Preparing The Way

You know, it's amazing how, I don't know if you know this, spirituality is a real big thing these days. A lot of people are spiritual and a lot of people love Jesus and a lot of people don't even know who he is, really. What's amazing is how biblically illiterate or ignorant much of our American culture is. We just don't know that much. We think we do, and then what happens is, oh, Jesus, yeah, I really love him. And we make him into our coach or our therapist. Jesus becomes, you know, that revolutionary. Jesus becomes whatever I want him to be in my life. We project on him all the good things that we think should be, but we haven't really encountered the real Jesus. We haven't met him simply and profoundly as he is. The irony is the more that you shape Jesus into what you want him to be, a Jesus of your own making or your own projection, that's the Jesus that can't really change you or transform you or make a difference for you. It's just you. All he'll do is confirm everything that you already believe, already you want, everything that you desire, all your wish, dream, fulfillment. And Christianity is so different than all, most world religions kind of start with humanity and then project off onto God what we need and what we're inadequate. But Christianity and the gospel of Mark and the gospel itself kind of goes the opposite direction. It's where God sees what humanity needs and enters into human history in the person of Jesus Christ. We're gonna meet him today in the gospel of Mark. Because when you do encounter Jesus simply for who he is, what he has done, what he says, how he lives, as we see in the gospel of Mark, then you're going to see a transformation in your life. And Mark, I think, of all the four gospels, might be the best place to start. I don't know if you know this, but it's probably, most scholars believe it's the first gospel written. It's the shortest of the four gospels. It's very simple language in some ways. And you don't really, what's amazing now, I'm not denigrating any of the other gospels, okay? Not by any means. But Mark, what you get in Mark is simply Jesus. You don't even get a lot of teaching by Jesus and you don't get much teaching about Jesus. You don't get a lot of theologizing, in a sense, of Jesus. Mark doesn't go off on his own. He just presents Jesus simply and profoundly and pretty raw and upfront and in your face at times. And that's kind of the amazing thing about this gospel. And we're going to, as we follow along in this series, and we're going to probably take breaks in this series because to get through the whole gospel of Mark, it's going to take a while. And so we'll take a break, like after Easter maybe, and go to another series and come back for it for the summer and slowly work our way through the entire gospel of Mark. Okay? So I don't want to do the gospel of Mark for the next six months. Not that that wouldn't be good, but I have a feeling we're going to want a little variety in the topical kind of interest. But we're going to do the gospel of Mark at least through Easter, if not farther. Okay? So we get kind of Mark taking us immediately, like just bluntly, here's Jesus, boom. And we were just in a breakneck speed through this gospel going from one event to another, the crowds and people around him and even his disciples are asking questions and they're not being answered. It's like, well, who is this? Why is he doing this? Why does he eat with sinners and tax? Why is he forgiving sins like this? Who is that that can do these things? And we don't get answers. We just get simply Jesus presented to us again and again. But we end up then ruminating, kind of simmering on these things, allowing it to kind of sink in and go like, who is this Jesus? We do some theologizing in a sense to respond to the simple presentation we get in the gospel of Mark. 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 of Jerusalem were going out to meet him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, 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 straps of whose 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. So from this text today, we're going to look at three things simply, but profoundly what Mark, I think, is getting at in this text. No sermon does justice to any of God's word. I mean, there's so much more that you could share, but we're gonna look at these three points ...