The Good News Is About Jesus

Sermon Summary:

The transcription delves into the profound beginnings of the gospel of Mark, highlighting how this earliest account of Jesus’ life and ministry sets the stage for a transformative spiritual journey. We are reminded that the good news is ultimately about a person – Jesus Christ, the Son of God – in whom we can place our complete trust. The gospel of Mark, though action-packed and brief, connects Jesus to the greater story of God’s redemptive plan foretold in Old Testament prophecies. As we explore this gospel together, we are encouraged to see ourselves as part of the unfolding story, living into the new beginnings made possible through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.

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Sermon Points:

• GUIDANCE: God provided guidance for His people as they journeyed from Egypt towards the Promised Land. He also provides guidance for us today!
• GLORY: God’s glory was often on display in the Exodus story. He desires for His glory to be on display today through us!
• GENEROSITY: In the construction of the Tabernacle, God offered His people an opportunity to demonstrate a spirit of generosity through giving time, talent, and treasure. He continues to call us to give generously as well.
• GENEROSITY PRINCIPLES:
  • God is the Owner, we are mere stewards.
  • God’s people provide for His work to be accomplished.
  • God’s work is worthy of our investment.
• Part of the privilege of serving God is to be found in the opportunity to donate to his purposes things that in his common grace he has already entrusted to the possession of his people. The highest honor a person can have in connection with anything he or she owns and might otherwise have used for self is seeing it given over to and incorporated into that which God thereafter owns and uses for his honor.-Douglas K. Stewart, The New American Commentary: Exodus

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Key Takeaways:

• Mark’s gospel is believed to be the earliest account of Jesus’ life and ministry.
• The word “gospel” means good news and is associated with important announcements from the emperor in the Roman world.
• Jesus often tells people to keep silent about his miracles and identity, possibly to avoid being known primarily as a faith healer and to communicate the full scope of his mission.
• The ending of Mark’s gospel is unusual, with the oldest manuscripts ending at Mark 16:8, leaving readers with a sense of fear and silence.
• The gospel of Mark is about new beginnings, showing how people find new life in Christ, and the story continues beyond the book’s ending.
• Mark connects the story of Jesus to Old Testament prophecies, demonstrating how Jesus fulfills God’s plan.
• The gospel ultimately points to Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God, even though his identity as a crucified Savior may be a stumbling block to some.

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Scripture References:

• Mark 1:1-8

Stories:

• The sermon does not mention any specific stories or parables but focuses on the overall narrative of Mark’s gospel.

Transcript

Well, as I said, we are making our way through this year. You know, our theme for this year is together. And how fitting for us to be gathered here in this room, gathered around these tables, reminded that we are called by God to live in community together. And for the summer, our theme is together in the gospel. as I have already mentioned to you in this time of commitment, what I would love for this summer to be characterized by for us is what we’ve talked about in the past. But let me remind you, just an evangelistic sensitivity. Just for you to be sensitive to the opportunities to share the gospel. You know, the summer to me is a great time for that because summer is just a time of change for most of us. Our normal rhythms and routines are interrupted. In the summertime, there are a lot of things that happen in the summer. Vacations, travel. For our younger families, school is out. And so their normal life is changed. There are new rhythms that will be in place for the summer. And to me, it opens the door for conversations, for opportunities maybe to intersect with people that perhaps you don’t intersect during your normal rhythms of life. And this can be a great time to just… Just be yourself and share what God’s done in your life. And you heard Bokeh and Sherry, they just shared it very naturally. And God, you have to trust God to take it and do with it what He will. Because that’s really the beauty of sharing the gospel. It’s not on us. You know, we’re not going to be judged by how many people we actually have led to Christ. But I do think we will answer for whether or not we’ve ever… Shared the good news of the gospel though. We’ve got to trust God with the results. So, also, what we’re going to do this summer is we’re going to read through the gospel of Mark. So, when you came in today, I hope you picked up a new devotional guide. We’ve prepared one for you for these next two months. And you’ll notice that you’ll find, as we’ve had all year, a place for you to be together with your brothers and sisters in Christ here at this church, together in Word. You’ll have two sets of readings every week. One of them… One of those will be a narrative reading. And if you’ll do that during the week, what will happen is at the end of June and July, at the end of July, you’ll have read through the entire gospel of Mark. And so, you have a weekly reading. But you also have a focal passage that we want you to really spend some time thinking about and delving into, meditating on, and going more deeply. And that passage is the Together in Word passage. It’s listed for you. And then our staff has put together some suggestions for how you might apply. The Scripture. We’re calling that Together in Deed. And so, I hope you’ll take this and use it every week as we make our way through the summer. Also, you know that if you want to know more about the sermon and just what I’m sure thinking about as I prepare a message, we have the podcast, Tell Me More. And we do that every week where we talk more about the material that we cover on Sunday morning. Well, we have a… We have a special one of those on June the 23rd. We always do our podcast from our podcast booth, which is over in the Wade Building. But on June the 23rd, on Sunday night, we’re going to do it live here in the sanctuary because it’s our 100th podcast. So, Katie suggested we start this however long ago it was. I don’t remember now. Two years ago, something like that. And so, we’ve now been doing it for a couple of years. A lot of you, I know, join us in it. But we’re going to do a live session. It’ll have a very different feel to it. And we’ll do it here in the sanctuary, I think at about 6 o’clock-ish. Is that right? Exactly 6 o’clock. Okay, sorry. Not ish. Exactly 6 o’clock, turns out. And you are welcome to be here. So, we’d love for you to be here and join. We’ll have a live audience and a little bit more of an interaction with the folks who are here, that particular podcast. All right. So, with that said, let’s look at what we’re going to do today. The good news. That’s what this summer is going to be about. The good news. Well, we’ll begin with Mark’s gospel in Mark 1. The good news is about Jesus. Now, I want you to think about this. If you were given the assignment of writing down an account of the single most important person who’s ever lived, for it to be read and digested by the people of God for the rest of time, how would you do it? How would you start it? If that was your job. If the Lord gave you that assignment, you are going to write down the story of Jesus. Think about it. What a, my mama would have said, what a tall order.

Well, Matthew was very Jewish in his perspective. And so, Matthew starts his gospel by saying, I’m going to tell you about Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Well, okay. We’re going to connect this story to, to Jewish history. Luke says, several people have written about Jesus, but I have researched, gathered materials, and I have decided to put together an orderly account of the life of Jesus. Historian. And Luke is going to make an argument about who Jesus is and his message to the Gentiles. John decides to go all the way back to the very beginning. In the, in the beginning, God. And he hearkens back to the Old Testament. And he writes a very powerful, gripping, very unusual account of the life of Jesus in some ways. But as best we can tell, the first one was written by this man, Mark. So, how’s he going to do it? How do you open it? What’s that opening line? Y’all know authors practice the opening line, right? It was a dark and stormy night, right? How many times, did in the Peanuts cartoon, Snoopy, write that it was a dark and stormy night? That opening line is supposed to be gripping. Well, how does Mark do it? Well, let’s just look at it. I want you to look at Mark 1. We’re going to, we’re going to look at the first eight verses this morning. Here’s how Mark does it. The big, hold on. Y’all got to stand. Sorry. You about, you about got by. Sorry. Reading the gospel. We stand when we hear the gospel read. The beginning of the good news about Jesus, the Messiah, or the Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, I will send my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way, a voice of one calling in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. And so, John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole 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 locusts and wild honey. And this was his message. After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I’m not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. Thank you. You may be seated. So, let’s do this this morning, y’all. I’m going to run through this if I can a little quick. Because Mark’s gospel, I just think, requires an introduction, just so you’ll be prepared as you read your way through it. So, if you’re going to read all the way through Mark’s gospel, and we use Mark’s gospel often on the mission field because it’s the shortest gospel, and it tells the story of Christ most quickly. And so, it’s very common for us to use this in cross-cultural settings. So, let me just walk us through an introduction. So, here’s Mark at a glance. First of all, we believe it’s the earliest gospel. Most scholars, scholars refer to this as Markan priority. In other words, Mark’s gospel was written first. There are a lot of reasons why we believe that to be true. Some of those have to do with ancient messages about Mark. If you go all the way back in antiquity, we have some very early, early comments about Mark’s gospel. People like Papias and others. People like Paul and others who refer to Mark. Also, if you read Matthew and Luke first, and then you read Mark, it almost feels like Mark would not have needed to have been written, have needed to have been written if Matthew and Luke already existed. Because so much of what Mark says is actually found in both Matthew and Luke. So, we believe it’s the very first gospel. The question that’s on the table though, if that’s true, which I believe to be true, is, did Mark write the gospel? Did Mark invent this genre of literature? Because heretofore, we don’t have this kind of literature in the ancient world. We have biographies of famous people. We have collected sayings of famous people. But we don’t have any kind of piece of literature in the ancient world that captures the story of a person, the teachings of that person, and then calls that person a Messiah, a Savior, and represents them as the most important person who’s ever lived, and combines everything about them with an argument, with a narrative, with a summary of teachings, and with declarations of truth about them. So, this particular genre of literature does not exist until Mark writes it. So, question on the table is, did he invent a genre of literature? And there are a number of scholars who believe that he did. Then you come to the word gospel. You’ll find that word often. Often in Mark’s writings. The word gospel in English means good news. Euangelion is the Greek word. And it was not invented by Mark, it wasn’t invented by the Christians, wasn’t invented by Paul or these early writers. This particular word existed already in the Greek language in the Roman world. And this was a word that was used primarily to communicate good news from the emperor. For example, when the emperor had an heir birthed, a gospel would be sent out across the empire. Or whenever there was a victory on the battlefield, a gospel would be sent out to the empire that the Romans had won a victory. And so, whenever there was the transfer of power and a new emperor came to the throne to be Caesar, a gospel was sent out. So, this word was associated with good news from the throne. So, Mark takes that word and baptizes it and for Mark and the rest of the writers of the New Testament, the gospel, that word refers to the whole story of Jesus. Everything to do with Jesus. His teachings, his life, his death, his burial, resurrection, everything regarding salvation. All that is bound up in this one word, gospel. So, you’re going to see it often in Mark’s writings. We also believe. . . We find references to Mark, that Mark was a disciple of Simon Peter. We find that reference very early in Christian literature. In fact, there are some of the earliest references to Mark imply that Mark may have written this gospel while Peter was still alive in Rome. That this gospel contains the testimony, the eyewitness testimony of Jesus. I mean, of Simon Peter about Jesus. That’s one of the explanations for how Mark was a disciple of Peter. Mark is able to have his gospel counted alongside Matthew and John, who were apostles, and Luke, who was Paul’s companion. Mark was the companion of Simon Peter. And so, somewhere in the mid-sixties is when we believe that this gospel was written. It’s remarkable. We’ll talk about that here in just a minute if you think about everything that was going on during that time. Then, when you read Mark’s gospel, Mark’s gospel is a little bit different than the other gospels. It’s shorter. And it’s action-packed. And so, there are a number of scholars who’ve decided today that the gospel of Mark was intended to be read aloud in community. I would agree with that assessment. About 90% of the ancient world was illiterate. And so, it wasn’t like everybody was going to have their own copy of Mark. It’s not like you and I today. So, most of the world did not read, didn’t have access to written materials. And so, they gathered in community to hear important things read to them. And so, they gathered in community to hear important things read to them. And Mark, in his writing, is a storyteller. And it’s, his story is action-packed. There’s a particular word in Greek, euthus. Mark uses that word 42 times. The easiest translation of euthus into English is immediately. And so, when you’re reading Mark’s gospel, he’s going to say immediately this happened. And immediately this happened. Or so then this happened. Or he’ll, we’ll, the translators in the English will come up with different ways to translate that word. But the point is Mark’s gospel moves very rapidly. That’s why many scholars think this was to be read aloud in community all at one time. And so if you think about it that way, it’s really a powerful thing. In fact, you might want to just try that at home. Just take a little bit of time at home. Just read it out loud and you’ll be amazed at how quickly you get through it. And it tells the sweeping story of Jesus. And then Mark, as he tells the story, his gospel is a drama with three acts. It’s pretty easy to divide Mark’s gospel. You have Jesus in Galilee, you have Jesus on the way to Jerusalem, and you have Jesus in Jerusalem. And those are the three major divisions of the gospel of Mark. So Jesus in Galilee starts in chapter 1 and goes through chapter 8 verse 21, where Jesus is presenting himself as the Messiah. Then beginning in chapter 8 verse 22 and going through the end of chapter 10, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. And then you come to Mark 11 through the end of the gospel and Jesus is in Jerusalem. Now, here are a couple things of note I want to give you in Mark’s gospel, because there are two things that are a little bit unusual in the gospel of Mark. And you’re going to notice them while you’re reading through them. So I want to make sure that we note both of them. The first one is the so-called messianic secret. That actually, that phrase I believe is accredited to a theologian and but he was very faulty in his understanding of why Jesus did it. So I don’t espouse his view, but there is no question you’re going to see this over and over and over in Mark’s gospel. Don’t tell anyone about this. Don’t tell anyone about me. For example, Jesus will cleanse the leper in Mark 1 and he will say, don’t tell anybody about this. And of course, he goes and tells everybody, you know. So kind of the old preacher’s note is, Jesus has told us, tell everybody and we tell nobody. So we’re doing the very opposite sometimes. But you’ll notice numerous times in Mark’s gospel, Jesus will even tell demons, don’t tell anybody about me. He’ll tell individuals who’ve been healed, don’t tell anybody about this. And the question is, why in the world would Jesus tell people to keep what’s happened to them to themselves? Why does he tell them to keep silent? Well, there are all kinds of theories about it, but you’re going to notice it while you’re reading through Mark’s gospel. Here’s what I would say. I agree with Dr. David Garland, Dr. Garland who many years was teaching at Truett Seminary. There are three or four reasons why. One, Jesus did not primarily want to be known as a faith healer. And just imagine if you’re in the ancient world and you encounter a man who heals people, well, it would be very easy to just get infatuated with just that. Because there’s something powerful about healing diseases, okay? But Jesus didn’t come primarily to heal people. He came primarily to heal people’s diseases. Does Jesus still heal diseases? Yes, he is the great physician. But is that the primary reason that he came? No. Second, I would say we are infatuated with the spectacular. And so people are just drawn to that. And so Dr. Garland points that out in his commentary. But probably the most important reason I would say is this one. Jesus knew that it was going to take a while for him to be able to communicate why he really came. And so if he’s going to be known very early on as just a faith healer, just a miracle worker, he’s not really going to be able to communicate everything he needs to communicate about why he has come. Because he has come holistically to model the kingdom of God, to redeem humanity, to inaugurate the age to come. There’s a lot that Jesus is going to accomplish during these three years. And it’s going to take him time to do that. And so that I think is probably one of the main reasons why he silences people. And then one other note about Mark when you read through it, probably the most puzzling thing about Mark is the ending of Mark. When you come to the ending of Mark, we have ancient manuscripts of Mark’s gospel in Greek, okay? The oldest complete manuscripts of Mark’s gospel. If you want to just look at it, if you want to just go to the end of the gospel in your minds right now, the oldest, most reliable Greek manuscripts we have, two of them in particular, the Kodak Sinacticus and Vaticanus, those are the two oldest complete manuscripts of Mark. They end in Mark 16 verse 8. Now we have other manuscripts that are newer, that are not quite as old as the two I just mentioned, and they have additional material added to the end of Mark. And so that’s going to take him time to do that. And so that’s going to be the end of Mark’s gospel. And so what most Bible translators do now in English, what they’ll do is they will go ahead and put these endings that were added to Mark’s gospel. But if you’ll notice what the NIV does, the NIV puts them in italics. Do you see that? Because what the translator is telling you is these are in some of the manuscripts, but as best we can tell, these were probably added by some editors later. Now the question would be, why would editors and translators add anything to Mark’s gospel? Why would they be tempted to do that? Well, the reason is, when you read Mark’s gospel, you come to the end of chapter 16, and Jesus is not in the tomb. The women come. They find the body of Jesus is gone. And all of a sudden, they receive this message, go tell his disciples that Jesus is not here. He is risen, just as he said. There’s the proclamation of the resurrection. But then the Bible says, he’s not here. He’s not here. He’s not these women went and told no one because they were afraid. And the gospel ends. So the gospel ends in fear and silence. And not only that, it ends with a dangling participle. The Greek word is gar, our word for. It ends with the word for, F-O-R. So as you might imagine, that puzzled people. How could you end the gospel in silence, in fear, with a participle? Well, here’s the thing. We’re going to talk about here in just a second. I would tell you, my belief is that the gospel of Mark ends in Mark 16, verse 8. I think scholars are right about it, and I’ll explain here in just a minute why I believe it, and I think that it’s okay. All right? In fact, that will lead me to that explanation. Let’s talk about a couple things, just these first few verses. Notice verse 1 of chapter 1. The very first word in Mark’s gospel

And here’s what’s interesting about verse 1. All the nouns are anarthrous in verse 1. What I mean by that is, in Greek, if you put an article with a noun, that’s called being articular. You put nouns, you put articles with nouns. Very common. If you don’t put the article, it’s anarthrous. That means it just stands alone. Every noun in verse 1 is anarthrous. So in other words, it’s not really a complete sentence. It sounds more like a title. Okay? So it appears that Mark, actually does something that none of the rest of the writers do. He actually titles his work. And what is the title of the work? The beginning of the good news about Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God. So it appears that Mark is telling us, this is what I’m about to do. I’m going to share with you this story. But I want you to notice, the story is only the beginning. You notice that? Just the beginning. And so, to me, that sets the context of the story. And so, to me, that sets the context for the entire gospel. Because what Mark is going to communicate is the gospel is about beginnings. It’s about new beginnings. And he’s going to show you over and over and over, people who find new beginnings in their lives in this gospel. And when you get to the end of Mark’s gospel, it’s not the end, it’s actually just the beginning. That’s why he’s okay ending it the way he did. Because think about how he ends it. Peter’s denied Jesus. Judas has betrayed Jesus. And the women are silent. And the men are silent. And the women are silent. And the men What an ending. Well, he knew that the people who were alive in his day knew that Jesus had been raised from the dead. He knew that they knew that Simon Peter had been redeemed and rescued. And I believe his point is, we are now living into the beginning of this good news. We are. This story is still being written. So, actually, it would be more accurate to say that Mark’s gospel does not actually end in Mark 16, verse 8. It would be more accurate to say that Mark’s gospel just doesn’t end. It just begins. And he tells us that with the title. And so, I’m good with the gospel ending in verse 8. I guess I have to be because I believe it does. But the point is, all this is, is the beginning. And so, you and I are still living the reality and the beauty of what’s unfolding after Mark has laid it out for us. Does that make sense? Now, with that said, two other things quickly. Preparation. Preparation. How does Mark begin the gospel? What does Mark choose to do? Well, he wants to make sure you know that the good news about Jesus is new news, but it’s rooted in old news. And Dr. Garland points this out. Dr. Garland says, the gospel begins with an offstage voice reading from the Old Testament. That’s the prophecy you see in verses 2 and 3. And it’s interesting that then all of a sudden, after that prophecy is read, somewhat out of the blue, a man named John and Jesus have appeared. But actually, they’re not out of the blue. They’re a part of the blueprint of God’s plan. Because prophecy is being fulfilled right in front of us. The prophets weren’t filled with false hope. The prophets actually were telling something that was going to happen. And Mark is saying, it’s happened. And right off the bat, he connects the story of Jesus to the prophecy. And he’s saying, it’s happened. And the prophecy of the Old Testament and the Messiah has come. The plan is falling into place. He weaves together passages from the Old Testament, Exodus, Isaiah, Micah, the law, the major prophets, the minor prophets. And he’s letting you know that God is redeeming, and he is fulfilling, and he’s doing exactly what he promised to do. And then he tells you something really unusual, striking right off the bat to any Jewish reader. This guy shows up preaching a baptism of repentance in the world. And he’s saying, it’s happened. And he’s saying, it’s happened. And he’s saying, it’s happened. And the Jews go out there to hear him, and they get baptized. Right off the bat, Mark is telling you something different is happening right now. Because there were a lot of things Jews did in the first century. Getting baptized was not one of them. Jews did not get baptized. Gentiles had to be baptized to become Jews. If you were a proselyte, you were required to be cleansed, and you had to be baptized. But no self-respecting, Jew would be baptized because they know they’re not a Gentile. So, why in the world were Jews being baptized? Mark is telling you something is happening. They’re not only being baptized, they’re going out in the wilderness to listen to a guy who sounds a whole lot like somebody else, Elijah. He’s not your normal preacher. He lives out in the desert, and he wears weird clothes and eats weird food. But guess what? The people can’t stay away from him because he’s from God. And what’s he doing? He’s preparing the way, just like God said would happen. I’m going to send a messenger to prepare the way of the Lord. And so, John clearly points to the Messiah, and John says, I’m baptizing you with water, but the one who comes after me is the one the story’s really about. He’s going to baptize you with the Holy Spirit. So, Mark understands that this message has to be connected to the big story, and he does it at the very beginning of his gospel. But here’s the main point, y’all. The gospel is about a person. The good news is Jesus. Jesus. And you can trust Jesus. This is the one person you can trust. Jesus. And the good news points to Jesus. Mark refers to him as the Christ. The NIV translated in verse 1, the Messiah. But then he’s also going to be the…

Now, the Jews in the first century, they were looking for the Messiah. They were hoping he was going to be like David, a warrior, like Moses, a redeemer, some type of man who’s going to take over, if you will. Mark’s going to tell a very different story, but he’s going to tell the story of this Messiah who’s bringing a different kind of kingdom. He’s going to be a different kind of king. To the Jews, this will be a stumbling block. They weren’t sure what to do with the crucifixion. He’s going to be a crucified Messiah. That’s an oxymoron. There can’t be a crucified Messiah. To the Greeks, it’s going to be moronic, Paul will say. It’s going to be foolishness. The Gentiles did not understand the Jews. You know, Cicero used to make fun of the Jews, if you’ve ever read Cicero’s speeches. He says, the Jews claim to have divine protection. How’s that worked out for them? They’re scattered. They’re persecuted. They’re enslaved. So, he poked fun at the Jews and their story. And so, here we are with this. This is an incredible story about a Jewish Messiah who’s going to actually be crucified by the Romans. How could this possibly be the real Messiah? And yet, Mark’s testimony is he’s not just a Messiah, he’s the Son of God. And he’ll be referred to as the Son of God over and over and over in this gospel when he gets baptized. He’s the Son of God on the Mount of Transfiguration. He’s the Son of God. At his crucifixion, a Roman soldier will say, he’s the Son of God.