The First Gospel - New Beginnings

Hey guys, what's it doing? How's it going? I was gonna say how's it going and I said

and how's it going and what what are you doing lined up with how's it doing?

Okay so good morning and welcome to 2023. Anyone feel that? Oh yeah I turned 45 this coming Wednesday.

Yeah I feel 2023. Will you pull me down just a little bit Scott if you don't mind.

My name is Greg Hampton. If you've never met me before I'd love to to meet you.

Life in a church is always eventful but if you haven't heard on Christmas Eve in this building

a sprinkler pipe in the system upstairs from us burst and flooded the large room in our kids

space and so if you were walking in like why is everything different? It's not just because we're

like hey we need to change everything because it's new year. It is necessity. We are in the process

of all of that being fixed and actually Jeff the owner of the building and a member of the church

he did a really good job of cleaning up the water on the floor and so by the time I came in I

since it happened Christmas Eve I was talking to him Christmas Eve and I was like I'm not going to

bother I'm not going to tell the church this on Christmas weekend like this it'll be fine I'll

come in on Monday I'll take a look we'll start doing insurance stuff so when I came in on on

Monday like the floor was mostly dry he'd gotten rid of all the water and I thought oh this is

just going to be some supplies back there that got wet because you could tell where it was still wet

and then I watched the security camera footage and the the whole room there's just water dripping

from the ceiling throughout the entire room and so we had insurance adjusters here this week is and

ours they have to take care of getting the room all the way back up to code we'll eventually

receive a check from the adjuster to replace and do some fun things for the kids but I do want to

manage expectations because as you may know just about everyone you know had a pipe burst in their

house or business this this season it was rather prevalent we just randomly ran into was it you and

me or was it me we ran into the owners of dead poets coffee and they had had a pipe burst above

them same thing they had to close for the entire week but because we have children and all that

stuff in that space it has to be brought back up to a certain level and because all of the companies

are going to be very busy we need to manage our expectations of how long that's going to take

okay so it the mitigation has already begun but the reality of replacing the drywall in the

insulation and taping and mudding and painting and all that other stuff with companies that do that

we might not be back in there by the summer and so I just want you to kind of we'll do what we

always do as a church we will adjust we will pull together we will make the lobby the absolute best

experience that we can for our kids and we as parents will have smiles on our faces as we do

it right we'll be like kids this is normal this is what families do you got to adjust and then

hopefully when everything is done we'll be able to do some extra special things for them in that

space that will make it even more worth the wait okay does that sound good yes one person the tree

house director the funny thing is about this if it could be funny is that the very first sunday

that we were ever supposed to have a public service as a church at rock island high school

there was a water main break outside of the building and i got a call at 1 a.m from the

uh the custodian and he goes literally he says i don't know why i'm the one that has to tell you

this but there was a water main break and you can't use the building tomorrow and we had sent out

70 000 mailers

so we were expecting hundreds of people right and so i felt the peace about it i even texted with

pastor jen i said i feel peace about it we'll get up we'll announce on facebook that we have to wait

another week and uh it'll be okay we'll we'll meet people in the parking lot there are some people

here a part of this church that that that came through the parking lot on that first sunday that

are still part of the church today because we decided to meet in some way anyway right and

yeah so and then the next week we kicked off but actually um today the second sunday of january

is the anniversary of that day happy birthday y'all we're nine years old right a round of applause

i guess we just have some kind of water related challenge every nine years

um but i actually want to do something that i don't think we've ever done that i just want to take

some time here to do i i want to take this microphone and no matter whether you've been here

three months nine months or nine years i just want to give some of you the chance to share

something that you've seen god do through this community and i'm wondering chris will you will

you be the person that walks the microphone around to people it's on and uh scott will make sure it's

unmuted so just raise your hand if you'd like to share something you've seen god do

sometime in the last nine years here at the house a local church oh sweetie raised her hand

but i will put or we'll put dave on the spot and make him say something

we'll put or we'll put dave on the spot and make him say something

sweetie we love you well since i have the mic i guess i'll just say some

yeah i missed it she did say happy birthday um

um she's so talk

um see i got to actually be a part of the the birthing of the house even though it seems like

i'm newer because i just started a couple years ago i attend regularly but um i remember meeting

with jen and chris and everybody else at the old hit their house like planning the house and uh just

getting to watch it grow and then i was actually the chaplain at arrowhead ranch so at the same

time they guys were having the house i was always at arrowhead ranch in the mornings for 15 years

so i never really could attend very well but just for me personally being able to

start a new family and this becoming our new home church it was really meaningful for us because

just for our girls to come in and feel so welcomed where our other daughter can we wake up and going

hey we're going to church this morning right and that was new for us and we were just super excited

about that that she had found a place and the girls found a place where they just feel loved to

be able to come to and accepted that they feel like this is their home not just our home for

lian and i so for us it's been really special to be a part of this community and just love and

appreciate everybody so much so awesome praise god it's very cool very cool yeah

who else i know we got at least a few people that are just not so introverted that they're

willing to speak amy amy and randy who should go first amy so i have no idea is this good here

we have been coming to the church since pre pre-birth but pre-launch in the huckleberry's days

when uh ruby was an ankle biter and a table biter and all the other things um this has been such an

incredible experience and i just i always remember talking to jen about it and saying i feel like i

feel like i'm supposed to be involved somehow and i said that in front of you one time and you were

like why don't you just hang out with us and see if you even like us first so i did and i do so this has been

a place for me and my girls of um healing like huge like going through a really bad experience

in my marriage and having the support to lend me the strength and the belief in myself to get out

of that and remain standing yeah so thank you for that like all of you have been a part of that

yeah we love you such a good place yeah

i remember over at the old church over in rock island um i need to uh i love amy dearly but um

sometimes you need to get all the right information when you're exiting the church

right right right

well we were mariana and i went back to look at the uh behind stage uh-huh at the high school yep

yeah we were just kind of wandering around and uh amy said well you guys can go out the side door

over there if you want so we kind of moseyed over there and i kind of pushed my back up to the door

to let marianne go out first and uh the first step was about five foot down to the loading

doctor yeah yeah and look he came back yeah and went over to the uh emergency room and much to my

surprise the uh nurse there said that uh nothing was broke which was amazing yeah awesome very cool

anyone else

randy

this this church has been kind of a a good landing place for us we tried so many churches

grant heard so many horror stories from me and everything always seemed just right so i think

we've been here maybe three years yeah and every everything about it seemed um like god math

i didn't want to i didn't want to separate from our girls and the first time we came in greg

mentioned that we were having family church because it was summertime so i had a whole summer to find

out if i trusted you people and then we had coven and somehow it still felt like we were

a church and came back and everything still felt just right it's been a good a good challenge for

us in a lot of ways but it it's felt like a landing place over and over thanks brandy

bradley

i've spent most of my life being or most of my adult life being pretty transient and moving every

like six or eight months and um and so anytime i feel like i can finally like find a church and

get settled in and try to get involved there's been one reason or another where like i wasn't

allowed to or i couldn't because of doctrinal differences that that came to light when trying

to get involved and um i think i was here for like maybe maybe three or four weeks before

i was able to meet with greg and we like just talked about those like beliefs very early

because i came to learn that like i should probably be up front with these like beliefs

and differences that often stand in the way of of finding home in church um and and those were

things that were not even like a concern not even nothing and so um so i was able to feel

very at home and very welcomed and very affirmed immediately with them finding this place and that's

such a relief and makes makes like moving knowing no one into this into this area feel so much easier

when there's there's a church community who's here to support and love immediately we love you

bradley one more last one maybe one more eric right over here oh okay yeah okay over here and then there

so i've been coming to this church on and off for the last nine years because i actually you

mentioned that story and i remember standing out on the off the entrance off the street with a sign

that said the house like hey we're just meeting at the parking lot but like come say hi to everybody

uh and that's actually kind of like a really good memory it was a fun day to just kind of come meet

everybody that i'd be seeing every sunday and then also being able to be as what i was 14 at the time

and i was able to actually like help and actually be a part of something just right off the bat

without even really doing anything just showing up he's like hey are you able to do this i was like

let's go uh and then just throughout the years leaving for college um kind of leaving for work

moved away for a little bit moved back and every time i came back to the church it was always a big

smile and a hug from greg and different members from the church like oh welcome back how have you

been it's always just really welcoming it's great to be here every sunday so love the church love

coming back thanks love you guys and then eric last one eric

um for me one of the things that i love about this place is being able to contribute to it

in whatever capacity there there that there is needed and one of them is that uh when we first

got this place um if you look straight up you can see the vertical beams and you'll see these little

beady holes there were nails and you can see the little holes in the middle of the building and

straight up you can see the vertical beams and you'll see these little beady holes there were nails

coming through those and i don't know what was connected beneath this but i spent time on like a

scaffold pulling nails out of this entire sort of area here and it actually felt really good

to do so as far as again contributing to you know the church home that i was extremely excited about

it's awesome thanks guys so it's it is the beginning of a new year oh my dad my dad here you go

stand close in case he says something you shouldn't say take the mic

and this is what i like about this

we laugh and the fact that there are three different people that preach

yeah a variety it's never boring i have not heard of the old church i went to the same person was

teaching every week so and all the people that volunteer when things need to be done

there's never a lack of volunteers i think that's great thanks dad i love you

all right so okay well county my mother-in-law

my mother-in-law is what happened when you open it up one more i still got a sermon preach

greg i love that our church is grounded so in prayer it started years before you came

and it has grown and grown and brought us together as a family and we've seen miracles

and we've seen god's hand in so many situations throughout all of this and we've all grown through

it and i think that when people walk in the door they feel the holy spirit here and we haven't

lost sight of that and that's what i like best about our family here so thank you love you county

all right brendan was just gonna say hi dad hey man love you

thanks man all right so this is the beginning of year 10 so we'll see what god has for us i know

that we are going to be going through the gospel of mark for a while and so i just this is going

to be kind of an intro message for mark it's going to show you some things that are happening if

you're a bible nerd you're going to be like oh i oh if if you're not this leans a little bit more

into teaching than just preaching so those of you that like that you're gonna be like oh i really

got what i wanted uh today uh the gospel according to mark is traditionally attributed to a man named

john mark we don't really know for sure if he was jewish if he was greek scholars disagree about

what city he wrote it in uh precisely what year but we know that this book came first it's it's

not first in the new testament if you if you open in the new testament starts with the book of

matthew matthew mark luke john it's second for some reason a lot of people think that because

of the subject matter and the the overall theme of matthew is the reason that they ordered it that

way but but mark is actually the oldest it's actually the first one that was ever written

and put into circulation i just want you to think about that right now there are at least five

billion copies of the bible on earth five billion and then that's not including like all the other

books that are about jesus that are just scattered across the earth i would feel like it's possible

that there's at least one book about jesus for every person on earth but mark wrote the first one

it's the first one that was in circulation that someone could go hey you got a copy of that thing

that that guy wrote about that guy i really want to read that you couldn't just go to a bookstore

and pick up one of a plethora uh do you know what a plethora is sorry that's a callback to a movie

um but mark wrote the first one and then of course uh matthew and luke plagiarized half of it for

their books i mean word for word word for word this is why the uh that's a little bible nerd humor

as well but literally that's why matthew luke and and mark are called the synoptic gospels because

they are in sync they have so much in common literally word for word you can find passages

and stories that maybe but one word here and one word there is a direct copy from the book

of mark now of course mark wasn't telling his own story he did because he wasn't actually one of

the original disciples he didn't see most of or any of this happen so why did he write a gospel

and why do we take his word for it right so back in 2021 i meant i mentioned mark in one of our

sermons that we were doing when we were going through the book of acts because mark is the one

that was on a mission with with paul and barnabas but he left early he's the one that when paul and

barnabas were going to go out on ministry again barnabas wanted to take mark and paul was like

and paul was like not that traitor not that guy that abandoned us i'm not taking him anywhere

he didn't say exactly that but it does say that they they disagreed sharply that they argued

with each other and that they split ways and they quit doing ministry together but then what happens

that mark ends up spending a lot of time with peter who is one of the original disciples and

so when you read the book of mark no disciple is mentioned more than peter because mark is telling

peter's version of the story this is why one of the reasons that we trust it because mark is writing

down the firsthand accounts of one of the original disciples mark is also the shortest gospel the

fewest words the fewest chapters one of the main reasons that it is so much shorter than matthew

and luke is because those two books start with what we think of as christmas stories they begin

with the birth of jesus it begins with the angels it tells these genealogies it talks about zachariah

it talks about um elizabeth it talks about all the other characters that are part of the story but

mark skips all of it mark skips straight to jesus being an adult and it doesn't mean that mark has

been careless though it means that he's being precise it is a fact at least for me it is much

more difficult to write a short sermon than a long one uh john bray some of you know who that is would

say that his dad told him preach about god and preach about 20 minutes 30 40 minute sermons are

way easier than 20 minute ones because you can ramble with 20 you have to be precise there's no

wasted words there's no meandering or rabbit trails or greg hampton moments of oh i just thought of a

stupid joke i'll say right here so just like that that's not in my notes it's not in my notes i just

thought oh i'll say that right now and so i did and i just added 27 seconds to this message

so the gospel according to mark is really kind of like the 20 minute sermon of the gospels

it's specific it's precise it's rich but it also has deeper meaning everywhere you look

there's deeper meaning because mark is thinking like an author he's telling a story and he's

telling it in a specific way to a specific audience assuming that they already know some

things about jesus and about history of the jewish people think about it like this

think about it like this you know when you run into an old friend that grew up in the same

neighborhood as you it happens every now and again i got two friends that we grow up with

me adam and mike we got in a lot of trouble together right you you you run into this person

and you have this ability to speak in shorthand you you can mention the old neighborhood dog

and instantly know that they're remembering the same nine stories that you're remembering

that's what mark does over and over again mark writes like you grew up in the same neighborhood

that this is based in so that when he says certain things you're supposed to know the stories behind

them this past year our men's group actually went through the book of mark on tuesday nights and over

and over again we would find ourselves in the deep end of a story that would easily miss

if you weren't taking your time to wade past the surface and so these next few months we're going

to take a look into the scriptures we're going to take a look into the book of of mark to see what

peter was telling mark and what mark is telling us about jesus and maybe we'll see some of the

things under the surface as well along the way it's going to be primarily something that i do

today and we're going to see why it still matters to our lives today okay so we're going to see

what matters to our lives today okay all right so let's open up our bibles if you have a physical

copy uh open it up to the book of mark obviously because we're doing the book of mark if you don't

have a copy we have them on the bookshelf out in the lobby you can take one home with you today or

open a digital uh bible app we're going to be in mark chapter one we have a tradition of giving the

scriptures our full attention one of the ways we can do that is by standing together if you are

if you desire if you are able and we'll do that now if you don't mind staying with me as you

as you would like mark one starting verse one says this the beginning of the good news about

jesus the messiah the son of god as it is written in isaiah the prophet i will send my messenger

ahead of you who will prepare your way a voice of one calling in the wilderness prepare the way for

the lord make straight paths for him and so john the baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching

a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins the whole judian countryside and all the

people of jerusalem went out to him confessing their sins they were baptized by him in the jordan

river john wore clothing made of camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist and he ate locusts

and wild honey and this was his message after me comes the one more powerful than i the straps of

whose sandals i'm not worthy to stoop down and untie i baptize you with water but he will baptize

you with the holy spirit at that time jesus came from nazareth and gallilee and was baptized by

john in the jordan just as jesus was coming up out of the water he saw heaven being torn open

and the spirit descending on him like a dove and a voice came from heaven you are my son whom i love

with you i am well pleased at once the spirit sent him out into the wilderness and he was in

the wilderness 40 days being tempted by satan he was with the wild animals and angels attended him

let's pray god of every tribe every tongue every color every nation we thank you that these

scriptures exist they have persisted throughout the millennia that we have them to read to learn

from to look deeper into and i pray that whatever you have for us to learn today i pray that it would

stick that it would become a part of the framework of our faith that our faith would become stronger

that we would become more like your son jesus amen amen you can have a seat thanks

okay so the rest of the time i'm talking everything that i say keep thinking new beginnings

new beginnings everything i say have that in the back of your head new beginnings verse one

what are the first words in the first gospel ever written

the beginning yeah the beginning at least two books two other books in the scriptures begin

with those words anyone genesis and john right john comes after this book so who knows maybe john had

an original idea or he was like hey i like how mark is is then the other one is genesis

the first gospel begins with the words in the beginning or the beginning and the first book

of the bible starts with in the beginning it says this in the beginning god created the heavens and

the earth now the earth was formless and empty darkness was over the surface of the deep

and the spirit of god was hovering over the waters almost sounds familiar doesn't it

mark is doing this on purpose his entire opening is a kind of call back to the creation story

and so the same way that genesis is meant to build anticipation in the beginning oh in the beginning

what in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth oh and then what happened oh then the

earth was formless in the water and the spirit was hovering above it and then he said let there be

like there's this anticipation that builds in the way that the writer is writing and mark is wanting

you to have the same anticipation as he's telling his story mark is telling you to have the same

anticipation as he's telling his story mark is saying this is a new beginning doesn't replace

the first beginning but it builds on it you're meant to remember that beginning as you're reading

about this beginning then he mentions isaiah why okay so isaiah is the prophet that spoke for god

when right before the first major exiles began right before israel started getting pushed out

of their own land and isaiah was from the northern kingdom of israel now remember king david united

the northern and southern parts of the kingdom as one kingdom and then his son solomon ruled

somewhat heavy-handedly put a lot of pressure on the people didn't hand power off very well when he

was dying and then it splits back into two kingdoms now both in the northern kingdom takes the name

10 tribes in the north take the name israel they keep that name and the two tribes in the south

that had jerusalem in it take the name juda it's important to know now both kingdoms eventually end

up in exile but the northern kingdom of israel was defeated first isaiah the prophet is the one that

was warning them that this was coming but when you read scriptures like this you see that he wasn't

just warning them that something bad was going to happen he was also pointing to their future hope

you cannot read the scriptures and see someone in the new testament mention isaiah without thinking

about the future hope that isaiah spoke about isaiah was the most prevalent book in any synagogue

the most copies of an old testament book of a hebru text is isaiah

isaiah is the one that points to this concept this idea that there will be a messiah

what were the first verse the beginning of the story of jesus the messiah

so he's pointing to a messiah but he's also pointing to the one that would prepare the way for

that messiah and that's what we see in verse four mark is saying that the messiah is the one that

will prepare the way for mark is saying the future that isaiah was talking about is being fulfilled

in john the baptist and it's clear as you read all the gospels in particular this one it's clear

that john sees himself that way because he says i baptize in this way but another is coming i'm

not even worthy to touch his sandals this is how much greater that he is than me because he's going

something that is fully godly not just water but with the holy spirit he sees himself as this

forerunner and he says another one that's more powerful is coming and then we meet him then we

meet that one that is coming guys this is great writing in eight verses think about this in eight

verses we're told who this story is about we're told where this story began we're introduced to

one of the most memorable figures in all the scriptures we're told what he looks like what

he wears what he's doing and we're told what's happening and why it's happening in the passage

of eight verses and then we meet jesus even though you might miss some of the deeper layers even if

you know nothing else about the bible you still can understand what's going on it's great

it's great writing yeah verse nine is where we get to meet jesus and the density of the way that

mark is writing continues when he introduces jesus the intentionality to hoping that you will see

other things what do i mean so for some reason mark thought it was important to mention where

jesus was from right doesn't tell us where john is from says that he's baptizing at the temple

says that he's baptizing at the jordan but that doesn't mean that that's where he's from

he wants us to know where he's from in what region and then why he came he says jesus came from the

town of nazareth in the region of galilee to be baptized by john okay so think about the two

kingdoms again i was talking about before before the exile okay you've got the 10 tribes of israel

up north you've got the two tribes of juda in the south the region of galilee okay classroom question

region of galilee the town of nazareth was which was in which kingdom you got 50 50 chance

it's in the north okay and think about galilee is like a county okay a lot of a lot of people

grew up in the church thinking galilee is a city or a town nazareth is like a town inside the county

of galilee okay so he's coming from a town up north but the messiah is meant to come from the

line of the king of david and david is from the tribe of juda which was in the south jesus in his

body and in his geography is literally a bridge between the north and the south he's literally a

physical connection between the two halves of the kingdom that had been divided and then jesus is

baptized but why okay so for a couple reasons i mean when you read the other gospels they show

this story and they tell a little bit more of what happens and john actually goes why would i

baptize you and jesus says for is to complete all things but here in this story the impression that

we get is because first it's not only jesus isn't only god jesus is also human as christians we

believe that jesus is fully god 100 and fully human 100 somehow he is fully united as those

two things and so at the beginning of his ministry he's doing what all the other humans are doing

he's going and he's making a public declaration of what he believes but again there's more to

that remember new beginnings mark wants us to think back to the new creation to the first creation

in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth and the earth was formless and when genesis

and when genesis names the first element on earth even before he speaks light into creation

what was it does anybody know

no we got before light he created the heavens and the earth and the water the earth was formless

and the spirit of god was hovering above the water okay there was heaven there was earth and

there was water between them in the way that it is described now the imagery that mark is giving us

is that in jesus's baptism jesus creates this physical metaphor of heaven and earth

uniting meeting in this holy moment in the waters of baptism

with a new beginning now maybe you're thinking greg you might be reading into this a little bit

too much but then verse 10 it says when jesus came up out of the waters what happens the spirit of

god descends on him like a dove do you see it if you don't there's good reason okay there's grace

here if you don't see that there's good reason it's because we aren't first century jews because

we don't read the hebrew scriptures the way that they read them literally we don't read

the same translations that they would have read but listen to what timothy keller writes about this

specific instance it says this for this for the spirit of god to be pictured as a dove is not

particularly striking to us right we've heard it thousands of times if you've been to church

a number of times someone probably mentioned the holy spirit being like a dove but when mark was

writing it was very rare in the sacred writings of judaism there is only one place where the

spirit of god is likened to a dove and that is in the targums the aramaic translation of the hebrew

scriptures that the jews of mark's time read in the creation account he says the book of genesis

one verse two says that the spirit hovered over the face of the waters the hebrew verb there means

flutter the spirit fluttered over the face of the waters and to capture this vivid image the rabbis

translated the passage for the targums the thing that they would have been reading like this

and the earth was without form and empty and darkness was on the face of the deep all seems

normal to this point right and the spirit of god fluttered above the face of the waters like a dove

when mark writes this he's intentionally trying to get us to see that jesus is heaven and earth

and earth being united in the waters and the spirit of god like a dove is present in the same

way right now in this new beginning exactly the same way that all of god was present at creation

is that not cool

all right so after his baptism when mark tells us the holy spirit descended on jesus like a dove

that's what he's saying okay i can skip ahead okay and literally after this i could go i could go on

about how mark is trying to get you to think about this what happens after jesus is um uh

baptized what does he do he says the spirit of god immediately makes him go out into the wilderness

to to what to be tempted okay what did the first human beings experience temptation the the new the

the first book describes it as a serpent we think of that serpent as representing the satan and this

says that he's being tempted by the satan but the story ends differently doesn't it and that's the

point mark wants us to think about how the story was written the first time and how humanity humans

failed the first time but now in this new beginning this new man this new adam

he goes through all the same things that we do he's baptized in the waters the holy spirit is

present the same way as the spirit was present at creation he experiences temptation but instead of

falling for the trick he resists the point here is that mark is wanting us to know that this new

beginning is going to mark a line where this new beginning creates an option for us to be a part of

a new beginning if jesus can resist it and we can be in jesus and then we can live the way he lives

that we can be in him live the way that he does we can resist all the holes all the traps

all the ways that we would normally fall so what do we do with any of this okay i've got one thing

for you it's a new year we're probably all thinking about new beginnings that we might need

uh things that we might need to fix things that we might need to change

but we don't just need new beginnings we need the new beginning does it make sense

the truth is that yesterday i didn't have a great day i was just emotionally

i was just emotionally it wasn't a good day but throughout the day i just kept thinking

jesus is the new beginning jesus is the new beginning that the story can end differently

so i asked him to pray for me throughout the day so then even though some of the same

challenges that existed in the morning still existed at night my heart handled them far better

because i was working to let god be the center of it i was working to let him be the beginning in me

for me to not be the one that would fix it and change it to let his new beginning

be the story that i would be in

my hope is that over these next few months as we go through the book of mark

you continue to remember new beginning jesus is our new beginning and if we are in jesus

and every single one of our stories can end differently

than we think it might amen let's pray father i thank you for your word for the depth of your

father i thank you for your word for the depth of it for the creativity of it i thank you for new

beginnings moving us shape us give us your new beginning

so that our stories can develop and end the way you intend amen