Prepare to Encounter Jesus • August 16, 2026 • Andrew Spradlin • Mark 1-1-8

Welcome to the Valley Baptist Church sermon podcast.

We're so glad you're here, and we hope this message inspires you,

builds your faith, and moves you toward a deep relationship with God.

Today, you'll find great insight into the Bible

and learn how you can apply it straight to your life.

So welcome and enjoy the message.

If you have your Bible, please open it with me to the New Testament book of Mark.

We're in a new series going through the gospel of Mark together, verse by verse,

and I'm calling this series, Walking in the Way.

Out of the four gospels in the New Testament,

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,

Mark is the shortest and most scholars believe

it was actually the first one that was written.

It's very short and to the point.

Every scene is like an eyewitness news brief.

Now Mark's favorite word is immediately.

You're gonna see it over and over again, that pattern.

Immediately Jesus went and did this.

Immediately Jesus and the disciples did that.

which at times makes it almost seem like Jesus is in a hurry.

But I don't think that's Mark's point.

I think his point is that the life of Jesus was action-packed.

Mark shows us that Jesus is the suffering servant of God that takes decisive action to rescue and save his people.

Now, because Mark's purpose was not to give us this exhaustive history lesson concerning Jesus,

he skipped some details that Matthew and Luke include.

His version is sort of the Reader's Digest version.

But really, when you think about it, all the gospel verses,

our kind of Reader's Digest verses. John said in chapter 21 verse 25, he said,

and there are also many other things that Jesus did,

which if they were written one by one,

I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be

written. So the gospel writers were not trying to give some, um,

you know, history lesson, although what they shared is historical.

They were writing

So people would believe.

John 20, verse 30 says,

John 20:30

And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples,

which are not written in this book.

But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,

and that believing you may have life in his name.

So the gospel writers wrote so we would believe in Jesus.

And they certainly accomplished that, didn't they?

In the 1940s, after Dr.

E.V. Ryu translated from ancient Greek into English,

some of Homer's Odyssey,

Homer's Odyssey and some of his other works.

After he did that, the publisher came to him and said,

I'd like for you to translate now the four gospels.

Ryu at the time was in his 60s. He had lived as a lifelong agnostic.

And that caused his son to say it will be interesting to see what father will make of the four Gospels.

It will be even more interesting to see what the four Gospels make of father.

Less than a year after Ryu began his translation, a lifelong atheist,

he became a committed follower of Christ.

You may not know Jesus today.

You may be listening and tuning in,

you're coming back to church,

your school started, things are getting going.

But I want to encourage you to stay with us

in the Gospel of Mark.

Because if you stay with us week by week

and you keep an open mind,

I believe you also will become a committed follower of Jesus.

Now every Gospel that we have,

the writer sort of had a target audience in mind.

Matthew wrote primarily with the Jews in mind.

Luke wrote primarily with the Greeks in mind.

But Mark, I think, wrote primarily in the mid-

80s, 60s, primarily to Roman Christians,

Roman Christians who were suffering terribly

during Nero's reign and his persecution.

And so no doubt many of those Christians wondered about their terrible suffering

and they wondered, Is this really the way

of Jesus.

You see, the most dominant title for Christians

in the first century was not Christian,

it was people of the way.

That's how they referred to themselves.

We said, we're people of the way.

Now, why would they call themselves that?

Well, because Jesus said in John 14, verse six,

I am the way, the truth and the life.

No man comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus very clearly said, I am the way to God.

So as a Christian, that means you are a person of the way,

a follower of Jesus.

But I think there's dualistic meaning here

because the way refers certainly the person of Jesus,

but it also refers to the way Jesus lived,

the way he carried himself,

the way in the path in which he walked.

That's why I think that Mark has two main characters

in his gospel account.

You've got Jesus

And then you have his disciples.

Mark puts a spotlight on the life of Jesus

so that we would believe,

but he also puts a spotlight and highlights his disciples

so we would know how to follow Jesus.

Even in times of failure,

we would know how to get back up and follow after the Lord.

Now, who is this guy Mark?

Well, Mark was also known in the New Testament by the name of John Mark.

John was his Jewish name and Mark was his Roman name.

And so since he was writing primarily to the Romans with them in mind, the gospel took on his Roman name of Mark.

Now, Mark was actually just a young boy

when Jesus walked the streets of Jerusalem.

Many believe that Mark was actually the boy

in Mark chapter 14, who lost his clothes

Mark 14 · chapter mention

and ran away naked.

Now, you may not know that's in the Bible

because it's not in Matthew and Luke's account or John's.

It's only in Mark, I think,

because Mark knew it was his embarrassing story to tell

and no one else's.

Now, Mark was connected to a somewhat prominent family within first century Christianity.

His mom's name was Mary.

And Mary, in her house, the early disciples gathered in the book of Acts in order to pray.

Many scholars believe her house was actually where the upper room was, where Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper.

So in the book of Acts, Paul and Barnabas, that is the Apostle Paul and Barnabas,

they took young Mark on a journey with him, a mission trip, the very first one.

And Mark, his close family member was Barnabas.

And depending on the translation, it's difficult to translate,

but Barnabas was actually either an uncle or a cousin.

And so they took Mark with them.

But in the middle of this first mission trip, Mark gets...

Homesick.

We don't know if he actually got sick or homesick,

but he ends up going back home.

That upset the Apostle Paul a lot.

So much so that years later,

Barnabas wanted to take Mark

on their second missionary journey

and Paul was not having it.

He did not want a quitter to be going with him

on their mission trip.

And he was so upset by it that Paul and Barnabas

actually got into an argument

about whether to take John Mark with him.

They could not come to an agreement.

So they went two separate ways

on two separate mission trips.

Paul took Silas with him and they went one way.

Barnabas took his nephew Mark and went another way.

Now, evidently years later,

Mark's relationship with the apostle Paul

was completely restored.

And we know that because in 2 Timothy,

as the apostle Paul was in prison,

he was awaiting his execution.

One of the last things that he said before he died

To young Timothy, he said, get Mark for me.

Bring him to me, for he is useful to me in ministry.

While Mark certainly spent a lot of time with Paul and with Barnabas,

he developed an especially close relationship with the Apostle Peter

while he spent time with Peter in Rome.

In fact, in 1 Peter, Peter calls Mark affectionately.

He calls him, my son.

And so the large majority of scholars believe that Mark's gospel

that we're going to be studying the weeks and months to come

is really, in a sense, Peter's gospel.

That Peter, as he shared story after story in the life of Jesus, that Mark took down detailed notes,

and eventually he wrote the gospel of Mark so all the world could read about the life of Christ.

Now, with that background in mind, let's jump into the text.

Mark chapter 1, verse number 1.

Mark 1 · chapter mention

Mark writes, under the inspiration of the Spirit, he says,

the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Now, this word beginning, I think, is meant to remind us of Genesis chapter 1, verse number 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

The Bible begins by saying,

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

In a similar way, the very first words of Mark announce not the beginning of creation,

but the beginning of creation.

but the beginning of new creation.

Mark's saying something new has begun.

For centuries, the prophets declared

that the Messiah was coming, that he was coming.

For centuries, they were silent,

but now Mark says he has arrived.

A new era has begun, the era of the gospel.

Now, the word gospel simply means good news.

The good news is that the Son of God,

God himself stepped out of glory and he became a human being like you and I.

And he took on flesh, really actual flesh.

And he lived among us.

And we're going to read all about his life.

But then he died on a cross for our sins.

His name was Jesus Christ.

Yeshua in Hebrew meaning Yahweh is salvation.

God saves.

He came to give us eternal life.

Verse number two, Mark writes, he quotes, he says,

as it is written in the prophets,

behold, I send my messenger before your face

who will prepare your way before you.

The voice of one crying in the wilderness,

prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight.

Mark begins his gospel, not like Matthew and Luke,

not with the story of the birth of Jesus, the Messiah,

but with an Old Testament prophecy

concerning a coming prophet who would arrive on the scene

before the Messiah would arrive.

He quotes the book of Exodus and Malachi

and the prophet Isaiah, where a prophecy was given

that before the Messiah would come,

a prophet like Elijah would arise

and he would prepare the way of the Lord.

Well, in verse number four, we find out who that prophet was in his name.

It was John the Baptist.

Verse four says, John came baptizing.

Now, don't confuse that with the Apostle John.

That's a different guy.

This is John the Baptist.

He came baptizing in the wilderness.

He came baptizing in the wilderness.

and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

Then all the land of Judea and those from Jerusalem went out to him

and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sin.

John the Baptist, he declares from the wilderness, he says,

prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight.

And it's estimated that tens of thousands of people flocked from the surrounding region to hear him preach.

Now, in the ancient world, anytime a king would arrive to a new region,

servants would go before him and they would clear out the roads.

They would sometimes widen the roads to make a clear path for the coming king.

That was John's responsibility given to him by God.

King Jesus was about to arrive on the scene.

And John's responsibility was to clear a path for his arrival.

Not a physical path, but a spiritual path.

And John did that by preaching a message of repentance.

Now we find out from Luke that John's ministry

was incredibly effective.

Look what Luke said in chapter seven, verse 29.

He said, and when all the people heard him, that's Jesus,

Even the tax collectors were justified, having been baptized with the baptism of John.

But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the will of God for themselves, not having been baptized by John.

That's an incredible insight about the effective ministry of John, but it's also incredible insight.

More importantly, I think it tells us something profound about the power of repentance.

The people who repented in John's day and John's message were the ones who received Christ into their life.

The ones who didn't rejected Jesus, right?

Now, the word repent means to turn.

You're headed in one direction and you repent.

You turn around and you head the other direction.

It's a change of one's mind that eventually leads to a change in one's behavior.

We know from Scripture that faith and repentance are...

Sort of the flip side of the same coin.

They go together.

And yet, practically speaking, one seems to lead to the other, doesn't it?

I mean, there's a sense in which faith prepares us for repentance.

And there's another sense in which repentance prepares us for faith.

I've known people who for a long time, many years,

talked about how they wanted a closer relationship

with the Lord.

They wanted to go all in for Jesus.

They wanted to truly and spiritually encounter him

and have this devotion to him,

and yet they couldn't get themselves there.

Something was holding them back.

They could not embrace the Lord like they wanted to,

and later, sometimes many years later, eventually they did.

And they catch fire for the Lord,

and they start growing like crazy.

And I'm like, what happened?

Tell me, where was the breakthrough moment?

How did this happen?

And oftentimes it was that they had a particular sin in their life that was choking them out spiritually.

And whenever they admitted that and they repented of it and they cleared the nastiness out of their heart,

that's when it became very easy and very natural to encounter the living God through Christ.

Right?

John, as he preached, he cleared, he beat this path for the people to encounter the Lord.

I mean, this was a special movement of God, wasn't it?

Thousands of people came flocking from the countryside to hear John preach,

and it says they confessed their sin.

They repented, and they were baptized.

I can tell you, people don't normally go around confessing their sin unless there's a movement of God.

And at the same time, I would say there's not normally a movement of God unless people go around confessing their sin.

Verse number six, we read more about John.

It says, now John was clothed with camel's hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.

Admittedly, John's a bit of an eccentric guy, isn't he?

Now, I don't think his bizarre dress and his bizarre diet

was a result of some kind of mental problem.

I think it was a result of spiritual surrender in his life.

You see, John's life was entirely about pointing people to Jesus.

And the way he dressed and the way that he ate was actually a part of that.

You see, the Pharisees and the Sadducees and other religious leaders of the day,

they wore these expensive garments that were elegant and they were soft

and they were sophisticated.

A symbol.

to them of their holiness, but John could care less about looking holy.

John cared only about being holy.

He didn't want to draw attention to him with his expensive, nice clothes.

He wanted to point people to the Lord.

Now, why the locusts though in the wild honey?

Was he a health nut?

I mean, that's kind of a high protein, low cholesterol diet, I guess,

when you think about it.

I think it was a result of his daily reliance upon the Lord.

John was not a rich person.

He lived in poverty, very simple means.

He'd gather locusts each and every day.

The honey was wild, meaning it wasn't a result of beekeeping.

And so I think it was provided by God

in an unconventional way.

He was daily relying upon the Lord.

A little side note here that you might get a kick out of.

When Pastor Brian and I were in seminary in Kentucky,

the little church that we were at, we led their vacation Bible school, the two of us.

And so one of the days or all the days, actually, in our VBS skit, I was a character named Bubba.

And one one of the days, Pastor Brian got up and he was getting the kids all pumped up about inviting all of their friends back to vacation Bible school the next day.

And he said, if you come, I'll eat a cricket.

Well, the next day rolls around and Pastor Brian,

he had the mic in hand and he turned the whole thing around on me.

I think he had schemed this whole thing up.

And he asked the kids, he said,

how many of you would like to see Bubba eat a cricket?

Yeah.

And he got them chanting, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, right?

And against my better judgment, I grabbed that cricket and I ate it for the glory of God, right?

And all those kids and all their enjoyment.

It was a nasty thing.

Now, I've never eaten a locust, but if it's anything like eating a cricket, I would not want to do it again.

He did it every day.

I think Mark's point, Matthew and Luke as well recorded for us,

their point is this displays John's humility.

John was humble in appearance.

He was humble in what he ate.

He was humble in where he lived.

He lived out in the wilderness in the desert.

And we find out from verse number seven, he was very humble in his message.

Look what he says.

He says, and he preached, saying, there comes one after me who is mightier than I,

whose sandal strap I'm not worthy to stoop down and lose.

I indeed baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

In the first century, it was a slave's job sometimes to stoop down and loosen the sandal strap of his master.

And John says, you think I'm so great.

You flock to me by the thousands to hear me.

But there's one coming who I'm not worthy to stoop down to his side and loosen the strap of his sandal.

You see, Jesus.

was coming and John's life was all about pointing people to Jesus,

making much of the Lord and getting out of the way, right?

That's what he was doing.

That's where Phil tells about how when he was a boy growing

up there in that little lake Creek Baptist church there in Oklahoma, that,

The preacher sometimes would call upon his dad, or it was his dad's job to pray right before the preacher came in to preach.

And Pastor Phil says, I don't know where he got it from, but every time he prayed before the preacher got up, he included this.

He said, Lord, hide the preacher behind the cross.

That's a good prayer for me.

You want to know how to pray for me, you pray that prayer.

Pray that for our pastors.

It's a good prayer for all of us.

Hide us, Lord, behind the cross so that when people look at our life,

they actually see Jesus.

John, on another occasion, said,

I must decrease and he must increase.

One time, John the Baptist, he was standing there with a couple of his very closest disciples,

and Jesus started walking by.

And John, he says, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

In John chapter 1, we see what happened after he said that.

John 1 · chapter mention

In verse 37, it says, then his two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.

Let me ask you, whenever you speak,

Do people start following Jesus?

Is that your message?

Is that what your life is about?

John pointed to Christ and those who had been so loyal to him,

perhaps some of his very best friends in the world,

they left John and they went to follow the Lord.

Now, maybe that would have been easy for John

to get all bent out of shape.

I mean, he had grown so famous.

He was prominent in the region.

Thousands were gathering to hear him preach.

And now his crowds were dwindling

and Jesus's crowds were building.

That was John's goal.

That was his purpose.

That was the reason he was born.

That was his mission in life, to make much of Jesus.

Now, John knew that he could also only baptize people with water.

He could just get them wet.

But Jesus was going to be able to baptize them with the Holy Spirit.

John could immerse them in water,

but Jesus can immerse you in the Holy Spirit of God, in God.

It was as if John's message was,

I know you're following me,

but just know I'm merely reflection, Jesus is reality.

As the moon reflects the sun,

so John reflected the glory of Christ

for all the world to see.

Here's what I want to do this morning.

I want to give us one point of application.

This is a one-point message today, all right?

Here it is.

Prepare to encounter Jesus.

Prepare.

That was John's message, and that is my message this morning.

In the coming weeks, in the coming months, I think we'll end around Easter time with the resurrection.

As we journey through the gospel of Mark, you're going to be exposed to Jesus.

You're going to be exposed to his teaching.

He taught with great power and authority.

You're going to be exposed to his miracles and his forgiveness and his love.

Just know, just because you're exposed to Jesus

doesn't mean you're going to encounter Jesus.

You see, there are many in Christ's day, the Pharisees and Sadducees

and many others who were exposed

to Jesus in a way that they saw him.

They even saw some miracles.

Some of them, they saw and heard him teach with great power and authority.

And yet they rejected him.

They did not encounter Jesus for who he is.

I mean, how could they miss it?

Because they had not prepared their heart.

Their heart was hardened by sin.

For them, the religious leaders,

the sin of self-righteousness, pride.

They had not prepared their heart to encounter Jesus.

So the question becomes,

how do you prepare your heart to encounter the Lord?

Here's how.

You repent.

That was John's message.

You identify some sin.

Maybe you ask the Holy Spirit,

Lord, would you search out my heart?

Would you see if there's any wicked way in me?

Would you just examine my heart?

And guess what?

The Holy Spirit will answer that question.

He'll start convicting you of sin.

And then when you're convicted,

you start naming it before the Lord.

He already knows about it.

Admit it, confess it.

There's something freeing about it.

And then turn from it and turn to Christ.

You see, repentance prepares our heart to meet Jesus.

So whether you're an unbeliever here today or you're a lukewarm believer,

either way, you're an unbeliever seeking after God.

You're a lukewarm believer seeking a spark, a new freshness in your walk with the Lord.

Here's what you do either way.

You identify your sin, you confess it, and you turn from it.

And you prepare to encounter the living God.

Now, repentance, let me be clear, repentance is not enough.

We must also believe, right?

It's the flip side of the same coin.

You must turn from your sin and then turn to faith in God.

Repentance can bring you close to God, closer to God, but it cannot bring you into God.

The only way to be immersed into God, to be immersed in the spirit of God, is to trust Jesus as your Savior.

That's what John said.

He's going to immerse you.

Jesus is the only one that can immerse you with the spirit.

Now, as we begin wrapping up today, Mark says that God sent John to prepare the way of the Lord.

That implies that there is a way of the Lord.

That Jesus has a way, and he does.

That's what we're going to be studying in the coming weeks and coming months all throughout Mark.

We're going to be studying the way of Jesus, walking in the way, the way of Christ.

Now, Jesus is the way.

Well, the way where?

Hey, this is the way.

Well, the way where?

Well, the way to God.

the way to heaven.

You see, you were made for an incredibly important reason,

a special reason.

You were made not by accident.

God was very intentional.

There's a reason you exist.

You were made for a relationship with him.

He made you because he wants a relationship with you.

That's why you exist.

And the only way to have that relationship with God

is through Jesus.

He's the only way.

Jesus is the way to life, isn't he?

And he's the way to living.

You wanna know how to conduct yourself in life?

Look to Jesus.

Colossians 2, verse number six says,

"'And you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord,

"'so walk in him.'"

Walk in the way, he says.

"'Rooted and built up in him and established in the faith,

"'as you've been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.'"

1 John 2, verse 6 says,

1 John 2:6

He who says he abides or remains in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked.

One of the great metaphors for the Christian life is that God invites you and I to walk with him.

I can't think of anything better in all the world to know I've got this clean relationship with the Lord because of my forgiveness and I get to walk with him.

Now, here's the key to walking with God.

This is the key to discipleship in your life.

You want to become a disciple of the Lord?

Here's what you do.

You take the next step with Jesus.

Just the next step.

You don't, it's not like some people get overwhelmed.

They think, man, I got to get, become this holy Christian.

No, you just take the next step that God's calling you to.

The Bible compares the Christian life to a pilgrimage.

We're all on this journey with, with the Lord.

Jesus said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you.

We're on this journey.

And every time, anytime you're on a journey, maybe you're going to hike, a long hike.

Sometimes you can be tempted when it gets hard.

to want to give up, right?

You think, man, it's overwhelming.

I can't finish that hike.

Here's the key when you're in that moment.

Just take the next step.

One step out.

You don't have to do it all at once.

Just one step at a time, right?

Some of us Christians, maybe they're on a road

and it's a way of suffering.

Guess what?

Jesus, it was a way of suffering.

Sometimes we're going to suffer when we follow the way.

But we get on this road and what God calls us to

and the pain that's involved in this broken life,

and we start thinking, man, I want to give up.

I want to encourage you, brothers and sisters,

please do not give up.

Just take the next step.

If you've fallen down and you're flat on your back,

You just get up and take the next step.

If you're soaring with Christ and following him,

what do you do?

You just take the next step.

You see, discipleship doesn't happen overnight.

We give our life to Christ and you snap the fingers

and we're just like Jesus.

No, becoming Christ-like doesn't happen overnight.

There's a process involved.

And we're gonna see from our study in Mark

that his 12 disciples, his closest disciples, blew it far more than they got it right.

We're going to be able to identify with them all throughout the gospel.

And every time they blew it, Jesus was patient with them.

Yeah, he taught them.

He corrected them.

Sometimes he rebuked them, but he was always patient with them, loving them.

But here's what he expected.

He expected them, whether they experienced failure, success, whatever it was,

he expected, follow me.

Take the next step with me, whatever that is for you.

He said, I'm the way.

I'm going to show you the way of life.

I know you're not going to be perfect.

That's why I'm going to die for you.

But if you love me and you trust me, then take your next step with me.

I don't know what the next step is for you.

God knows that.

Perhaps you know that.

Maybe it's forgiving someone who's wounded you deeper than you thought was possible.

And the hurt and the pain is there.

Maybe it was a long time ago, but it's infected and it's allowed you to grow bitter.

It's brought you down.

It's brought you down.

You haven't been able to forgive up until this point,

but maybe that's the next step for you.

Maybe you've wronged someone, you've hurt someone,

and your next step is to own it, to admit it, to apologize.

Maybe the next step for you is to move from watching on TV and online

and to join us in person, to gather with the body of Christ

so you can be encouraged and edified one with another

as we follow Jesus together.

Maybe the next step...

is moving from a consumer Christian

to a contributing Christian,

from a consumer to a giver.

Maybe it's going from being the one served

to the one who also is serving.

Maybe the next step involves being baptized

like many were baptized today or to join our church family.

Maybe it's to join and to try out a life group.

I don't know what that is.

I challenge you to ask the Lord, what's my next step?

Every day we should be asking God, what's my next step?

Now, maybe today, as you're listening and you're honest,

you're realizing that you're a long ways off from God.

You think, how did I get here?

My life is a mess.

I've hurt people around me.

They've hurt me.

Things seem to be falling apart.

How in the world do I get back to my relationship with the Lord?

I have found that as Christians, most of the time,

we're gonna find the Lord exactly where we left him.

Maybe the Lord convicted you about something in your life.

Maybe you read something in scripture,

you're like, man, I need to do that,

but you chose not to do it.

Typically, our relationship with God stalls out

at that moment when we say no to God.

That's why it's so important to just keep saying yes,

I'll take the next step, Lord.

And I mean, if I tell my kids, I've got four teenagers,

if I tell them, hey, go clean your room,

and they don't clean the room, I don't move on, right?

We don't move on to the next step.

We don't move on to the next, hey, let's sit down

and guidance for your adulthood and life.

No, go clean your room.

You do that step, then let's move on with further guidance.

The Christian life's a journey, a journey with Christ.

And the big deal is,

Let's follow him.

Let's take the step.

Now, the bigger question is, are you even on the road with Jesus?

Are you on his path?

Are you walking in the way?

A few years ago, we were driving to Oklahoma

with our families, we're kind of caravanning

and our family left about the same time as Pastor Brian

and Faith and their family, my sister Faith.

And I'm cruising along, I'm making good time,

I'm feeling good, you know, it's vacation time.

So stress is starting to diminish a little bit.

I gotten through Barstow and I get a call

from my sister Faith and she says,

"'You're going the wrong way.

I'm like, I've driven this over 100 times.

There's no way I'm going the wrong way.

And yet she evidently, she had tracked me on her phone.

Sure enough, I was on the wrong road.

In Barstow, I continued on I-15

and failed to get off onto I-40.

And so I was headed north towards Las Vegas

instead of east towards Oklahoma.

Sometimes it's easy to get on the wrong road.

Sometimes we don't even intentionally, it's not rebellion, we just accidentally,

we kind of drifted away onto the wrong road.

Maybe you're on the wrong road of life today.

Maybe you can't even identify the exact moment

that you got off the road with Jesus

and you stopped walking in the way

and you started walking in whatever path you were on.

But right now it's become clear to you,

the Holy Spirit has been opening your eyes

and your heart afresh, I'm on the wrong road.

I'm not walking with him.

I wanna invite you today to get back on the right road

The road with Jesus, because there is no greater road to walk in all the world,

is to be right step in step with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Dad used to say, the furthest you can ever get away from God is just one prayer.

Sometimes we feel this great chasm between us and God

because of the chasm of our sin,

and we're separated from God,

and we think, I can't possibly get to him.

I can't do enough.

No, you can't.

Here's what you do instead.

You allow God to meet you right where you are.

It's one prayer, a prayer of confession,

repentance, and faith.

The Bible says,

whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Why don't you just call upon Jesus today?

and be saved. Let's bow together in an attitude of prayer both here and at Olive Drive.

This is a really special moment in the life of our church. We get to respond to what God's,

the special work that God's doing in our life. And we need to respond with faith, to believe,

to trust, to obey. And so I want to invite you to give your life to Christ.

In just a moment, there's going to be pastors and other leaders here at the front and at all of drive.

And we're going to stand to our feet and we're going to sing a song.

And we're going to ask you to come forward and walk down one of these stairs, walk down one of these aisles and say,

I want to walk the way of Jesus.

I want to become a person of the way.

So that when people look at my life, they can start following Jesus too.

You know, as we begin our study in the book of Mark,

we're going to read all about the life of Jesus.

It's going to be, I'm so excited.

We're going to read about his baptism next week, his temptation.

We're going to read all about his life, his love, his power, the miracles,

his forgiveness, all of that.

I want to invite you right now to prepare your heart for that.

Because if you prepare your heart,

you clean out some of the nastiness that's in there of sin,

whatever that is,

and you confess and you get clean,

I believe you're going to meet Jesus

and he's going to change your life.

Now, I do want to say this.

You don't have to wait for the coming weeks and coming months

to meet Jesus and encounter him.

You can do that right now.

You can meet him today.

You can be baptized, immersed with his spirit in a moment,

the moment of faith and surrender.

So I want to invite you to be immersed in God today,

to be known fully by God and yet be forgiven and clean and loved.

There's nothing like it in all the world.

If you will just step out and come in just a moment.

Take one of these leaders by the hand.

There'll be men and women here, both at the front,

and just say, I want to take the next step with Jesus.

They'll know exactly how to help you.

That's why we're here, is just to help you take the next step.

Maybe the next step is the first step,

to trust Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior.

Maybe the next step for you is baptism.

Maybe the next step is, you know, whatever it is.

My challenge is let's all do that.

If we all do that, God's going to do a mighty work, all right?

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you so much, Lord.

For the book of Mark.

I thank you for John Mark, Lord, and that he took down some notes apparently when Peter was sharing all of his story and good notes.

And then your spirit, Lord, just gave him the right words.

You just guided him perfectly as you wrote this gospel account of the life of your son.

Thank you, Lord, that as we read it, your word comes to life in us.

I pray, Lord, that many would rise up from Valley Baptist Church and be like John the Baptist.

We thank you for his life and his example.

Lord, I don't anticipate many of us are going to want to eat locusts and wild honey and wear camel's hair.

But, Lord, we just want to be all about you.

We want to get out of the way so that people see you.

Lord, would you hide us behind the cross?

And Lord, I pray for those that are out of step with you,

that right now your spirit would do a work

that only you can do.

Lord, I cannot baptize them into the spirit, but you can.

I pray, Lord, that you would do a work

and they would respond, they would say yes to you today.

We pray in Jesus' mighty name.

Thanks for listening today.

We hope you enjoyed this message,

and if you did, we would be so grateful

if you left us a review.

Also, go ahead and subscribe to the podcast

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If you feel the Lord calling you

to take the next step in faith

through salvation, service, or giving, don't wait.

reach out to us by texting podcast to 88988.

That's podcast to 88988

or connect with us on one of our social media platforms.

You can also visit our website, valleybaptist.org

to find even more great resources.

No matter where you are in your journey,

know that we love you.

We're praying for you

and we can't wait to see what God will do in your life.