DEC 10 2017 | Mark 1:1-8

Sea Change Church · "Mark 1:1-8" · Adam Stadtmiller · December 10, 2017
Mark 1:1-8
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

A reading from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 1, verses 1 through 8. 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 crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of 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 Judean 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 and a leather belt around his waist. And he ate locust and wild honey, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

I think we missed one part of a verse there. But anyway, the word of the Lord. Wouldn't be the first time, Elliot. Casual excellence is one of our values. Heads are going to roll tomorrow. Alright, good to have you, Jesus. Bless this word. How exciting a baby has come into the world. To bless and change our hearts, God. The God of all eternity. We thank you, God, and we give you praise.

Now, bless these words as I speak. Encourage the word of God. Anoint this teaching with the ability to reach each person's individual hearts. Where they are today. You care about their stories. And now you're intertwining that story into your story. We bless you in Jesus' name. Amen. I believe that the gospel loses a component when it is devoid of imagination.

The gospel is a story, a narrative. The Bible itself is an epic story which calls us to imagine not only the things that God has done to put us into the story, but calls us to imagine beyond ourselves to a place of what the world could be like, of what we could possibly be like. And it calls us into this creative understanding of God. This creative understanding, not of just God, but of the world itself.

Why are superhero movies so popular? Why are there so many? Why is there Iron Man 36? Why are all these happening? Because we want to believe in something beyond ourself. The human condition is calling us to imagine beyond ourselves. Imagine something greater. Imagine something stronger. Oh, they actually did get that up there. That's awesome. I sent that.

And look, it just happens. I sent it this morning at 8.15. Yay for the heads will not roll now. So, I just thought that was cool. Perhaps you saw that kind of trending around on the internet. It's just cool. The world has called us. And when we try to normalize Jesus or the scientific gospel, right now we have a gospel of science that is happening.

And science is the new faith and it can be proven. And one of the things I looked up recently is 30 facts. I read an article. 30 scientific facts that have been recently disproven. That's the interesting thing about science is we're called to believe it as ardent believers, but until it's disproven. And so, perhaps you saw in the paper this week where they believe that where man came from is not where man comes from and all the things that they had believed has been disproven.

And I believe in science, okay, much like Nacho Libre's friend. I do believe in science. I believe that God has a scientific world and a scientific mind. But I believe that faith trumps science because science does not, as the gospel says, give us the ability for eternal life. It is faith that gives us eternal life that lasts forever. And so we look at those pictures and it draws us into a deeper understanding of who Jesus is.

Now, this is what's interesting about Jesus. And I think something that Mark captures in his gospel. We're looking at the baby Jesus through four gospels. And one of the interesting things is Mark doesn't present a baby Jesus. Mark presents an adult Jesus. Last week in Matthew, we saw that the baby Jesus comes in the gospel of Matthew. And Matthew takes the Jewish genealogy, which is important to Jews, all the way back to Abraham.

It's a who's who of who Jesus' lineage came from with a few characters in there that are a little bit, I wouldn't use the word insidious, but they got off the path a little bit, you see. And God still had them come into the lineage of Jesus. If you look, as we'll see in the gospel of Luke next week, that the lineage of Jesus is taken beyond Abraham.

And he takes them all the way back to Adam. When we get to John on Christmas Eve, you're going to see that he takes the lineage of Jesus all the way back to before time. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God. But in the gospel of Mark, where we are today, he has none of that lineage. And the question is why? Why does he not have a lineage?

You have one that goes back to Abraham, one that goes back to Adam, one that goes back to the beginning of time, but none for him. It has to do with his audience. His audience is a Gentile audience. It is a Greek, Aramaic-speaking audience. He's not going to impress anybody or relate the story of this Jesus to anybody of his audience by giving them genealogical records of the Jews.

Instead, he paints Jesus as a mythical hero. Now, if I've been studying this, I was looking into this gospel and all of a sudden it kind of dawned on me. Now, I've not read this before. This is something that just came to me this week. But as I began to look at it and began to think of the audience, and as my 15-year-old daughter is going through Greek mythology in school now and these different things, I realize that what Mark has done is written something that the Gentiles can understand.

He portrays Jesus as a superhero-like character, somebody full of power, somebody full of action, somebody who comes as a son of God in a way that the Gentiles would understand it. And so as he is painting, you have to think about his audience, he is painting a superhero-like character of who Jesus is for an audience that was raised on myth, for an audience that was raised understanding how power works and the power of the gods.

And you have to understand that he was speaking and trying to reach a people who believed in the gods, people who actually believed in the stories of Zeus. And there was still the cult of Athena and all these different things. And so what he does is he comes and he says, this is the first true myth. He says, this is the myth. This is the mythical character.

But myth, back in that time, and only until recent has myth become something that is considered untrue. Myth was the chronological or the historical history of a people. And C.S. Lewis talks, if you want to go into your Google and look at Tolkien, put in true myth. Lewis and Tolkien both talk about that Jesus Christ is the myth that was true. And so he comes speaking to a Gentile audience and is saying to him, this is the godlike superhero character who is actually true, who has come to save mankind, and he is the Messiah.

Let me quickly read through this as we look. And I want to allow your imagination to put yourself in the place of a Gentile believer in the first century, raised on the cultic myths of the day, and now hearing about a new one. And this is what Paul did too. Remember, Paul came to Greece and he said, let me tell you about a new god, the unknown god.

He steps into this as well. And he begins to paint Jesus as a mythical character who is the all-powerful god so that the Holy Spirit might come in. He meets them where they are. The superhero Jesus, the god of imagination. It talks here in the beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah. Once again, the news coming out of Christians' mouths is good news.

It is the gospel. He is the son of God, something the Gentiles would have understood. And as it was written by Isaiah the prophet, now when he refers to Isaiah the prophet, he is talking about someone who is the sharer of myths as they would have understood it. Someone who tells the stories of old and the lore of old. They would have gone right into it.

Who is the storyteller? They would want to know these Gentiles who he was. And he says, I will send my messenger ahead of you. This is John the Baptist. Who will prepare your way. A voice of one calling in the wilderness. People, prepare the way for the Lord. Make straight paths for him. Now this is key for you today. Because what does all this have to do with me?

I want to tell you that in this gospel, one of the core ideas is if you are going to experience the empowered life of following Jesus, you are going to need to prepare the way. That is where this gospel starts. Yes, he is setting them up with a Gentile understanding of a great hero of lore, but the true myth. But he is also saying you need to prepare yourself if you want to live in power.

And it is a gospel where he says that he is preaching a gospel of baptism and repentance. Here is what you need to know going into this service as we just dive into the deep end. That if you want to live an empowered life in Christ, you need to confess your sins, repent, and be baptized. The scripture says that, that we need to prepare the way, and nothing prepares the way for an empowered life like confession of sins and repentance.

I want to say nothing will stand in the way of a Christ-following life, of an empowered life, more than sin. Sin is the great wall of China to God's empowerment of your life. And at any point, we can go and prepare the way. And so, I guess I ask you, as we move towards Christmas, are you preparing the way? Or are there little things that you're allowing blockages in your life?

And is there a reckoning of your own where you would say, I need to confess this sin. I need to do whatever it takes. Because Jesus is the great sin killer. Use your imagination to see that Jesus is the great sin killer. And so, he talks about preparing a way, making straight paths for him. And just a question to you is, where are the paths crooked?

You know. I don't need to preach here and blunge in you with the scripture. You know where the paths are not straight. What does it look like to make those paths straight? And so, John the Baptist appeared. He's one in the wilderness. He preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him.

He was so attractive. He was so intriguing. This Jesus who called him. Is Jesus still intriguing to you? Confessing their sins. And they were baptized to him in the Jordan River. They knew that they had a need. This is like different than I spoke about last week. The Jewish leaders did not feel that they needed salvation from their sins. Why? They had a system for the cleansing of sins.

And if you could get the system right, you did not need a savior for your sins. These people who were rejected often out of the synagogue, who weren't in the higher echelons of spiritual privilege of the day, knew that they were not in the inner circle. But they went out to someone who called to them and said, come home. And so they left that in order that their sins might be forgiven.

They knew that they had a need. I guess the question to me once again is, do I know that I have a need for Jesus? Or do I feel like I have a system in place? Some people would tell you that that system is good works. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothing made of camel hair and a leather belt around his waist.

And he ate locusts and wild honey, much like the original prophets. There had been a 400-year silence now. Before the time of Jesus, there had been 400 years. It was a silent period. Imagine twice the history of the United States. Twice the history with nothing happening in regard to the spiritual element, where all they've done is continue to build on a dead system of legalism for 400 years.

And now comes one of the prophets of old, talking about a mythical hero that was actually living, that was more than myth, that was coming to change their lives, and people were hungry. They were hungry. I think, you know, one of the problems in our society is a lack of spiritual hunger. One of the problems for the church is a lack of spiritual hunger.

But if my people will humble themselves and pray to me, who will heal the land? God says, I will heal the land. And then he says, now this is the empowered part that you need to see. He says, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. And then as you go into the gospel of Mark, all of a sudden the power starts happening.

You start seeing an empowered life of Jesus as he steps into the needs that are in front of him every single day. Told you why in the notes that there is no lineage in who he's speaking to. And we see that Jesus portrayed to this audience is portrayed in three ways. First of all, he's historic. He gives this history. The Greeks loved history. The Gentiles, they loved history.

Maybe differently than the lineage of the ways the Jews loved it. But he definitely points him or portrays him as a historic figure. Mark's presentation of the gospel would have been received by a Greek Gentile audience as those weaned on Greek myth. Mark is presenting the first true myth. Mark's sharing of Jesus' encounter with the devil during the temptation of Jesus is reminiscent.

Of the mythical stories the audience would be drawn in by. I mean, immediately. In the first, you know, one or two chapters of the book of Mark, Jesus is meeting the devil. Evil incarnate. Imagine how this story reads. Mark's story reads as fast as any, you know, novel or action-packed narrative that you will find. It is Jesus constantly engaging the need in front of him, constantly being empowered, constantly fighting with the forces of evil.

He is a hero and he is painting him as one of the great Greek heroes. But much more than that. We see that he is not only historic, he is power-filled and a man of action. Verse 34. If you go to chapter 1, verse 33 and 34, we see this God-man, empowered by the Holy Spirit to do the miraculous, jump in right away. Within 33 verses. There's no lineage.

There's no baby. There's none of that. Here's the Messiah. The way was prepared. Boom. Right into works of good work and power-filled actions. He says this in verse 33. Jesus drives out spirits and heals disease right away. The whole town gathered at the door. Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons. And he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.

Imagine now, once again, in the spiritual imagination that we leave behind so often, how that would sound to the Gentile believer about this man of power and a man of action. It's interesting that in this idea of the man of action, Mark uses the word immediately. It might be translated a little bit different. Forty times in his gospel. Forty times.

Jesus is immediately doing something. He's immediately going into action. And so one of the questions I have to you is this. Is, how is the immediacy of your responding to the voice of God in your life? I think it's very easy to rationalize that probably wasn't God. But, you know, and I'm not saying that we hear something and go make really foolish decisions.

But on occasion, God says, help this person or give that or do that. And it's so easy to rationalize ourselves out of this. Jesus, he, where the rubber met the road every single day, is he was not only equipped, but willing and able to meet the needs that were in front of him on a daily basis. I guess the question to you and to myself is, where are, when are, or where are we each day challenged with meeting the needs that are in front of us?

I mean, there are needs every single day. Needs for prayer. There's emotional needs. We recently went and visited someone at the church and they were shut in and they cried the whole time. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you so much for greeting us. Thank you so much for meeting us. People that are walking, Jesus was aware. He was a man of action.

And one of the things we often feel is that we can't live an empowered life. We see Jesus here doing all these things in power. But I think we overestimate sometimes what power is supposed to look at. You know, Jesus did say we'll raise the dead and do all these different things. And, you know, we might. But I think there's another level of immediacy and action and power.

You know, the Bible says that words have what? The power of life and death. That perhaps someone through your word, through your encouragement, will immediately change that person's spirit in a way that will take them from perhaps suicide to life. There is immediacy and action. And I guess what we want to be challenged with by Mark is looking at the way Jesus lived his life and comparing our lives to what needs are we meeting.

I know for me, regularly, I'm meeting the needs of myself. I don't know about you. Is it pretty easy to think about what your needs are? I don't know about anybody else. But, like, when am I going to get my coffee? When's work going to get over so I can go home and, you know, walk the dog, hang out with the kids, play basketball? Whatever it is, I have all these needs as everything else goes past me.

Jesus lived inward out. He was looking. He had the eyes of his heart were continually open, looking. And that's what Mark does here. Mark portrays a Jesus who was constantly on call but, at the same time, as you'll see in chapter 1, is willing to sneak away to re-empower and find the power for his life with a meeting with the Father. He escapes on a regular basis.

And so you have this action. And we can sometimes burn ourselves out with action after action. But Jesus regularly, in this chapter, he pulls away and it says, everyone's looking for you. And he says, well, I'm going to move on to the next city to do what God has called. And so he challenges us here with the immediacy into going on. And immediately he is left and goes out.

I guess the narrative speaks to us in a way. And it asks this. How do we live the empowered life? I've been in Christian circles before where the empowered life means continually looking to heal someone's cancer. And I believe we do want to pray for cancer. Or the empowered life means speaking in tongues. Or the empowered life means this or that.

These very big, powerful scenes. But as we see John the Baptist looking at a Jesus who went out in power after something happened. After he was baptized. Now, Jesus did not need to confess his sins. But he did so. He was baptized to show us the model on which we should go. Power comes after the confession of sins. And power is displayed in meeting actions on a daily basis.

It doesn't mean that we're always looking to do some radical, amazing thing. And you might. But what we are looking to do is to meet people's regular needs on a regular basis. Regularly going out forward to be people of action. Where is our faith in action? This week, I'm once again writing the book of James by hand. I don't, about twice a week I sit down and try to write as much as I can by hand.

And I got to the part and it starts having this debate about faith versus actions and actions versus faith. And if you know Martin Luther or you grew up Lutheran, you're going to know that Luther was not a big fan of the book of James. He called it a book of straw and wishes it wasn't in the Bible. Because he believes that it talks too much about actions.

James, on the other hand, comes and says, I will show you my faith by my actions. He says that my faith is going to come alive in the actions. Every time you do something in the name of Jesus, it comes with an embedded power of God within it. I guess it doesn't mean that you're opening up an orphanage. You don't have to open up an orphanage. A lot of times we think that way.

If we don't do something big, what's the point? Jesus found power in the commonality of life, in the common moments of life. In the, I guess you would call them the net cleaning moments of your life. And so he finds people that are walking around, that are cleaning nets. And the next thing, one minute Peter's cleaning a net. And the next minute he is in the boat and he's confessing Jesus as Lord.

We have these power-filled moments that he is calling us out to, to live these life empowered. And so the question is to you, where is God calling you to enter in? Power follows repentance and confession. Central Remarks Gospel is the understanding that confession of sins, repentance, and baptism lead to supernatural empowerment. Going back to Joshua 3.5.

Joshua is leading the people. After 40 years in the desert wilderness, he's leading the people finally over the Jordan into the promised land to take the, to, to not only clear out the giants, but to get plunder. And oftentimes we forget that when we kill giants in our lives, giants of, of, of sin, there's often plunder to be had. We often think of all the difficulty it comes with getting rid of sin in our life, but we fail to realize the blessing or have enough spiritual imagination to see what kind of plunder would that bring into my life.

The Bible says, tie up the strong man speaking about the devil so that you might plunder his house. The Bible gives us a plan that you can plunder the devil's things, that you might have freedom in your life. And so Joshua, after 40 years in the desert, is able to take people where Moses could not go. Moses was not allowed to go into the promised land because he had an anger issue that started a long time ago when he killed an Egyptian when he was young.

And he had that until the point where in anger he struck a rock. And anger against something that God was doing, and God finally said, enough's enough. Moses didn't have the ability because he never got over this one area in his life. But Joshua, on the other hand, was able to do what Moses could not do. He was able to lead a group of people into their promise, once again to spiritual imagination.

Let me ask you, have you ever spiritually imagined what your life would look like if you could extricate those sinful things from it? What would the joy, what would the great pleasures that God would have? Into that promised land. Oftentimes we only see the giants. Joshua and Caleb, the only two that could go in and say, yes, there's giants, but let us take this land.

Look, and he runs around to the people. And he says to them in Joshua 3, 5. Joshua runs and he says to the people, consecrate yourselves. Consecrate means to make yourself holy. To set yourself apart. To be able to be in a situation and say, I don't belong here. My eyes don't belong here. My ears don't belong here. My mouth doesn't belong here. You know, there is conversations I shouldn't be involved in.

Whatever it is, physically, relationships I shouldn't be involved in. I need to set myself apart. That is what holiness is. It is setting yourself apart for the purpose of God. He says, consecrate yourselves for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you. And I guess the question is, when was the last time God did something amazing in your life?

And you knew it was a direct result of obedience to God. Instant obedience to God. You know, instant obedience is not something that we enjoy. Instant obedience. You know, my friend has children and he says to them on a regular basis that slow obedience is no obedience. I'm not sure that's quite true. I find some of my best obedience took me a while to get there.

But I understand it. And last week is looking at Jesus as king. We get pretty bold at saying no to the king, don't we? We're pretty good at looking at the king and saying no to his face. But he's a gracious and loving king who cares for us in the midst of our sin. And he says, consecrate yourself for tomorrow God will do amazing things among you.

I wonder if we begin to consecrate ourselves. If we consecrate our souls, our hearts, our lives in all areas, our emotional lives, our tongues. Consecrating our tongues, which is something James gets into, is so important. God will begin to do amazing things. And we begin to walk an empowered life. I'm not going to ask you to raise your hands. But if you had to put it on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being very empowered, where would you say the power meter is on your life?

Where is it revving? Because I do believe that while we're probably not called to fly around, you know, and be superheroes like, I do believe there should be some measure of power in our life. Some measure of empowerment where we feel that I couldn't have done this without God. And what does it look like to open up and how do we open up the channels of empowerment?

What Mark says in this gospel, going back to the beginning of this text, is that it comes through confession and repentance and a relying on the Holy Spirit. That confession and repentance prepares the way for not only increased empowerment in your life, but for revival. This year as a church, we want to focus on allowing you opportunities to confess your sins to God.

You don't have to confess in front of everybody. But to confess your sins before God, that God might heal our little city. That God might heal our corner. That he might heal your life. That he might heal San Diego. That he might heal our country. That he might heal this world. And what if by one little church in La Jolla, we said we are going to get serious about sin.

We are going to confess our sins. We are going to repent. We confess them to one another. We confess them to Jesus. 1 John 1, 9. He will be faithful and just to forgive us of our sins. And to say, God, we want to have enough courage to spiritually imagine what the life, my life, and what the life of a church, and what the life of a city, what the life of a nation, what the life of a world could look like.

If we humble ourselves before God. I think we make a mistake when we believe that our one little sin doesn't really matter that much. You look at Achan in the Old Testament. One man's sin kept in the entire city. Set the entire nation from being able to go where they were supposed to go. Is it possible, because God does talk about this with Abraham.

Well, what if there's 10 people? What if there's 15 people? Is there perhaps still a way in which God says, if just one more person will repent, I will save their nation. Does God still work that way? I don't know. But let us not believe that our repenting makes no difference. Not only for our church, but for our own lives. And this is the message of this mythical hero that is the true myth that Mark brings to you.

He doesn't bring him as a baby. But he brings him and says, prepare the way for a man of empowerment. Because God wants to give you an empowered life. What would it look like? What are the tools of empowerment? The word of God. The word of God is a tool that God gives us to be empowered. Prayer. Worship. Forgiveness. Kindness. Worship. All of these things are the empowerment of God.

Are the empowering tools of God. And God has equipped you with them. But it starts with repentance. And so this is the message that we will preach this year. Is repentance. A message that says, we as a church understand we're sinful. Understand we're broken. But be able to look our sin in the face. And say, God, help me with this. That we might repent.

Because we want to see the world saved. We want to see the world saved. And I'll tell you what. We are not going to save the world. The Bible says that if we confess our sins. He is faithful and just. And if we pray to him. He will heal our land. Final thing on your notes is this. Recall to act. I give you homework every week almost. A prescription. You go to the doctor.

You get a prescription. You come here. I'm going to give you a spiritual prescription. Here's your prescription. Respond this week. Write an injustice. You know what? Maybe you can't feed every orphan in the world. But maybe you can feed one. Maybe you can't help every homeless person. Maybe you can't visit every lonely person in your city. But maybe you can visit one.

Maybe we can do one thing at a time. It is the way of Jesus to respond to the needs that were presented to him. On a common and everyday basis. That's the deal with Jesus. He was just so common. Miracles would flow out of him just walking to the store. He would just go and people would cry out. And pretty soon he became known as a person who responded to needs.

And that is where we want to get better at being pastoral. And I challenge you, not just as a church this year as we try to become more pastoral. To care for you in a better way. That you become the royal priesthood and the pastors of the very terra firma that you walk on. Whether it be in the military. Whether it be in the schooling. Whether it be as a plumber.

Whether you're a doctor. Wherever you are. Maybe you just, you're retired and you live in an apartment complex. That you take on the job of meeting the common everyday needs as a pastor. Who begins to pray for those people. Who shares the word of God in this season. Perhaps gives a card or a message or whatever it is. I send you out and I want to send you out with an assignment this week.

To go change the world. One common act at a time. But empowered and equipped. And making sure before you go out that you ask God to cleanse you of your sins. Because this God man that Mark speaks about is here to change your life with a power that will ultimately change humanity. That we might fill heaven. We want heaven to be full. Full. And we want it to be because we have confessed and gone out in the power of Jesus.

Amen? Amen. Amen.