Mark 1:1-15 || The Book of Mark || Gabriel Guzman

Welcome to the ALC Podcast. Here at ALC, we seek the loss,

teach the found, and send the disciples. We truly hope you're encouraged by

this week's message. I'm gonna pray really quick, and then we'll get started

with a few things. Lord, I come before you right now, and

I thank you for your word. Lord. I thank you for your people.

God, that they are hungry for your word. Lord. Nobody came

to hear from a man, but they came to hear from you. Lord.

I pray that I empty myself right now and I'm full of you.

Lord, that you speak through me, that you speak to what they need

tonight, Lord, and that you would bless us with your word. In

your name, we pray Amen. Now, I want you guys to do

me a favor. I want you to just imagine for a second. Imagine

that you're not in Rancho Cucamonga anymore, or you're not where you're watching this.

You're not in the year twenty twenty four anymore, but you're in the

year sixty five, and you're in the greatest city in the world at the

time, and that city is Rome, and you're not walking around to the

coliseum and seeing what's new to eat. But you're underground. You're in the

catacombs of the city of Rome, and that's because you're afraid for your life,

because everyone who's not a Christian hates your guts. They're trying to find

you. The ruler at the time is trying to find you to throw you

into the colisseum so that everybody could watch you get torn apart by lions and

tigers. The emperor is looking for you to put you on a stick and

light you on fire, to put you in his garden so that he can

see the beauty of his garden at night. And so we're in the catacombs

right now, and somebody brings a new book that was just written. Nobody's

read it before, and it says this the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus

Christ, the Son of God. That's who the Book of Mark was written

to. It was written to Christians going through a time like that. And

so if this book could give them hope, if this book could give them

joy, if this book could give them comfort, what could it do for

you. I don't know if you have journals or you're taking notes tonight,

but I want you to write that down. Maybe find a blank space in

your journal, write down what is something you need right now? Do you

need hope? Do you need joy? Do you need freedom? Do you

need to move forward? Tonight? If this book could give those Christians going

through a time like that and it was all they needed, I can guarantee

you it'll address those things in your life. And this is going to be

a start of a journey that we're gonna take together, not just tonight,

but for the rest of the year. As we're going through this great book

of the Bible, this great Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now let's let's get

let's get into some things here, and let's let's start reading this book,

and let's get into it here. If you could do me a favor,

if you can stand up for me as we read God's word, We're gonna

be standing just for a little while. It is fifty teen verses, but

hang in there with me and we'll get through it together. It reads like

this, the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,

as it is written in Isaiah. The prophet Behold, I send my

messenger before your face, who will prepare your way. The voice of one

crying in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths

straight. John appeared baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for

the forgiveness of sins. And 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. Now. John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a

leather belt around his waist, and ate locusts and wild honey, and he

preached, saying, after me comes he who is mightier than I, the

strap of who sandals. I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.

I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy

Spirit. In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by

John and the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water,

immediately he saw the heavens being torn open, and the Spirit descending on him

like a dove, and a voice came from heaven. You are my beloved

son. With you I am well pleased. The spirit immediately drove him out

into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by

Satan, and he was with the wild animals and the angels were ministering to

him. Now, after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the

Gospel of God and saying, the time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God

is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel. You guys can be

seated. That's a lot of verses. We're here a lot, you know.

I wasn't. I thought it was a lot at first, and then

I talked to who's speaking after me, and I said, you know what,

No, Pastor, Adam, pastor Nathan are gracious to me. They

have blessed me with fifteen verses and I take them wholeheartedly. Before we start

breaking this down, I just want to go over some background things for the

book, and we kind of did that in our imagination exercise that we did.

But there's three things I'm going to touch really quick, and it's going

to be author, audience, and attention. These are things that you can

keep in mind while we're going through the whole book, through the whole year,

and just some background on the book in general. The first one's going

to be the author who wrote the Book of Mark, and the name is

on it, so if you guess correctly, that's great. It is Mark.

Mark wrote the Book of Mark. He's also called John Mark sometimes,

and so the first time we learn about Mark is in the Book of Acts.

He's a close associate of Peter as well, and he was with Paul

for a while. So I don't know if you've read the Book of Acts,

but he was with Paul on a missionary journey and it didn't go so

well for him and Paul, i'll really got a bad taste in his mouth.

But then they were reconciled and reunited and counted him a friend, counted

him an asset in the Lord. And so that's Mark in the Book of

Acts. The next thing we got to look at is audience audience, and

we kind of talked about this already. The audience is going to be Romans,

Romans, Gentiles, essentially non Jewish Christians, but specifically initially at Rome

going through a time like I outlined for you guys, a scary time,

a crazy time to be a Christian, especially in the greatest city in the

world at that time. The last thing we're going to talk about as a

background is I just labeled attention because they're all a's so you could maybe remember.

But attentions, these are just things you can keep in your mind when

you're reading it on your own at home and throughout the rest of the weeks

of this year as we're talking about this gospel. But Jesus is on the

move. In this gospel, he is going and going and going. He's

moving from one thing to the next. This book has brevity, This book

is short. This book is just moving. Mark's favorite word in this gospel

is immediately. He uses that word thirty seven times in this book, which

may not seem like a whole lot, but it's only you seventeen times outside

of this book in the whole New Testament. And so Mark is pushing and

showing that Jesus accomplished a lot of stuff while he was in public ministry.

A lot of things happened. Jesus wasn't twiddling his thumbs for the three years

he was in public ministry. He was accomplishing a lot of stuff. And

Mark shows that by pushing the narrative. Mark is not so he's not,

so, what's the word I'm looking for? He's not so, he's not

really engaged with what is Jesus's words. He's trying to show you what Jesus

did in his gospel. This is good this gospel. There's other gospels that

I'll talk about the same things, like in Luke and Matthew, and you

can get more details there. Sometimes Mark doesn't have a lot of details because

he's not worried about the details, and he doesn't want you to be worried

about the details when you're reading this gospel. The issue is what Jesus did

and what he accomplished. That is the goal. And so let's start breaking

down the verses if you guys are ready for it. In verse one,

we've already read it a couple times, but the beginning of the Gospel of

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the first thing we're gonna be talking

about, is kind of the gospel. And this first verse kind of sets

apart from even the rest of the verses that we're gonna be talking about tonight,

because it's it's almost just a setup verse for the whole book, as

this first section is, but it's just talking about some themes that are gonna

be talked about throughout the whole book, and Mark's gonna explain these things,

and one of them is the Gospel. What does that mean we talking about

We talk about it a lot at church. What does gospel mean? It

literally means good news. So if you want to read it again, the

beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And

that's the second thing that Mark's gonna emphasize here, the Son of God.

What does that mean exactly? Does it just mean that God is Jesus's daddy

and the Holy Spirit, well, you know, the Holy Spirit. It's

not Joseph, It's it's marry his mother, and God's his his father.

That's what it means by son of God. And that's it. Mark's gonna

explain it. But for us and for our purposes right here, the Son

of God is is deeper than just somebody's father. It's it's bigger than that.

It's it's literally God on earth. Is what the Son of God means.

He's like God, he has the character of God. It is literally

God on earth. So when you hear the phrase son of God, there's

a lot of things and Mark's gonna explain it more and more. But right

at the forefront, it's God on earth, God in human form, that

is the Son of God. And so, like I mentioned before, this

first verse is setting everything up. But these first fifteen verses in general,

Mark one through fifteen are really setting up the whole Gospel as a whole and

really stand apart in a lot of ways. Let's read this quote together by

a theologian who kind of puts it pretty well. The first few verses are

a kind of theological commentary on the rest of the narrative. In verse fourteen,

we come down to Earth with a bump, and the characters in the

story become the normal, everyday inhabitants of Galilee. It is it is as

though in verses one through thirteen, Mark has allowed us to see Jesus from

God's angle, and now the current falls and we are among men and women

who stumble around wondering what is happening. But though the characters in the story

are bewildered, Mark does not intend us to forget the truth which he has

uncovered in these opening verses. It's setting everything up, and it's really gonna

be opening up what is and who is the Son of God. And that's

what we're gonna be talking about tonight. Only three points tonight. The Son

of God is mighty, the Son of God is identified, and the Son

of God is prepared. In these verses, the first one, the Son

of God is mighty. Mark Chapter one, verse two is where we're gonna

start, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, Behold, I send

my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of

one crying in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord, make his

paths straight. Now this is setting up John the Baptist as we know,

and we'll learn literally a little bit later in the verses. But like Jesus's

ministry, John the Baptist was prophesied in the Old Testament. And this is

really big because Mark doesn't really quote the Old Testament. He quotes it the

least out of the other Gospel writers because he's writing to a non Jewish audience

who doesn't really have a lot to go off with the Old Testament. But

he quotes it here because it's important. Because John the Baptist was also prophesied

like Jesus was. This is a culmination of things to come. In verse

four, John appeared baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for

the forgiveness of sins, and 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. When John the Baptist came on the scene, he had

instant celebrity. He was instantly famous. Why because Israel hadn't seen a prophet

in a long time. It had been four hundred years before the last prophet.

They thought prophets were done. And here comes this guy who's dressed like

a prophet, talks like a prophet, and he is instantly famous. People

all of Jerusalem, all of Judaea are going out to him to get baptized.

Instant celebrity. We're talking Emma Watson, Harry Potter famous, We're talking

Millie, Bobby Brown, Stranger. Things just instant. They did nothing before

and now they're just everywhere. This is John the Baptist. He is at

the height of his celebrity. He has everything, he has, all the

people coming to him. But what does he do when he's at the height

of his celebrity verse seven, and he preached saying, after me comes he

who is mightier than I, the strap of who sandals. I am not

worthy to stoop down and untie, I have baptized you with water, but

he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. Would you be able to do

that? Would you be able to point others to Jesus when you're getting a

lot of attention from people? Would you be? And maybe he said yes,

I would. I would point, I would point them straight up.

Maybe you wouldn't. But that's why we come to church to really think about

ourselves. Here. We're here to think deep about ourselves and see what the

Word has to say about us. Maybe that's the reason you haven't gotten a

job promotion, because God knows you're not gonna point to him. If you

get that job promotion, you're gonna forget about him. That husband you've been

waiting for, that wife you've been waiting for. God knows as soon as

you get that, you're you're done with him. You're not going to point

over there. We just have to change our way of thinking here. We

have to start praying different prayers. God give me that job promotion, but

not at the cost of you keep me right where I'm at as long as

I get to be with you, because that's what he's thinking about here,

and that is what John does. He points straight up to Jesus. John's

whole ministry was dedicated to setting up somebody else. He was dedicated to paving

the way for Jesus to come on the scene and to fulfill his ministry.

And that's what he does. Jesus, the Son of God is mighty,

and he is mightier than John the Baptist. The second thing we're gonna talk

about is that the Son of God is identified. He is identified in verse

nine. In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized

by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water,

immediately that's our first Immediately immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and

the spirit descending on him like a dove, and a voice came from heaven.

You are my beloved son. With you, I am well pleased.

Now, before we break that down, there's a connection here. There's another

verse I'm gonna jump to. You don't necessarily have to turn there. I

think we might have it for you as well, but it's later in Mark,

in Mark chapter fifteen, Mark Chapter fifteen, verses thirty eight through thirty

nine. There's a parallel here, and I don't want to do it.

It's a little bit of a spoiler alert, but trust me it'll be okay.

In verse thirty eight, and the curtain of the temple was torn in

two from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood facing him

saw that in this way, he breathed his last He said, truly,

this man was the Sun of God. In Jesus' baptism and at his crucifixion,

the same things happen. Something is opened, and there's a proclamation of

who he is. He's the son of God. That is his identity.

That's Jesus's identity. He's the son of God. Have you ever had an

identity crisis before? Not know who you are? You might just you don't

know how it happened, but you've lost who you were. This happened a

couple times in my life. Why I've had an identity crisis. One time

in high school. Right when I got into high school, I was in

the skateboarding scene, and you know, I had a lot of friends around

me, and it was a huge community. But they were doing a lot

of crazy stuff outside of just skateboarding itself. They were always going to parties,

always being with girls, always always bullying other kids. And I all

the way through, I'm thinking through high school, this isn't me. What's

going on? I had an identity crisis. There's another time in my life

that I was with a girl and I forsake my family. I turned my

back on my family, I turned my back on my calling, I turn

my back on everything. I didn't know who I was. I was having

an identity crisis. Aren't you glad? Jesus didn't have an identity crisis.

Jesus's identity was clear, and it was made clear not only from the Father

but from others as well. It is clear who Jesus is. It's not

a mystery to us who he is. And Mark doesn't want it to be

a mystery for you to know who Jesus is and what his identity is.

Because Jesus's identity is clear, our identity is clear. We don't have to

wonder who we are in Christ because Christ is our identity, and because his

identity is so open and so clear. Our identity is open and clear.

We don't have to wonder if we're if we're in or out with Christ.

We don't have to wonder about if we if we have to go back to

the other life, if we're if we're okay, if we're in this group

or that. No, our identity is clear because Christ's identity was clear.

Mark does not want us, the readers, to question who Jesus actually is.

There's no secrecy here. There's no ambiguity here, there's no subtlety here

who Jesus is. Jesus is the son of God. Now you'll learn about

it later that Jesus. Sometimes there is some secrecy surrounding who Jesus is.

Sometimes there is some ambiguity for who Jesus is. Sometimes the people in Galilee

and Jerusalem are trying to they're struggling, They're wrestling. Wait, who is

this guy? Who is this guy healing us? Who is this guy?

What's going on? But for the readers of the Book of Mark, Mark's

making it clear you do not have to wonder about who he is. Now

it's another deep question I'm gonna ask you to think about retrospectively inside yourself.

But how do you act? How you This is how I should phrase it.

How you act is who Jesus is to you, because I have to

phrase it that way because we're in church and a lot of people we're in

church that Jesus is the son of God, he is God himself, he

is my savior, he is my Lord. He's all these things which are

great. Amen. Amen, They're in the Bible. We love them.

But how do you act? Is really the question? Do you act like

Jesus is the son of God? Do you act like Jesus is the lord

of your life, He's the boss of your life, you don't do anything

outside of going through him for it. Or do you act like Jesus is

really just a philosopher in your life, He's really just a Bible teacher in

your life. He's just a guru, He's just a life coach. Some

people treat Jesus like that. I'm not talking that you do. But how

do you how you act shows who Jesus is to you. And so maybe

you're here to reorient yourself. Maybe you haven't been treating Jesus the way he

ought to be treated. Maybe you haven't been treating him like he's the son

of God. But you should. This is your chance to start doing it.

We're here to just orient ourselves back. He's not just He is a

lot one of those things. He is a philosopher in a lot of it.

He is a Bible teacher. But he's more than that. And that's

what Mark is conveying to us here, and that's what he's going to continue

to expand on. Jesus is the son of God. He is everything,

and everything falls on him. Here's this last one. The son of God

is prepared. The Son of God is prepared. Verse twelve reads like this.

The spirit immediately there. It is again, it's happening right after he's

baptized. The spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was

in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan, and he was with the

wild animals and the angels were ministering to him. Now there's a lot here,

and Mark is pretty brief with explaining this. And there's a lot of

stuff in this account of Jesus being tempted that Mark doesn't talk about. If

you read the other gospels, you'll see that Jesus was actually fasting. If

you read the other Gospels, you'll see what Satan said to Jesus and what

Jesus said to Satan. But Mark doesn't put any of that in here because

his focus isn't really on what was said. His focus is on what happened.

Jesus was in the wilderness. Now, the wilderness is kind of a

theme. I don't know if you in your Bibles if you want to circle

wilderness or underlying wilderness, but it's throughout the passage. There's a quote earlier

about a voice crying in the wilderness. John the Baptist is baptizing in the

wilderness. People are going to him in the wilderness, and then Jesus goes

to the wilderness. The wilderness is huge. I'm gonna use a big,

a big word here, but it's es catological. That's a that's a theological

It's also what we use eschatology for the study of end times. It's it's

the culmination of things. It's it's God. It's God now putting, putting,

putting the future into He's bringing everything together. That's that's what es catalogical

is. And so the wilderness for people at that time, because of the

prophecies of the wilderness because the people of God were in the wilderness for forty

years wandering around. It's it's God bringing things into culmination. So all of

this talk of wilderness is saying God is on the move right now. God

is doing things right now. Do you ever feel like you've been in a

wilderness before? Maybe you've come tonight and you feel like you're currently in a

wilderness. You're you're wandering around, you don't know what's going on, you

don't know where you should go. But you see, Jesus goes into the

wilderness not to wander around, not to not to meander, not to not

know what's happening next, but he goes into the wilderness to fulfill God's plan

for the world. He goes into the wilderness not to just be tempted by

saying, but to walk out. He walks back out and starts his ministry.

If you if you went to the wilderness for forty days and it was

you and Satan, would you be walking out of there? Will you?

I'll be honest, if I walked into the wilderness and it was just me

and Sayan and Saying just had all of his gimmicks, all of his strife

I mean, I would love to hold fast and what but forty days that's

a long time. For forty days is a while, that's a long I

can't remember the last time I did anything. For forty days, that's a

long time. But Jesus goes into the wilderness for forty days with Satan and

he steps out. Jesus goes into the wilderness and succeeds, so that we

can you can succeed in your wilderness. Because Jesus succeeded in the wilderness,

Jesus is prepared. This Jesus is almost the culmination of his preparation for his

public ministry, because right after this he begins going public. Jesus goes public,

even though he already kind of did with getting baptized, but he wasn't

preaching anything. Jesus he begins preaching right after this moment, and that was

the culmination of his preparation. The Son of God is now prepared. In

verse fourteen, now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the

Gospel of God and saying, the time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God

is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel. The Son of God

is mighty, the Son of God was identified, and the Son of God

is prepared, and now his public ministry starts. Mark doesn't want us to

be neutral with Jesus when reading this book. There's no neutrality here. He's

presenting us who Jesus is, and he's putting it right here on the table

for us, and he's walking away, and you can't just stare at it.

You have to do something with it. Jesus says, repent. That's

what he says. That is one of the things you can do with it.

When the Son of God is presented, you can repent. And if

you don't repent, you reject. Those are the only two options. And

that is what Mark presents with us. And that is the end of the

introduction of this book. The book ends with Jesus's public ministry, and it

ends with him giving a prompt so to speak, repent and believe the good

news. I think the best, the best conclusion with this going off of

even this verse is a call a call to repent. I don't know,

if you're in here and you have a lot of stuff you got to repent

about. There's a lot of things going on. You've done a lot of

things in your life, but Jesus's words are true that you should repent and

believe in the Gospel. We talked about the Gospel and how it means good

news. But if there's good news, that means that there's some bad news.

And the bad news is that we all have sin. We have this

thing called sin, and that thing is what prevents us from spending eternity with

God, spending forever and ever and ever with the Lord. The Bible describes

not being in the presence of God for eternity in a lot of different ways,

gnashing of teeth, of flames. It's not a place we want to

be. But if you repent, you're with him forever. Yes, the

thief on the cross a little bit later in the Gospels, he repented,

and Jesus said, today you will be with me in paradise. When we

die, we don't just just turn into nothing. We don't just turn into

dust, but we go on to live forever. We are eternal beings.

And you're gonna spend it one of two ways. You're either gonna spend it

in heaven with the Son of God, or you're gonna spend it in hell

away from the Son of God. And so if you're in here tonight and

you've heard the words that Mark's written down, he's been pushed along by the

Holy Spirit to write this account of Jesus's life. And you've seen the Son

of God being presented to you, and he's given it to you on a

silver platter, just saying, repent and believe in the Gospel, and you

will spend the eternity with him tomorrow. Isn't promised to any of us.

Things happen all the time. Pastor Diego always says, people check into the

hospital all the time, and they never check out. I wouldn't want anybody

leaving here today not have a chance to repent and believe in the gospel of

the Son of God tonight, to believe in the Gospel of Jesus, to

turn away from your old life and start walking new. Pastor Kenny said,

it's easy going. It's easier going forward than it is backward. Let's go

forward today. Let's go forward tonight. If you could do me a favor,

We're all gonna close our eyes and we're all gonna say a prayer together.

But if you're ready to repent tonight. This prayer is not what will

save you. It's your heart. How you feel about the Son of God

in your heart, and repenting in your heart is what saves you. So

let's pray together. Say, dear Lord Jesus, I repent of all my

sin. I believe that you sent the Son of God to die for my

sins. I thank you for this new life I can live. I pray

you help me live for you every day of my life in Jesus' name.

Amen, Amen, Amen. We really hope you enjoyed the message, and

if you said yes to Jesus, we just want to say congratulations and give

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