The New Beginning News, Part 1

Transcript

Welcome to this week’s sermon from Trinity Church in Portland, Oregon. Today, Pastor Thomas Terry continues preaching through the Book of Mark in the series, Follow the Son. This message is called, The New Beginning News, Part One, and it comes from Mark, Chapter One. It’s a passage commonly known as John the Baptist preparing the way. Thanks for joining us. Here’s Thomas. Good morning. Well, before we get into our text this morning, would we take a moment to pray? Begin where God always would have us begin before we open up His Word, with a posture of dependence, with a need for His help. So pray with me. Father, we come to You this morning and ask for Your divine help. We pray, God, that You would come, that Your Spirit would attend every effort this morning, that You would help us to see Jesus in Your text.

And not just see Jesus, not just identify Jesus in the text, but that You would stir our affections, that You would change our hearts, and that You would conform us into the image of this Jesus that is so plainly seen in this text this morning. We ask for Your help. Meet us this morning, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen. Well, the Gospel of Mark is a story of new beginnings, and it’s told by an amazing and creative storyteller. Mark pens a story that is dramatic and suspenseful and immediate, a story that contains mystery and wonder, love and loss, the miraculous and the supernatural, a story that contains heartbreak, horror, and hope. There is good that triumphs over evil. There is justice and there is jealousy. There is gut-wrenching pain and there is happily ever after. But this story is not even remotely close to a fairy tale or fiction.

This story is factual, it’s historical, it’s biographical, and it’s documentary. It’s true and it’s good and it’s complicated, and at the same time, it’s simple and accessible and transcendent. Mark pens the greatest story ever told because he’s telling us God’s story. Mark is creatively capturing what Peter passionately preached about the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. What makes this the greatest story and what separates it from all other stories is that God creatively invites his creatures into his story so that we become a part of it, that we experience it and begin to invite other people into that story with our own stories. It’s a living and breathing and evolving story with new characters being captured by the story and added to it every day. This is the reason why God created story in the first place. God who created everything created the art of story to reveal himself to his creatures

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The Greatest Story

in a way that is compelling and colorful and deep. Every story by divine design is made to draw us into the story so that we would creatively connect to it and tell others through our personal stories about the story. This morning, we begin at the beginning in chapter one with Mark’s story of the news of the new beginning. What I’ve done to help us along is I’ve broken up these first 15 verses of chapter one. This morning, we’ll look at the first eight. Next week, we’ll deal with the rest, but I’ve broken these chapters up into five scenes to help us to see the beauty and complexity of this new beginning news. We’ll look at these first two scenes this morning, the prelude and the publicist, and then we’ll look at the other three scenes next week. Let’s begin with the prelude in verse one.

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God. Last week, Ryan unpacked this prelude for us a bit in his introduction, and he helped us to understand this kind of summary statement as a whole. This morning, what I want to do is dig a little bit deeper into these parts. Mark in his first few words gets right to the point. He jumps right into the deep end and gives us a snapshot of what he’s going to tell us throughout this whole story. This is Mark’s style. Mark is quick and punchy and straight to the point with his storytelling. This is why I love Mark. He doesn’t just start with this long genealogy like Matthew’s gospel. He doesn’t start with this long runway like Luke’s gospel does. He just jumps right in with this new beginning news. And like any good storyteller, he moves you into his story by first moving you backwards.

He’s got to take you back to the very beginning to help you understand what’s going on. This is why, by design, Mark the storyteller starts his story with the words, the beginning. He starts here because Mark knows that by starting his story with the words, the beginning, he will capture our attention. He will capture our attention and pull us all the way back to the very first time we heard the words, the beginning. He’s pulling us back to Genesis 1.1. This reference to the beginning is intended to be an echo of Eden. It’s Mark’s way of saying once upon a time, but it’s more than that. It’s more like once upon a time in the beginning before time began. Mark is moving us to Genesis to show us that God existed, that he created everything. We see in Genesis in his creation account how God creates.

He speaks into existence all of creation. He creates the skies and the seas, the dry land, the fish, creatures, and everything in between. He created it all, and it was good, but at the apex of his creation is humanity. God creates Adam and Eve distinct from all other created things, and immediately after he creates mankind, he says, it is very good. God is pleased with what he creates. He is demonstrating affection and satisfaction in his creation of humanity. More than that, he demonstrates his goodness and kindness to humanity by giving them everything that would cause for them to delight in him and flourish. He gives them a beautiful garden with endless access to him, which means endless joy, complete satisfaction, without wants and perfect fellowship. They walk and speak with God in uninterrupted access, everything perfectly curated by the God who created them. But then came the serpent who whispered lies into their ears, lies of finding greater joy

and satisfaction beyond the boundaries of God’s good design. And in their foolishness, they chose to place more trust in the words of a created serpent rather than the creator himself. And in so doing, they started to believe that God was not good, that God was somehow holding out on them. And so in one act of foolishness and defiance, they sinned and rebelled against God, the one who from the beginning was affectionately for them. That’s the point where everything good about creation became broken. And from that moment forward, there was this cosmic ripple effect that the sin that started in the garden had begun to spread across every inch of humanity, crushing God’s good creation. See it was God’s creatures that ruined God’s good creation. But despite the sin of this first Adam that has infected all of humanity, God is still good. He is still good.

Echoes of Eden

And in his goodness, he doesn’t just leave us broken, but promises that one day he would make all things right again. And that promise would mean that God would send Jesus the last Adam to recreate creation and return us back to Eden. See Mark starts with the words, the beginning to remind us of God’s goodness and promise keeping to a broken creation and to a broken people. This means that the beginning of Genesis doesn’t end in hopelessness. It ends with the hope of a new beginning. So right here with the beginning of Mark’s gospel, we see the good news of hope breaking into human history through the person and work of Jesus, the Messiah, the son of God. Brothers and sisters, this means that God is faithfully fulfilling his promise to us. Here’s what else you see what Mark is doing with these first few words, the beginning

with this echo of Eden. What he’s doing here is worldview shaping. He brings us back to Genesis to do worldview work. He’s addressing the fundamental worldview questions here. Is there a God? Where did we come from? Why are we here? What do we do with the problem of evil and what happens when we die? He pulls us back to Genesis one to answer these most vital worldview questions. Yes, there is a God and this God created everything. We were made by him. We were made for him. We were made to enjoy him and all the evil that we see in this world, all the evil that exists is because of our sin. We see it every day. It plagues us all. Furthermore, we all contribute to it because this sin is so pervasive. It has broken everything and so deep down inside humanity longs for a day when evil

will no longer corrupt our world. We all want justice. We all want peace. We all long for Eden. This is worldview stuff. Now why is Mark starting with the beginning with these echoes of Eden? Because his audience doesn’t have a proper worldview. Yeah, it’s true that John the Baptist will be speaking mostly to Jewish people, but Mark in his gospel is writing largely to an irreligious audience. He’s speaking primarily to a Roman secular culture. He’s writing to pagans with an inconsistent worldview, a context that is strikingly similar to Portland, which is the reason why the elders decided to go through this book in the first place. To learn from Mark, to see how he told the story of Jesus to an irreligious secular world, to engage the culture who has little to no concept of a Christian worldview. He’s writing to secular people. One of the first things we can learn from Mark is that he writes with words that would

be relevant to his time and context. He uses phrases like the gospel and son of God, which prior to Mark’s writing were predominantly secular terms. These were secular words. He speaks with the language of the culture. In fact, Mark coins the term the gospel for Christians by hijacking it from secular culture. The phrase son of God was also a secular hijack. This phrase was used almost exclusively when referencing secular kings and emperors. Kings and emperors of their culture would give themselves the title son of God as a way to accentuate their separateness from ordinary people. He wanted to show that they were different from the layman. See, Mark, he knew what he was doing. He was not only a master of contextualizing, he was being provocative, using words and phrases that common people would understand were references to kings and emperors. Of course, that’s Mark’s point here in this prelude, that Jesus Christ is the true and

The Herald Arrives

only son of God, that Jesus is the king of kings and the Lord of lords, that he is the creator and sustainer of the cosmos. He is the one who laughs at earthly kings and emperors. Mark is setting the tone with this prelude, that this good news of the new beginning creation begins with Jesus Christ, the true and only king of creation. And like all kings, what is it that precedes their arrival into a city? A herald who declares that the king is coming. So Mark, in his creative brilliance, introduces us, he introduces into the story the herald of King Jesus. Mark announces the publicist. Verse two and three, 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. Mark introduces the publicist, John the Baptist, the one whose sole responsibility, whose job it was to point people to the Messiah, the herald or the coming of the king. And what’s so interesting, what’s so fascinating about Mark’s storytelling is the way he chooses to introduce John the Baptist into his story. He does it again by pulling us backwards into other stories, stories that allude to or that point to this promised publicist. Mark says, as it is written in the prophet Isaiah, so what does Mark do? He immediately quotes from the Old Testament. Mark is bringing to our attention that this publicist is the fulfillment of scripture. And here’s another thing that we can learn from Mark, a knowledge and fluency of Old Testament scripture. Mark knew his Bible, so he was strategically and creatively quoting from it to point people to Jesus. And Mark understood that all of the Old Testament, all of those stories in the Old Testament

point to Jesus. And so he uses it. And he doesn’t just quote from Isaiah. He actually quotes this hybrid or this fusion of verses from both Malachi and Isaiah. In Malachi 3.1, the prophet Malachi concerning their judgment and need for a savior says to Israel,

behold, I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me. Isaiah 40 verse three, the prophet says, a voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God

— Malachi 3

, Isaiah 40

(ESV)

. The context here is about the herald who will come to announce Israel’s deliverance from captivity. And these two verses together are what Mark quotes to point to the coming of John the Baptist. Not only do these verses make reference to John the Baptist and his ministry, they also speak specifically about the judgment and deliverance of Yahweh. And so this publicist, John the Baptist, who was, he was foreseen in the Old Testament

enters John’s story to address judgment and deliverance by pointing to the Messiah, the only one who can help people escape judgment, the only people who can help people find deliverance. Mark is showing us that these past stories of the prophets were actually written to point us forward to John the Baptist who would point us forward to Jesus, the Messiah is fascinating. Two totally different storylines, two storylines, centuries apart, converge and meet here in the story of John the Baptist. And what do we see in these Old Testament passages? That John the Baptist is the messenger that will prepare the way as Malachi promises. That John the Baptist is the voice of the herald, the one who was calling out in the wilderness as Isaiah prophesies. And look at the story, where does John the Baptist just happen to appear in Mark’s story? In the wilderness.

This is not coincidence. This is God’s creative storytelling using people and individual stories. This is all part of God’s grand storyline. It’s too complex to be coincidence. John the Baptist is the publicist that was foreseen by the prophets that would herald the coming of the king who would bring judgment and deliverance. Jesus is the usher of judgment and deliverance, and that’s part of God’s recreation. It’s part of making all the wrongs of this world right. See, this story, the news of the new beginning, is all about Jesus. He is the principal character in every chapter. He is at the center of every story. He is the author of it all. John the Baptist is simply a foreword. He’s just a publicist capturing the attention of the people and the world and directing it to Jesus the king. The principal in the story. And what we see from these Old Testament verses is that John the Baptist was not only the

Preparing the Way

herald or the messenger for the coming of the king, but he was also to prepare the way. And what does John’s preparing the way look like? Verse four. John appeared baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John prepares the way by preaching three things, and not in this particular order, but he preaches three things. The necessity of repentance, the necessity of baptism, and the necessity of forgiveness. So he starts first with the necessity of repentance. John the Baptist was preaching or calling out to the people in the wilderness to turn away from their sins and turn back to God. To live again under his rule and lordship. John was saying to these people, there needs to be a fundamental change in the direction that you are moving ethically. You have forgotten your God. You have come to love your sin and the thing is your sin is crushing you.

You need to turn away from it. John prepares the way by speaking honestly to these lost and confused people who are in love with their sin. Now this is so much different than what we see in our modern Christian culture. There is very little honesty concerning sin and repentance. In fact most Christians functionally believe that evangelism is simply befriending unbelievers. Loving or spending time with unbelievers. Now listen, that is a good thing. We should be befriending unbelievers. We should be loving them and spending time with them, but don’t call it evangelism if you never get around to telling them the truth. If you are never honest with them about their sin, about the fact that they are accountable before God. Listen, I don’t care how much you say you love your unbelieving friends. If you are not honest with them, you are not loving them the way they need to be loved.

Because genuine love is telling them the truth about sin. Genuine love is telling them the truth about turning away from the very thing that is eating them alive and destroying them from the inside out. Trinity Church, my prayer for us as we go through this book of Mark is that God would help us to be honest and truthful to this world that is perishing. Because they are dying, they are lost, and they are without hope, and they are in desperate need of Jesus. Now notice, John preaches repentance, not just confession. And this is also important for us to hear, because oftentimes we can confuse confession with repentance. Confession is admitting sin, but repentance is abandoning sin. Repentance is to turn in the opposite direction of your sin. And while it is true that repentance is never without confession, it’s also true that confession doesn’t mean anything until it’s authenticated by true repentance.

This means that repentance is more than just words. And this is why John calls these Jews to be baptized. So John preaches the necessity of baptism. Now just to be clear so that we don’t get confused, this baptism that John references here is different than what we know as believer’s baptism. This baptism is a new type of baptism that John instituted in this unique time and culture. This baptism really served as a public announcement for Jews that were showing that they’ve repented. It was John’s way of making these Jews put action behind their words. It was a visible expression of turning away from where they were going into the right direction. It’s kind of like what Jews would call a proselytite baptism. A proselyte baptism was when a Gentile wanted to convert to Judaism, what he would have to do is get baptized. There would be this water immersion, and what that water immersion would signify is a sense

of cleansing. This is how Gentiles could be treated like Jews, how they could be brought into a Jewish community. They needed to demonstrate that they were moving far away from their Gentile ways. That’s what they had to do if they wanted to hang with Jews. Otherwise they’d still be unclean. That kind of baptism was exclusive to Gentiles converting to Judaism. But with this kind of baptism, this baptism of repentance that John introduces, John was actually calling Jews to be baptized in a way of demonstrating that they were moving in the wrong direction and they needed to go in the right direction. They needed to forsake their sin, which is interesting if you think about it. John is, for the first time possibly, treating these Jews like Gentiles, that they needed to repent and turn from their sinful ways. This is huge. This meant that Jews didn’t just get a pass on the basis of their ethnicity.

Their ethnicity didn’t automatically grant them access to God. What was required to be made right with God started with repentance. This is a good word for us. We don’t get a pass because of our ethnicity, our nationality, because we’re Americans, or because we’re so smart, or because we were raised in a Christian home, or because we have this kind of moral code of conduct. You want to become right with God. The gateway, the starting point, the pathway for you is repentance. Now hear this, please hear this. John is not just preaching repentance like some dude on a corner with a sandwich sign yelling at people to repent. He’s also preaching the necessity and the availability of forgiveness. John is preaching that the forgiveness of sin is available, and this is so good for us to hear. Because if you only tell people to repent, if you’re only telling them to repent and

you’re not telling them about the forgiveness of sins, you’re only making moral mandates. You’re yelling at them to change their behavior. They need to know that it’s more than just being a better person. It’s more than just being a moral person. They need to know that their sins can be forgiven if they repent. See, brothers and sisters, our sin is our greatest problem, which means forgiveness is our greatest gift. John preached the forgiveness of sins, and amen to that. We should do the same. Now it’s important to understand that John is not the one who is offering the forgiveness of sins. John is simply preparing the people for the forgiveness of sins. John can baptize them. John can call them to repentance, but he can’t forgive them. That is uniquely and exclusively reserved for God. So what John does is he prepares his way by preaching.

And notice what happens. Look at the effects of John’s preaching. Verse 5, and all the countryside of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. John’s preaching worked. People were responding positively and physically to it. They heard the herald speaking honestly about repentance, and the people responded by being baptized. They responded by saying, this is more than words. I want to show, I want to demonstrate that I’m going to change my direction. What a crazy concept to preach the necessity of repentance for the forgiveness of sins and have people respond positively to it. You know, I think this is tens of thousands of people going down to the river Jordan, confessing their sins, turning from their former paths, admitting their sins. This is crazy revival. No gimmicks. No watering down the truth.

No methods, just honest preaching about repentance. Brothers and sisters, this should be an encouragement to us. Most of us are afraid to talk to people about sin and repentance. Yeah, we could talk all day long about confession. It’s trendy to talk about your brokenness. We can talk all day long about forgiveness, but forgiveness from what? But to mention to people that they must turn away from their sinful lifestyle, that’s just too audacious. That just sounds too disrespectful, sounds unloving. But the truth is, we just don’t do that because we really don’t believe that talking about sin and repentance works. At brass tacks, we don’t believe it works. We don’t. If we did, we would do it, but we don’t. So be encouraged, brothers and sisters. It does work, and it worked with John in a profound way. Tens of thousands of people responding to his preaching of repentance.

The Wilderness Prophet

So in verse four and five, we get the details concerning the message of John and what he preached. But in verse six, we get the description concerning the messenger, and it’s, to be honest, it’s an odd one. Verse six, now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. Now why in the world would Mark go out of his way to give us the description of John’s attire and his food preferences? Well, because Mark wants to show us two things about John the Baptist. One, John was practical. John was a simple and committed man. He was so resolute to the task of being a publicist and preparing the way for God’s people that he lived in the wilderness, which meant this dude was rugged and grimy. He didn’t care. He took his job seriously.

He had work to do. He was preoccupied with being practical. He didn’t care about worldly clothes or elegant food, although some people consider locusts elegant food. That’s not me. He was content with what he had. He wasn’t worried about looking fresh or eating delicious food. He was willing to live off the land for the sake of the ministry. He was willing to live with a lot less so that he could make much about the Messiah. This is the exact opposite of what we see today with prosperity preachers or with sneaker preachers. I love this about John. He was simple but serious, practical but powerful. Yeah, people thought he looked crazy, but that’s okay. He didn’t care. He was radical and committed. He was practical. Number two, John was prophetic. John intentionally dressed to resemble the prophet Elijah. In second Kings, the prophet Elijah is described as wearing a garment of hair and a leather

belt around his waist. It also makes reference to the fact that he ate locusts. So John looked like Elijah. He ate like Elijah. He spoke like Elijah. And the Jews who knew their Bible, they knew that when Elijah appeared in the wilderness that the Messiah would follow immediately after. See John’s attire was for dramatic and prophetic effect. See second Kings also tells us that the prophet Elijah never died. He was just taken up into heaven. And he was taken up into heaven standing right next to the Jordan River. In Malachi 4 verse 5, it says,

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come to strike the land and decree with a decree of utter destruction

— Malachi 4

(ESV)

.

See John is the Elijah figure that shows up out of nowhere in the wilderness, preaching and baptizing in the Jordan River, making a path for the coming of Messiah. And this was a cue for Jews who would see John the Baptist as the coming Elijah, the forerunner of the Messiah. This was partly why John’s ministry was so successful because he was wearing those crazy clothes because they looked at his clothes. They heard him preach. They saw that he was in the wilderness next to the Jordan River. They put two and two together and deduced the Messiah is coming. I got to get ready. In case any of these Jews missed it, verses seven and eight get the confirmation from John that he is in fact the forerunner, that he is the Elijah figure. Verses seven and eight. And he preached saying, after me comes he who is mightier than I, the straps of those

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. John has made every effort necessary to show these people that the Messiah is coming. John preached repentance. He preached a baptism of repentance. He preached the necessity and availability of forgiveness of sin. Essentially John is saying, I can tell you to repent. I can baptize you with water. I can tell you all about the forgiveness of sins, but I can’t forgive your sins. I don’t have the power to do that. I’m not strong enough. John is saying here, the one who comes after me is so powerful, so holy, so other than that I’m not even worthy to untie his sandals. See in this culture, it was the lowest of servants who were given the task to untie the sandals of their masters.

John is saying, I pale in comparison to the one who comes after me. The Messiah is so high and I am so unworthy, even for the lowest of tasks, which seems crazy because if you look at how fruitful John’s ministry was, this seems ridiculous. Look at his reach. Jesus would later refer to John as the greatest of all prophets. So John was kind of like a big deal, but John recognizes the chasm between himself and this coming Messiah. He sees the superiority of the one that comes after him and John recognizes his complete unworthiness. And he’s right. He’s absolutely right. He’s not just being humble. He’s right. See, with this statement, John says something so much more profound than he even knows. See, even though John was a prophet, his view of the one who would come after him was limited. John couldn’t know the depths in which the Messiah would condescend to take away the

sins of men. John couldn’t know how low the Messiah would have to go to serve his people. Yes, the one who comes after John is greater in power. He is greater than John. He is greater than us. And yes, John is unworthy. We are unworthy. But what John couldn’t know with his limited view is that the Messiah would make himself less in every single way. And in so doing, make John and us worthy. John is making statements here that is more profound than I think he knows. And he continues with his contrast by saying, I baptize people with water, but I am totally and completely incapable of baptizing people with the Holy Spirit. The baptism of the Holy Spirit John is referencing here is a metaphor for anointing people with the Holy Spirit. He’s saying, I can’t give you the Holy Spirit. I can’t. The one who can anoint you with the Holy Spirit is the Messiah, because he is the anointed

one. That’s what Messiah means. This means that the one who comes after him, the one who is more powerful than him, and the one who can anoint you with the Holy Spirit is Jesus. John was making connections about this Messiah that I’m convinced he wasn’t completely cognizant of. John is talking about this Messiah and making distinctions between man and maker. John is only a man, but when it comes to what he’s talking about, he’s speaking about God. See, John’s ministry as the publicist was to prepare the way for people to point them to the Messiah, God’s anointed one. But what John didn’t understand is that the anointed one was God. John preached that the forgiveness of sin is available. He preached that to tens of thousands of people. Mark will show us in his gospel that forgiveness can be found only in Jesus Christ,

Good News Today

who is the son of God and who is God. But how does Jesus, the son of God, offer forgiveness of sin? By coming and dying the death that we deserve to die because of our sin. Our sin is what created the chasm between us and our maker. And so God must come to die to bring us back into fellowship with him. He purchases our sin with his perfect and innocent blood. This is good news. This is good news. The news of the new beginning that God has come in flesh is amazing. That God is Jesus Christ coming to keep his promises to a broken humanity. The story of the new beginning news is about the king of creation becoming a servant king who comes not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. To save his people from their sins and recreate this broken world.

Now listen, this news is not just a story, it is reality. It’s reality. And if you are here this morning and you are not yet trusting in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, there is still a chasm between you and your maker. But you can have him today. You can experience the forgiveness of sins. Your sins can be forgiven today if you would simply turn from your sins and trust in him as Lord and Savior. He can be yours. He can be yours and you can experience the peace that comes from knowing God and having your sins washed away. This story, the good news of the new beginning can be yours. It can be your reality if you would simply follow the son. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you. We thank you for this grand story that before time began, you were already working out the

details. You were building this story that would maximize your glory. Your glory would be maximized in the redemption of those you created. We thank you for being a promise-keeping God, the God who never fails, who always stands by his word. And we thank you for being the God who has come to rescue us and recreate this world. I pray, O Lord and God, that as we begin this book, that you would change us in a profound way, that the stories that are told in this book would capture our undivided attention, would move us, would make us to see the beauty and the brilliance of the God who created us, that we will be overwhelmed, and in so doing, we would give up everything to chase after and follow the one who has come to rescue us. We pray that you would do miraculous things in our hearts and in our city as we unpack

your miraculous story. We pray these things in Christ’s name, amen. Thanks for joining us for this week’s sermon from Trinity Church in Portland, Oregon. If you’d like to learn more about us, you can visit our website at www.trinityportland.com.