manuscript to ensure that everything that Mark wrote was accurate.
In telling us the good news about Jesus, Mark writes a book of 2 halves. The first half focuses on Who Jesus is, culminating with peter’s confession of Christ in Chapter 8,
"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" Peter answered, "You are the Christ." (that is, the messiah)
And then the second half of the book explores that more: what kind of messiah. What is the news about him? What has the messiah come to do. And from that point onwards we see that the Messiah has come to suffer, die and be raised.
Share gospel.
Mark’s style is one of rapid-fire. You’ll notice how he tells things so briefly. Jesus’ temptation is told in a single verse. His baptism in 3. We’ll find this throughout the gospel. Mark doesn’t comment much, we are just given a rapid in-your-face encounter with Jesus. If john’s gospel is like the fly-on-the-wall documentary recording long conversations that Jesus has, and Matthew is like the indepth analysis of the Newsnight presentation, then Mark’s gospel is more like the rapid in-your-face report of Chanel 5 news. It gets to the point and hits the highlights.
And The point that Mark is trying to get to is that we, Just like Mark’s own friend Peter, must answer for ourselves the question, “who do you say that I am?” Mark’s intention in writing his gospel, and my prayer in preaching through it is that those who don’t know Jesus as their Lord and Saviour will come to know him.
If you can’t give an honest answer to the question, “Who do you say that Jesus is” don’t be satisfied until you are quite sure.
and those of us who do will grow in our understanding of who Jesus is, and therefore grow in our love for him, our trust in him and our obedience to him.
This is the news that is at the very heart of Christianity. Whatever Christianity shares with other religions, it doesn’t share this good news, and therefore the differences are central, for this news is central.
So, from this earliest section of Mark’s gospel, what kind of response should we have to Jesus?
Bow before Jesus, the eternal God. (1-3)

1The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.[a]
2It is written in Isaiah the prophet: "I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way"[b]— 3"a voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.' "
Mark gives us a glimpse into heaven to hear the Father speak to his Son before he sends him to earth.
We, the reader, are therefore let into seeing just how incredible Jesus is before he even appears in person in pages of the book.
The sending of Jesus has always been at the heart of God’s plan for the world. And so in this quote there are allusions to Exodus 23, Malachi 3 and Isaiah 40. Mark talks about it being what Isaiah said, because he uses the other quotes to explain the significance of the Isaiah quote.
In the Isaiah passage that Paula read earlier in the service, we read of how the Lord himself was going to come to his people....
A voice of one calling: "In the desert prepare the way for the LORD [a] ; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. [b]
4 Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.
5 And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken."
You who bring good tidings to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, [c] lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, "Here is your God!"
10 See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power, and his arm rules for him. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him.
The same is true of the Malachi passage...
1 "See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the LORD Almighty.”
So, Mark is making the point that when John the Baptist was preparing the way for Jesus, he was preparing the Way for GOD himself coming to Earth. If you ever get into conversation with people who think that they believe the bible but don’t believe that Jesus is the one true God, bring them to passages like this, and countless others, where New Testament writers take passages of the Old Testament that were talking about the Lord, Jehovah, and they say that they are about Jesus. This can only mean that Jesus is the Lord come in human form.
This is why this news is so central. Never before or since has God come down to earth as a man. This is not just another man who founded a religion. It is not just another prophet through whom God spoke. Jesus is the eternal God himself who is coming!
Apparently the queen constantly has to live with the smell of wet paint as the house is put in order for her arrival.
That is was the ministry of John the Baptist... Read 2-3.
“prepare the way of the lord, make his paths straight.” When my brother lived in Kenya the roads were generally pretty dreadful. But occasionally you’d come across the most beautiful tarmacked road. Why? Because the president had visited.
When the creator of the universe enters his world it is time for us to bow in worship, and prepare our lives for him.
If you are a Non-Christian here this morning, it is probably likely that you have read the Da Vinci Code more recently than you have read the bible. At the end of the Da Vanci code the hero, Robert Langdon bows down because he thinks that he has found the tomb of Mary Magdalene. Mary would be horrified! She, along with all disciples would herself be bowing down to the Lord Jesus.
Unless you recognise Jesus as the Lord who is to be worshipped, the New Testament is clear: you are missing the whole point of your existence.
Will you bow before Jesus. That doesn’t just mean singing praise songs like the one we had earlier, “Jesus shall take the highest honour.” It means giving him the highest honour. Father and husbands, who do you most want to see honoured in your home, yourself, or the Lord Jesus. DO your wives and your children know that by your words, your encouragement, your prioritising of prayer, even the words you choose when correcting your children?
Wives and mothers, do you long to see the Lord honoured more than yourself; how do you respond to a harsh word? Do you see it as an opportunity to honour the Lord Jesus who did not retaliate, but entrusted himself to his father, or do you see it as a time to assert your right to be listened to and understood?
I wonder if there are any young people here who sometimes yet bored with the fact that your parents keep talking about Jesus, or keep insisting that you come to church. Praise the Lord that you are in a home where Jesus is recognised as Lord. Thank your parents for any way in which you have seen the Lord Jesus honoured in the home in which you’ve grown up.
What does this mean for us as a church? Will Twynholm Baptist Church be ruled by the Lord Jesus Christ, or by personalities. You have a new preacher starting this morning. Are you hoping that this means you have a new ruler? I hope that you will submit to me and the other elders only insofar as I am submitting to Lord in His word. If the Lord Jesus will rule this church through this pulpit, members of Twynholm Baptist Church, YOU have a responsibility to ensure that the gospel is being preached from this pulpit.
In the church my parents so kindly dragged me along to as a child, there was an old wooden pulpit. And into it were carved words from 1 Corinthians 9:16, “Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel.”
If you don’t hear the gospel being preached from this pulpit, I am in peril from God as the preacher. You are in peril from God for letting me pretend to be a Christian minister. Please let me face your wrath and fire me if I don’t preach the gospel to save me from facing the greater wrath of the divine king, the Lord Jesus Christ.
We must all Bo before Jesus, the eternal God.
Turn towards Jesus, the forgiving Lord! (4-8)

So what is involved in making straight paths for the king to walk down?
Have a look down at verse 4.
John appeared, baptizing in(G) the wilderness and proclaiming(H) a baptism of(I) repentance(J) for the forgiveness of sins. 5And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan,(K) confessing their sins. 6Now John was(L) clothed with camel’s hair and(M) wore a leather belt around his waist and ate(N) locusts and wild honey. 7And he preached, saying,(O) "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8(P) I have baptized you with water, but(Q) he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."
The right way to prepare for an encounter with the living God is repentance. That is what this baptism was about.
In some ways baptism wasn’t a new thing with John. Any time a Gentile converted to Judaism, they would be baptised, perhaps reminding them of the healing of naaman in the Old testament. But what was radically surprising with John was that he was telling Jews that they too needed to be baptised. They were spiritually dirty and needed spiritual washing.
The baptism in water was to symbolise externally something that was going on internally: repentance.
What is repentance? It is not merely some kind of group therapy where we confess our sins, though it must begin with confession. The difference between confession and repentance can be seen by when you get on the tube. Imagine that you hop on the tube at Baron’s Court because you are trying to catch a plane out of Heathrow.
You get on and then you arrive at Earl’s Court. And suddenly you realise that you are going in the wrong direction. The train moves off again. Confession is to say, “Oh no! I’m going the wrong way. I’ll never make the plane at this rate.” But you could confess and stay on the train going in the wrong direction.
Repentance is to say, “I’m going the wrong way. I’ve got to turn around.” And so as soon as the train stops at the next station you get out, cross the platform and get on a train going the right way.
That is what repentance is. We are all naturally going in the wrong direction. We are following our own path without Jesus as our Lord. Repentance is a change of allegiance, a determination to live for him and to do his will and not our own.
There is an idea out there that what we need to do is discover who we are and learn to accept it. If only we can come to accept ourselves then we will find satisfaction in life.This is popular but it is not Christian. We find who we are in repentance, forgiveness and restoration to our heavenly Father.
Repentance is not seen as a positive message. A friend at university told me that he thought that Christianity is the worst of all religions for only Christianity has us grovelling on our knees begging God for forgiveness. The better religions, he thought, taught men to be proud and stand up straight.
No, it is the best, for there is a fundamental problem when we are not living for our creator.
Where else can you turn for forgiveness? Do you realise that you and I and all of us desperately need forgiveness.
There are many other philosophies that can make some changes. Behavioural therapy has some large degree of success. But it can change only the behaviour, and possibly it can change people’s minds, but it cannot change the heart. Even John’s baptism therefore is not enough. We need to be baptised in the Spirit of God who brings deep conviction of sin, and a true repentance.
Whereas John’s Baptism symbolises repentance and the forgiveness that follows, the baptism of the holy Spirit causes repentance and therefore brings forgiveness.
Only Jesus baptises in the Spirit.
The most significant question is not “Have you been baptized by water”. But “have you been baptized by the Holy Spirit”
Have you been baptised by the Holy Spirit. If you have, it will show itself in repentance. Not that you will live a perfect life, but that more and more you will take Jesus’ side against your sin rather than your sin’s side against Jesus. Are you at war with sin in your life out of love for your Lord, or are you merely trying to manage s ii your life out of love for your own reputation.
What do we do when our sin is exposed? we try to cover it up, are you defensive, trying to preserve that sin in your life, or do you thank the Lord Jesus for revealing it to you so that you can repent of it, and be rid of the barrier that it has caused between you and a deeper fellowship with Christ.
Sin thrives in secrecy. Imagine you discover a back cockcroach infestation in your house. You can either keep trying to get rid of the signs of cockcroaches, clearing them up only where they might cause an embarrassing moment when you have guests round, and brushing them back under the cupboards. Or you can take the faces of the cupboards out so that you can find where they are nesting and destroy them.
Do you try to deal with only the symtoms of those sins you struggle with, or are you committed to rooting them out. We must be a church where we are open with one another about our struggles: we are all sinners – in getting a new pastor and his family, you’ve just got 5 more sinners to care for - so that we might encourage one another to enjoy honouring and serving the Lord Jesus Christ.
If we have been baptised in the Spirit this life of repentance is what we want, isn’t it. We have been given spiritual sight to see that the Lord Jesus is worth living for though it mean taring apart the spiritual walls of our houses to root out the ockroaches.
Why are we a Baptist church then if water baptism is not as significant as spirit baptism? Why should we say that people haven’t really been baptised if they have been baptised in the Spirit but not in water as believers? Is the new pastor going to encourage us all to stop being Baptists. No, we are a Baptist church because even water baptism is a baptism of repentance, and Jesus commands water baptism as a sign of Spirit Baptism: that is, being baptized is saying “I have turned from my sins and trusted in Jesus.”
But we must be Chrstians first and Baptists second. Water baptism is significant because Jesus commands it, but Spirit baptism is essential for salvation. We must never suggest that water Baptism is necessary for salvation.

SO, we are to bow before Jesus, the eternal God, turn towards Jesus the forgiving Lord. Is all this bowing and turning a terrible duty that the Lord has sent merel to make our lives difficult and destroy our fun?
Nothing could be further form the truth. The Lord wants us to bow and repent, for in the worship of Jesus is to be found the deepest possibly Joy and Delight,
So, finally,
Delight in Jesus, the Obedient Son (9-13)

Have a look down at verse 9
9(R) In those days Jesus(S) came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10And when he came up out of the water, immediately he(T) saw(U) the heavens being torn open(V) and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11And(W) a voice came from heaven,(X) "You are my beloved Son;[d] with you I am well pleased."
12(Y) The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13(Z) And he was in the wilderness forty days, being(AA) tempted by(AB) Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and(AC) the angels were ministering to him.
Perhaps you think it a strange idea that repentance should be a delight rather than a distress.
I think this is the case when we only think about what we are turning from, and do not think about who we are turning to. We are to turn towards Jesus. In repentance we take those idols that have demand ever increasing service for ever diminishing pleasure, until all that is left is the idol itself with no pleasure at all.
Think about those things that you got so excited about when you were younger: what was it... possessions; Is there 100 times as much joy when you own 100 CD than when you bought yourvery first one? What else? Ambition? Reputation? Sex? Money? If we serve them, years down the road we will still crave them, but like Gollum’s craving for the ring, there will be little pleasure left in it.
We are called to turn from such worthless idols.
And turning from them, God holds out His Son, Jesus for us to turn towards.
Look what God the Father says from heaven about His Son.
"You are my beloved Son;[d] with you I am well pleased."
God is well pleased with loving his Son. He finds full satisfaction in the love of Jesus.
God, whose capacity for pleasure is infinite, as he Sends his Spirit upon his Son is fully satisfied.
Don’t believe the common idea that God was somehow lonely and that is why he created us. He is eternally Fully satisfied in His Son. He didn’t create us to fill his empty gap that was left because His Son was not enough for him. He created us that we might be fully satisfied in His Son.
It begs the question. Why are we not fully satisfied in Jesus!! Is our capacity for pleasure greater than God’s and so we need more than God’s son!!!? Of course not. The problem is not that Jesus is insufficient, it is that we do not sufficiently know Jesus.
CS Lewis puts it like this,
“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature fo the rewards promised in the gospels, it would seems that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mudpies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”
So, how will we ensure that we see Jesus more clearly and love him more?
What do you do with your quiet times...
Are you merely looking for a list of things that you should do. Are you trying to find yourself in the passage. Wasn’t Stuart Moffat so helpful a couple of weeks ago on the Psalms. We need to see that they are about Jesus, because we need to know and delight in Jesus.
Let’s look at some things about Jesus even in these verses that are remarkable and truly lovely.
John has said that he is not worthy to unstrap Jesus’ sandals, but Jesus asks John to baptise him.
What a wonderful Lord we have who allows us to serve him in ways that we do not deserve at all.
How amazing of Jesus to submit to a baptism of repentance at all. He is the only person who never needed to repent. But for our sake, to identify with us, he was baptised.
Perhaps if you are a believer and you are wondering if you really need to be obedient to the Lord in baptism, just look at how the Lord Jesus is obedient to his Father that even he would be baptised.
Then we have an extraordinary surprise: right at the moment the Father speaks those words of total love and approval, right as the Spirit descends upon Jesus, have a look at verse 12.
The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13(Z) And he was in the wilderness forty days, being(AA) tempted by(AB) Satan.
Why would the spirit send him off to be totally alone, tempted by the devil himself?
Well: there had been someone else described as God’s son before. Out of Egypt God had called his Son Israel. And just as Israel came through the waters of the Red Sea into forty years of temptation in the wilderness, so the God’s True son went through the waters of baptism to a place of 40 days testing in the wilderness. But where Israel failed the test, and turned to other Gods, Jesus overcame. He obeyed his father despite the intense personal temptation of Satan himself.
This is another remarkable picture of delight and satisfaction. If the Father is fully satisfied in loving the Son, the Son is fully satisfied in obeying his Father.
That’s how the devil can get a grip on us in temptation isn’t it. He tells us to be dissatisfied with God’s rule over us… Do we consider God only worth following if he will bless us in every way…
Or is he worth obeying when he gives us nothing but himself; when we feel utterly alone, in grave danger, facing intolerable temptation. The Lord Jesus continued to delight in obedience to his Father though the only company he had was the devil who was tempting him and the wild animals who might attack him at any moment. No wonder the angels came and worshipped him.
Will we?
Do we have these two delights: Are we fully satisfied in loving the Son? Are we fully satisfied in obeying the Father?
Will Twyholm Baptist Church be a place not of mere duty, but, as the prayerbook put it will we be a people who know that it is our duty and our joy in all time to give thanks and praise to our God?
Will we be a community that encourages one another to know the lord Jesus better and better so that we will be find our joy in him together?
Let’s pray