The Local Christendom Podcast with Aaron Ventura

Sermon: Fishers Of Men (Mark 1:14-20)

Fishers Of MenSunday, April 23rd, 2023Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 1:14-20
14 Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, 15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel. 16 Now as he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. 17 And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. 18 And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him. 19 And when he had gone a little further thence, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets. 20 And straightway he called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and went after him.
Prayer
Father as we consider the calling of the first disciples, we ask that you would teach us to follow Your Son the Lord Jesus, more faithfully, more immediately, and more joyfully, whatever the cost. We ask for your Holy Spirit, in Jesus name, Amen.
Introduction
When Jesus calls people to follow Him, He often does so at very inconvenient times. God has a timing of His own and sometimes it surprises us, it interrupts our routines, it messes with our schedules. And if that has been your experience of the Christian life you are in good company, because that was the experience of the first four disciples.
Simon, Andrew, James and John, are all called to follow Jesus in the middle of their workday. They are simply told to drop everything and follow Him.
And so the force of our text this morning is to make us wrestle with the question: Are we willing to do the same? If Christ were to come and interrupt us, in the middle of all the things we have going on, are we willing to drop everything, and do what He says, go where goes, follow where He leads?
That is the question before us this morning.
Looking at our text, there are three basic movements to these seven verses:
1. The arrival of Jesus to Galilee (verses 14-15)
2. The calling of Simon and Andrew (verses 16-18)
3. The calling of James and John (verses 19-20)
And together these three movements constitute the beginning of Christ’s public ministry. This is that moment in every great story where the protagonist sets off on his journey and is going to meet people along the way. He has already done battle against Satan, He was in the wilderness with wild beasts, and now it is time to find friends for the journey.
In the language of middle-earth, we have left the Shire and are off on an adventure! So let us to our text.
Verse 14
14 Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God…
Here we have the passing of the baton from John to Jesus. John was a man who stood at the intersection of two ages, between the time of the Law and its Prophets of which He was the last, and the time of the Gospel and the Kingdom, of which Christ is the first.
So John, with one foot in the old age, and another foot in the new, is cast into prison, He is silenced. And unlike Elijah who was miraculously caught up into heaven, John who comes in the Spirit of Elijah is locked up and eventually beheaded.
Jesus says of John in Matthew 11:11, “Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist.”
John was greater than Moses, greater than David, greater than Elijah. And then Jesus says, “notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
So as great as John and the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Law were, the least in Christ’s kingdom surpasses them. This is how momentous the coming of Christ’s kingdom is.
And so with John’s imprisonment, the sun sets on the time of the Law. And with Christ’s arrival, the dawn of a new era begins. As it says in Isaiah 9:2, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light…on them the light has shone.”
So after John (and the era he represents) is imprisoned, Jesus, the light of the world, comes into Galilee,a region bustling with commerce (he is no longer in the wilderness), and it is here that he announces the gospel: God’s kingdom has come. In verse 15 we hear the contents of this announcement.
Verse 15
15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.
Here in this single sentenced is the essence of the Christian religion. There are two declarations followedby two imperatives. Two statements of fact, of truth, of reality, of what is, from which necessarily flow two commands. The first declaration Jesus makes is that:
1. “The time is fulfilled.” What time is Jesus talking about?
He is talking about the time that was prophesied in the Garden of Eden 4,000 years prior. The time in which a son would be born to crush the serpent’s head. The time in which a bridegroom would come to rescue His bride, and the two would become one flesh.
Jesus is talking about the time of which Nebuchadnezzar dreamt and Daniel interpreted. As it says in Daniel 2:44, “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.” This is the Kingdom Jesus comes to bring and the time is here for its arrival.
What the prophets called “the last days (or latter days)” is what Jesus is referring to when He says, “the time is fulfilled.”In Jesus, the last days of the old creation have come. As Paul says in 2 Cor. 5:17, “If any man be in Christ, new creation! old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
This is the time that Jesus announces as fulfilled. And with it all the prophesies about the latter days start to come to fruition.
The second declaration Jesus makes is that…
2. “The kingdom of God is at hand.” And perhaps the best way for us to understand this statement, is to imagine a great messenger going into all the state capitals, and all the central business districts, all the places where public life happens, and he announces to all who can hear that, “The Kingdom of Russia has arrived, the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of Vladimir Putin is at hand.” Imagine that was the headline on every major news network.
How would you receive that news?
Well, it would really depend on what you thought about Russia and Vladimir Putin. Are your values and lifestyle aligned with the ways of Russia? Do you welcome their arrival or resent it? Maybe you think anything could be better than President Biden and the Democrats, bring on the Russians. You might think, do I stand to benefit and profit from the kingdom of Russia, or will it be detrimental to my personal interests. You can imagine there are all sorts of potential reactions someone might have to this announcement. And so it is when Jesus announces “the Kingdom of God is at hand.”
For those who love God and are aligned with the values and morals of the kingdom, this is the best news in the world. But for those who do not love God, or for those who worship other gods, whose values and interests are at home with the kingdoms of this world, to them the gospel is a threat! It is a challenge to the present regime. And in this sense, Jesus’ preaching is spiritual warfare. It is David taunting Goliath before severing head from body. Jesus’ preaching is a king offering terms of peace before invasion. That is what the gospel is. It is an offense to those who do not love God, and salvation to those who do.
So if it is indeed true that this kingdom of God has come then the commands that follow should be obvious, Jesus says, “You must repent and believe the gospel.”
What is repentance?
To repent means to have a change of mind. To turn away from your vomit, from the corrupt and despicable things that come out of you, and to look upon all that is good and true and beautiful in Jesus.
Repentance is renouncing the devil and his works, forsaking sin, and loving and embracing righteousness. That is the repentance Jesus demands because with the arrival of the kingdom comes justice and judgment, and you want to be on the right side of that.
What is it to believe the gospel?
To believe the gospel is to live by faith, it is to believe what Jesus says. As it says in Habakkuk 2:4, “the soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: But the just shall live by his faith.”
The opposite of faith is pride and self-reliance. Faith in self instead of faith in God. And Scripture says, the soul that is proud, that person that exalts himself, is the one who will be laid low; but the just man is the one who forsakes himself and lives by faith.
This is what Jesus commands if you want to survive the arrival of His kingdom. You must repent and believe the gospel. You must live by faith in the Son of God. That is the essence of the Christian religion.
This is what Jesus comes preaching in Galilee. It is what John the Forerunner prepared and announced, and although he is in chains locked up in prison, “the word of God is not bound” (2 Tim. 2:9). Jesus, the word made flesh, is going about preaching the kingdom. This brings us to our second movement in the text, which is the call of Simon and Andrew.
Verses 16-18
16 Now as he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. 17 And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. 18 And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him.
We know from the Gospel of John, that Simon and Andrew were formerly disciples of John the Baptist. So there was already some familiarity between them and Jesus prior to this call to follow him.
Nevertheless, this call to discipleship comes at a curious time and place. Mark seems to go out of his way to inform us that these events took place near to what he calls the Sea of Galilee.
In our minds, when we think of the sea, we think of the ocean or some vast body of water like the Mediterranean. But the Sea of Galilee is tiny compared to the Mediterranean and is really what we would call a lake. In Luke’s gospel, he calls it the Lake of Gennesaret (Luke 5:1). And to give you a reference for comparison, the Sea of Galilee (64 square miles) is about twice the size of Lake Washington. So it’s a decent sized lake, but hardly something we call a sea.
But calling this lake the Sea of Galilee is intentional in that it should call to mind all the Old Testament associations we should have with the Sea.
The sea of course is where fish and other creatures live. It is especially where Leviathan, the great dragon lives.
In Leviticus 11, God gives instructions about what kinds of fish are permissible to eat (the ones with fins and scales), while those that do not have fins and scales “shall be an abomination to you.”
And just as we saw last week that in Scripture, wild beasts, represent the foreign nations, so also sea creatures symbolize various foreign powers.
The book of Jonah is perhaps the most famous example, where there the great fish that swallows Jonah is an image of Babylon. Babylon is going to swallow up Israel for a time, take them away from the land (into the sea) and yet in Babylon (inside the fish) God is going to preserve them. And when that three days of death and exile is over, they will be spit out back onto the land (return from exile).
So in Scripture, the sea (like the wilderness) is a dangerous place. In Revelation it is where the great beast arises from (Rev. 13:1), and in the new heaven and new earth that John is shown, he says, “there was no more sea.” That is there are no more foreign nations worshipping foreign gods because they have all been turned into land: the New Jerusalem. When the kingdom comes, when the New Creation arrives, just as it was with the first creation, the sea gives way to land.
So Jesus is walking by the Sea of Galilee, and he sees Simon and Andrew casting a net into the sea, and he tells them, “Come and follow me, I will make you into fishers of men.”
Why does Jesus choose four fishermen to be his first disciples? Why not shepherds like Moses and David and all the patriarchs were? You read the Old Testament and everyone has sheep and cows and goats, and the setting is always the land. But then you come to the New Testament, and people are fishing, we’re on boats and there are storms and waves, and shipwrecks, in Acts we have Paul traveling like Odysseus to bring the gospel to the Islands.
Well this is all part of the promise that when the Messiah comes, He would bring judgment to the gentiles, to the isles, to the farthest reaches of the earth. And so it is fitting that Jesus chooses four fishermen to be his disciples, to be the ones who will eventually cross the Mediterranean Sea and bring the gospel of the kingdom to the whole world.
Little do they know sitting in their boat, where following Jesus is going to take them. At present they are fishing in lake, but Jesus is going to send them to fish at the ends of the earth.
When you read the Old Testament, fishing doesn’t come up very often, and the few times that it does, it is usually in the context of judgment.
For example, we heard in Jeremiah 16 that God says, “Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks. 17 For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes.”
Or Amos 4:1-2 which says, “Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, Which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, Which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink. The Lord God hath sworn by his holiness, That, lo, the days shall come upon you, That he will take you away with hooks, And your posterity with fishhooks.”
So in the Old Testament, being a fish, or being inside a fish, or being a fish caught in a net is a typically a sign of judgment. It is a sign of being distant from the promised land.
But there is one text that is an exception, and that is the prophecy of Ezekiel 47 which describes the time between the testaments.
In Ezekiel 40-48, God shows Ezekiel the spiritual reality of the second temple period. When God’s people returned from exile under Ezra and Nehemiah, they rebuild Jerusalem, they rebuild the temple, and although the physical building was not that impressive, God shows Ezekiel that during this era the presence of God is going to extend to places formerly unreached. The presence that was hidden in the most holy place of the tabernacle and temple, would be expanded to encompass the whole city.
Zechariah 14 says that one day, the bells of the horses, and every pot in Jerusalem shall be “holiness unto the Lord.” What was formerly written upon the head of the high priest as a sign of his holiness, would be extend to the common pots and bowls and the bells of horses.
And the image God gives Ezekiel of this expansion of holiness is that of a stream that starts from under the temple in Jerusalem and then flows out of the city, becoming deeper and wider until it cannot be crossed.
So Ezekiel 47:8-10 says, “This water flows toward the eastern region, goes down into the desert, and enters the sea. When it reaches the sea, its waters are healed. And it shall be that every living thing that moves, wherever the rivers go, will live. There will be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters go there; for they will be healed, and everything will live wherever the river goes. It shall be that fishermen will stand by it from En Gedi to En Eglaim; they will be places for spreading their nets. Their fish will be of the same kinds as the fish of the Great Sea, exceedingly many.”
So the fact that Simon and Andrew, James and John, are all fishermen, is a sign that God has made good on this promise in Ezekiel. So that when we get to the New Testament we see that there are synagogues (mini-temples) across the world. There are Gentile believers, Gentiles God-fearers, who know and love the God of Israel.
And so when Jesus says, “I will make you into fishers of men,” he is in effect saying, I am the continuation of Ezekiel’s river, and in Jesus, God’s presence is going to extend even further than before. Jesus is the very holiness of God.
And what used to be a sign of judgment under the Old Testament, being caught in a net, will now become a sign of salvation. Of men being born of water and the Spirit and gathered into the church. As Ezekiel prophesied, “every living thing that moves, wherever the rivers go, will live.”
These fishermen will soon preach the gospel, cast the net, and gather in souls for Christ’s kingdom.
Finally, we see in this third movement, the call of James and John.
Verses 19-20
19 And when he had gone a little further thence, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets. 20 And straightway he called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and went after him.
Mark wants us to know what these disciples left behind. He wants us to know the cost of discipleship, and the sacrifices it may entail.
For Simon and Andrew, it meant leaving behind their livelihood, their vocation, to follow a man that claims to be the Messiah. That is a leap of faith and they take it.
For James and John, it meant leaving behind their father and the family business. And the fact that Zebedee has hired servants suggests that these were not poor fishermen, but had a rather successful business going.
In other words, these are not four men who had nothing else going on and could afford to spend a few years traveling. They weren’t taking a gap year to find themselves. These were hard-working blue-collar men, who worked with their hands, who did honest labor and made a living, and yet when Jesus calls them to follow Him, Mark says, “straightway they forsook their nets…straightway they left their father in the ship…and went after him.”
No questions, no objections, immediate obedience. That is what being a disciple of Jesus should look like.
And so we return to the question we began with, Are we willing to do the same?
What is it that you must forsake and leave behind if you will follow Jesus? What is that you are holding onto that Christ is asking you to let go of?
The answer we all must give is that in principle we are willing to give up anything and everything. Whatever He asks, we give Him. Wherever He calls, we go. We must surrender it all to Him if we would be called Christians, disciples of Jesus.
Conclusion
There are many people who like the idea of following Jesus, but not the reality of it. Maybe they go to church, they might even read their Bible or pray, but when it comes down to it, when God asks them to give up that thing they refuse to obey Him. And that resistance is what must die in all of us. That hesitance to heed his voice, that slowness to obey, the slowness to follow, is what we must repent of. And so I leave you with the words of Luke 9:57-62
57 Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Jesus, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.”
58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
59 Then He said to another, “Follow Me.”
But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”
60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.”
61 And another also said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.”
62 But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Sermon: And Was With The Wild Beasts (Mark 1:9-13)

And Was With The Wild BeastsSunday, April 16th, 2023Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 1:9-139 And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan. 10 And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: 11 And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. 12 And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness. 13 And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.
Prayer
Father Your Word says that You oppose the proud, but give grace to the humble, and so we ask for a Spirit of true humility, of true understanding and insight and counsel, as we consider Holy Scripture, for we ask for all of this in Jesus name, Amen.
Introduction
Last Sunday we saw that in these opening verses of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is presented to us as the fulfillment and transformation of the entire Old Testament (The Law, The Psalms, The Prophets, all of these find their fulfillment in Him).
In these opening verses Mark weaves together Old Testament quotations, references, words, hints, images, that are meant to open our eyes to who Jesus really is. Who is this Jesus of Nazareth? Mark wants us to say by the end of the book, “Truly He is the Son of God.”
So far, we have seen that Mark portrays Jesus as a new Joshua, He is the one who divides the Jordan River, who tears heaven open, and brings His people into the promised land of Paradise.
We have seen also that Jesus is Himself that Paradise, that new holy land. He is the place where God dwells, as it says in Col. 2:9, “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Jesus is the new temple, the new tabernacle, the new place of rest for those who are weary and heavy laden. In Jesus the people of God find eternal sabbath.
We have also seen that Jesus is portrayed as a new Elisha, a mighty prophet who comes with a double portion of the Spirit. Who will work signs and wonders and even raise the dead.
So when the Spirit descends as a dove upon Christ at his baptism, we are all meant to conclude that the prophecies of Isaiah are starting to come true. Especially Isaiah 61, which Jesus himself will later read in the synagogue before the Jews, which says:
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me;
Because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek;
He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord…
In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus reads these words, sits down and says, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.”
And in Mark’s Gospel, as we will see next week, the very first thing that comes out of Jesus’ mouth are these words: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.”
So that’s what we’ve covered so far, and this morning I want to look more closely at the meaning of Christ’s baptism, and then look at verses 12-13 where He is tempted in the wilderness.
What is the significance of Jesus’ baptism?
As we saw last week, Christ’s baptism is His anointing for ministry. Jesus is being ordained as a priest, as a prophet, and as King.
And this is what the gospel is: It is the joyful announcements that God is King, that the kingdom of God has come, and the year of Jubilee is upon us.
The Year of Jubilee was supposed to take place every 50 years under the Mosaic Law, and that was when debts were cancelled, slaves were released, and the land reverted to its original owners.
But this year of Jubilee had not happened for hundreds of years. It had been long delayed and interrupted because of exile and foreign occupation. First they were ruled by Babylon, then it was Persia, then it was Greece, and now in the time of Jesus it is Rome. And because of the unique political situation they were in, it was a debated question whether the exile was really over.
Sure they had a temple, but King Herod was not really a Jew (he was an Edomite), and he was certainly no son of David. And although there were some laws and customs they could observe, they couldn’t enforce the laws in the Torah, that’s why they needed Rome to crucify Jesus.
And so for the Spirit to descend upon Jesus at his baptism, and for the Father to declare that “Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” is to announce to the world that this man Jesus of Nazareth is King, and with Him comes the kingdom, and with the kingdom comes justice, and with justice Jubilee, and with Jubilee a return to possession of the land, the end of exile.
This was the hope and longing of God’s people.
In the Hebrew calendar, the year of Jubilee started when the king was coronated. There was an Ecclesiastical/Priestly year that began in the Spring with Passover, and a Civil/Kingly Year that began in the fall. And this Kingly new year was marked by the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement.
So Leviticus 25 says, “Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. 10 And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.”
And so with the coronation of Christ at his baptism, we should hear the sound of trumpets blasting, of a great festival and new beginnings, a solemn celebration that past sins have been atoned for and the acceptable year of the Lord has come. The baptism of Christ inaugurates the Jubilee. And as Jesus will say later, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36)
Now at Christ’s baptism there are no literal trumpets blasting or the sound of great festivity, but there is a sound more beautiful, more lovely than that. And that is a single sentence from God the Father, “Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,”
In this single sentence, the Father brings together at least three different Old Testament references, and together they help us see the significance of this moment.
So let me read these three references and see if you can hear in them the Father’s voice, “Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
The first is Psalm 2, where God says, “Yet have I set my king Upon my holy hill of Zion. 7 I will declare the decree: The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; This day have I begotten thee.” (Ps. 2:6-7).
The second is Isaiah 42:1, which says, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold; Mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.”
And third, is Genesis 22:2, where God says ominously to Abraham, “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering.”
So in this declaration of the Father’s love and delight in Jesus, is a revelation of His identity and destiny. Who is Jesus?
He is the Davidic King of Psalm 2, who sits in the heavens and laughs. As Jesus will say in John 3:13, “no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.”
Jesus is a man walking around on earth, while at the same time by His divine nature, He is the Son of man which is in heaven. “Thou art my Son.”
He is the Royal Servant of Isaiah, who will bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.You can read the four servant songs in Isaiah 42, 49, 50, 52-53, and there you will see a detailed portrait of Jesus, written 700 years before his arrival.
The Father says, “thou art my son, in whom my soul delighteth.”
He is an obedient son, the true Isaac, the true seed of Abraham, the ram caught in a thicket upon Mount Moriah, who with thorns upon his head, will be sacrificed for sin.
To be a one and only beloved son of Abraham, means a sacrifice is coming. This is what the Father’s voice foretells.
So what is Jesus baptism?
It is an ordination service. It is anointing for holy war. It is consecration for sacrifice.And as we see in the next two verses of our text, when the Spirit falls upon the beloved, He drives us into battle. So let us look at verses 12 and 13 together.
Verses 12-13
12 And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness. 13 And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.
So Jesus was already in the wilderness, he had gone out to John to be baptized in Jordan, and immediately after He is baptized, the Spirit drives Him even further into the wilderness.
As we said in the first sermon, the wilderness can come to us in many forms.
There is the wilderness where many people gather and are made into a new society, a tabernacle, like we see in Exodus. This is the wilderness of John’s baptism.
And then there is the wilderness of solitude, which is what the Spirit drives Jesus into. He is away from the multitudes, He is Moses on the mountain top while the people are down below, and he is in that wilderness for 40 days.
The number 40 is often used in Scripture to describe a time of testing. Moses was upon Sinai for 40 days, Israel was in the wilderness for 40 years, Elijah traveled through the wilderness for 40 days and nights, and now Jesus following this pattern, goes into the wilderness for 40 days to provoke Satan to battle.
Now unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark does not give us any dialog between Jesus and Satan. All he says is that “he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan…” but then he gives us this little detail that neither Matthew nor Luke record, which is, “and he was with the wild beasts.”
Of all the things that Mark could have said about Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, this being with the wild beasts is what he wants us to know. Why is this?
Well the first thing we should ask ourselves when we come to these kind of details is to ask, What is the significance of this thing in other places in the Bible? When and where do wild beasts show up?
The first place wild beasts appear is in the creation account. In Genesis 2, Adam names all the animals, among which would have been wild animals like lions, bears, wolves, t-rex’s, dragons, etc. And so in the Garden of Eden, is a man with wild beasts, and he is unharmed by them. He has dominion over them.
Later we see in Numbers 21, that Israel is attacked by fiery serpents in the wilderness.They were complaining about the miracle bread from heaven, and so God sends burning seraphim to harass them. The people tested God, and so God disciplines them with flaming serpents.
In Leviticus 26, God threatens Israel saying, “If ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins. 22 I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your high ways shall be desolate.”
So in Scripture, wild beasts are a sign of the wilderness, they are a constant reminder that we are not in Eden anymore. Now wild beasts are dangerous, they can kill us, and we must reclaim dominion over them.
So that is part of the background Mark wants to evoke by this mention of the wild beasts. But I think the more obvious connection he wants us to make is with King David.
So King David was anointed in 1 Samuel 16:13, and it say, “Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him [David] in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.”
So here you have a baptism, an anointing, and the Spirit is poured out, and what is the very next thing that happens to Him?David is brought before King Saul to fight evil spirits. He would play the harp before the king and it says the evil spirits would depart from him. So David after his anointing is given this power of exorcism. Spiritual healing is in his hands.
And then in the next chapter, 1 Samuel 17 is David slaying Goliath. And do you remember what David says to Saul, to justify his ability to win against the giant?
“Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God…moreover, The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine” (1 Sam. 17:36-37).
So who is Jesus, in the wilderness with the wild beasts?
He is the Son of David, the exorcist, who after his anointing will fight Satan and his demons, and tread upon the lion and the cobra, He will conquer all of these enemies and cut of Goliath’s head.
Who is Jesus with the wild beasts?
He is the last Adam, who comes to reclaim and exercise dominion over his creation. Who comes to turn the wilderness into a garden city, who tames the wild beasts so that it can be habitable again.
One of the prophesies of the Messiah is that in His reign, He would domesticate the wild animals, and in Scripture animals signify foreign nations. When God shows Daniel in a vision the powers of the four kingdoms, they are described as various wild beasts.
And so Jesus comes to fulfill the promise of Isaiah 11, which says:
And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse,
And a Branch shall grow out of his roots:
2 And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
The spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The spirit of counsel and might,
The spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord…
6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,
And the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together;
And a little child shall lead them.
7 And the cow and the bear shall feed;
Their young ones shall lie down together:
And the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
Why was Jesus with the wild beasts? Because He is the rod from the stem of Jesse. He is the shepherd-king who comes to bring peace and justice to the nations. To make lion and lamb lay down together.
Is that the Jesus you know and love and worship? Because that’s the only Jesus there is. And he has come and of the increase of his government there shall be no end. He will reign until he has put all his enemies beneath his feet, including our nation (with its eagle and stars and stripes).
So that’s our text, Jesus in the wilderness with the wild beasts. And I want to conclude with one practical application for us from these opening 13 verses.
You might have noticed that Mark’s gospel is fast-paced, which is why these sermons have been so dense with Old Testament references. Mark covers in 13 verses, what Matthew and Luke take four chapters to cover. So if it feels like drinking from at fire-hose, it’s because we are.
So I want to slow down for a moment close with a single exhortation for all of us, and that:
Learn to love the wilderness.
When God wants to change you, He has to kill you first. That’s what baptism is, it’s union with Christ’s death. And after God kills you in baptism, the next thing he does is separate you from your old life.
Israel was baptized in the Red Sea, they got out of Egypt, but then God had to spend 40 years getting Egypt out of them. And where does He purge us of our old life and habits? In the wilderness.
The wilderness is the place of testing, and if you follow Jesus, and receive the same Spirit that Jesus received, the Spirit will drive you into the wilderness, so learn to love it.
By the wilderness could mean any kind of trial.
It might be depression, it might be sickness, it might be unwanted singleness, it might be nine-months of hard pregnancy, the loss of a job, the loss of loved ones, or anything in between.
The wilderness is the place that feels uncomfortable. And when in God’s providence, the Spirit drives us there, we must not grumble, we must not resist the Spirit. But rather, embrace and love the test that God has given us, because it is in the wilderness, he rids us of ourselves to make us strong in Him.
As Paul says in 2 Cor. 1:9, “But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead.”
So learn to love the wilderness, love the places where God rids you of self-reliance. And if you go there, that is where you will find Moses, and Elijah, and John and Joshua and David, and the Lord Jesus Himself.
Count it all joy when you are driven into the wilderness.

Sermon: Heaven Torn Open (Mark 1:4-11)

Heaven Torn OpenSunday, April 9th, 2023Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 1:4-11
4 John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. 5 And there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 And John was clothed with camel’s hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey; 7 And preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. 8 I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. 9 And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan. 10 And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: 11 And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for giving us this gospel, this written testimony of Your truth. We ask that you would quicken these words to our hearts, that You might inhabit the praises of Your people, for we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.
Introduction
Last Sunday we saw that Mark’s gospel begins in the wilderness. And the wilderness is the place where God prepares His people for conquest. It was where Moses was trained before leading the Exodus, it was where Joshua was trained before conquering Canaan, it was where David was trained before he became king.
And Mark is giving us all these different Old Testament associations to tell us who Jesus is and what Jesus has come to do.
We also saw in the opening verses of Mark’s gospel that he weaves together three different Old Testament quotations to demonstrate that Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is the promised Messiah, He is the servant of the Lord that was prophesied by Isaiah, He is the divine messenger of Malachi, who comes to purify Israel. Jesus is all of these things and much more.
Here in our text, verses 4-11, we move from that prologue and introduction into historical reality. We have been given the thesis and final cause for this book: that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and now Mark carries us into the wilderness, to behold the fulfillment of these prophesies.
So let us walk through our text together, and I am going to start from the very beginning of the book so we have the context in mind.
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; 2 As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. 3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
Verse 4
4 John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.
So Mark identifies John as the voice in the wilderness. John is the messenger that Isaiah and Malachi foretold, and he comes to prepare the way for God.
But how is the way of the Lord prepared?
The first way is by preaching. John is preaching that God is coming, judgment is coming, and the axe is already laid at the root of the tree. Therefore, those who do not bear good fruits keeping with repentance, are going to be cut down and thrown into the fire.
This is the contents of John’s preaching that is set forth in other gospels and in verse 5 we are given a picture of the response.
Verse 5
5 And there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins.
This is a mass migration of Jews into the wilderness. This is what you would call the baptizing of a nation or a national conversion.
Like Jonah going to Nineveh, John announces that judgment is on the horizon burning like an oven, and these are the people who want to survive that judgment. Who rather than being burned up and destroyed by fire, shall instead be refined and made more glorious. Judgment is coming whether you like it or not, and the choice is yours whether that day will be glorious or your destruction.
That is the choice John sets before them, and that is the same choice before our nation today. Either we repent of our sins and change our ways, or God will burn us up.
In John’s day, the day of judgment was drawing near. And it would be another 40 years until the fire came in full and burned Jerusalem to the ground.
In our day, we don’t know how long God’s patience will wait, but we know from Scripture that it is never wise to presume upon His delay.
As it says in Romans 2, “Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.”
We don’t know when national judgment will come in full. But if God were to send down fire and brimstone upon every capital and every city, He would be just in doing so. For we have rebelled against far more light, against for more truth and far more gospel than Sodom & Gomorrah ever had. We have consciously rebelled against Christ. It is the religion of Christianity that has characterized the West and the founding of our nation, and it is the religion of Christianity that we are now consciously seeking to throw off.
Make no mistake, God is not mocked, a nation will reap what it sows, and we have sown the wind.
So John comes on the scene, he calls Israel to repentance, and all of Judaea and Jerusalem go out to him. They are baptized in the Jordan and confess their sins. This is how the way of the Lord is made straight, this is how a highway is prepared for God.
In verse 6 we get a description of John’s appearance.
Verse 6
6 And John was clothed with camel’s hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey…”
This description of John is intended to connect him with the prophet Elijah.
2 Kings 1:8 says of Elijah, “He was an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins.”
This eating of locusts and wild honey is connected to the blessings and curses of the covenant.
If Israel disobeyed, Deuteronomy 28 says, “Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it…All thy trees and fruit of thy land shall the locust consume.”
So for John to come on the scene, eating locusts and wild honey is to say two things at once: 1) That Israel has broken God’s covenant, thus wilderness and locusts. And 2) That John has come to devour the devourer. He has come to prepare the way for the One who will eat the curse into Himself, destroy it, and bring God’s people into a land flowing with milk and honey.
Mark wants us to see in John a second coming of Elijah and a second coming of Moses. Elijah like Moses was a man of the wilderness, he confronted evil kings, he called down plagues upon the land, he performed signs and wonders, he called down fire from heaven. And if John is Elijah and John is Moses, then who does that makes Jesus? Who is the one comes after these men?
Verses 7-8
7 And [John] preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. 8 I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.
For however impressive and powerful John’s ministry was (leading a national revival), He wants there to be no doubt that he is just the forerunner, “There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose.”
What is the significance of this reference to the shoes of the one who comes after?
In the Old Testament, who was told to take off their shoes?
Moses. God says to Him from the burning bush, “Do not draw near to this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground” (Ex. 3:5).
Likewise, the priests, when they serve in the tabernacle or temple, are required to take off their shoes and wash their feet. They are barefoot when they go into the holy place.
Exodus 30 says, “Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 18 “You shall also make a laver of bronze, with its base also of bronze, for washing. You shall put it between the tabernacle of meeting and the altar. And you shall put water in it, 19 for Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet in water from it. 20 When they go into the tabernacle of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn an offering made by fire to the Lord, they shall wash with water, lest they die. 21 So they shall wash their hands and their feet, lest they die. And it shall be a statute forever to them—to him and his descendants throughout their generations.”
So when John says that he is unworthy to take off Jesus’ shoes, He is making an enormous claim. He is saying that Jesus is not only the Elisha who comes after in the fullness of the Spirit, who like Elisha performs miracles and raises dead people to life, He is also Himself holy ground. Jesus is the God who told Moses to take his shoes off. Jesus is the God who makes the tabernacle and temple holy ground. And thus wherever Jesus walks is holy. Jesus has come to cleanse the land of impurity.
There is also a connection here with feet and the Jordan river.
After Moses died, God said to Joshua, “Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses” (Joshua 1:3). And then a couple chapters later, in Joshua 3, the priests carry the ark of the covenant into the Jordan river, so that the nation can cross over into the promised land.
Joshua 3:13 says, “And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand upon an heap.”
So this is the imagery Mark wants us to have when we see John (who was of priestly lineage) baptizing in the Jordan, and then he mentions the removal of shoes from the feet, and then Jesus walks up and stands in the river.
This is the crossing of the Jordan all over again. Mark is saying:
Jesus is a new Joshua who leads us into the promised land.
Jesus is a new Elisha who takes up the mantle and separates the waters. Where is the God of Elijah? Jesus is that God.
Jesus is the one sits upon the ark of the covenant that the priests carry, whose throne is in heaven, but has come down for us.
Mark is telling us so much about Jesus, if we know our Old Testament and pay attention to the details.
In verses 9-11 we have the climax of this scene as Jesus enters the Jordan. So with all of those associations running, let us see what happens.
Verse 9-11
9 And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan. 10 And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: 11 And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
So Jesus is baptized, the water is poured upon him, and verse 10 says, “And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened. and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him:”
There are at least two Old Testament scenes that should come to our mind here:
1. The first is Genesis 1 and the creation of the world.
Genesis 1:2 says, “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God hovered upon the face of the waters.”
And then on Day 2 God says, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven.”
So in the biblical cosmology, what separates us down here, from where God is up there, is this heavenly ocean called the firmament. And when Jesus is baptized, Mark says that those heavenly waters, that heavenly firmament is torn open. And this is the same verb (σχίζω, to tear apart, schism) that appears at the end of Mark’s gospel when Jesus dies on the cross.
Mark 15 says, “And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last. 38 Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39 So when the centurion, who stood opposite Him, saw that He cried out like this and breathed His last, he said, “Truly this Man was the Son of God!”
The veil in the temple was a symbolic firmament. It was what separated the holy place from the rest of the world. And when Jesus is baptized heaven is split apart, signifying that by his future death, access to God, access to heaven, access to the holy place, would be made available to all who are baptized in Him.
Jesus is the firmament through which we ascend to God. This is what baptism signifies.
2. The second image that should come to mind at Jesus baptism comes a few chapters later in Genesis 8 with the story of Noah and the ark, and here we also have the first mention of a dove.
So the waters of the flood cleanse the Old World, and the only dry land, the only safe place is the Ark. And when the rain stops falling the ark comes up out of the waters, and rests upon Mount Ararat, and from there Noah sends forth a dove.
The first time the dove returns, having found “no rest for the sole of her foot” (Gen. 8:9). The second time she returns with an olive leaf. And then the third time Noah sends her out, and she does not return.
Well here at Jesus baptism, the dove returns. The Spirit who brooded over those primeval waters, now descends in the form of a dove upon Christ.Mark is saying again that Jesus is the new creation, the new land, He is where the olive trees grow, He is where the birds of the air come and make their nests in his branches (Matt. 13:32). Jesus is Noah’s ark, who carries us into the new world. Jesus is all of these things and more.
Jesus Reveals The Trinity
This is who Mark is portraying Jesus as in these opening 11 verses, and he is going to develop these themes further throughout the book. In Jesus of Nazareth, the entirety of the Old Testament is transformed.
And with the climax of this revelation is the revelation of the true nature of God. Namely, that God is Trinity. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. At Christ’s baptism, we have this explosion of knowledge that was hidden and concealed in the Old Testament. We come to see that when God said in Genesis 1:26, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our Likeness,” He was not talking to angels, He was not talking to some divine council of cherubim or seraphim, He was talking within Himself, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
And so it is fitting that at the moment of Christ’s baptism, at the dawn of a New Creation, that we see all three persons of the Godhead at once. The Spirit descending like a dove, the Son emerging from the waters, and the Father expressing His Paternal Love, “Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
Conclusion
For all those who are truly baptized into the Triune name, the baptism of Jesus, is your baptism. This is why Jesus was baptized in the first place, not to be cleansed but to cleanse the waters, not to get to heaven, but to tear heaven open for all who are united to Him.
So if you have not been baptized, what are you waiting for? Christ has torn heaven open for you. Come to Him, repent, and be washed of your sins. For in Christ, the Father’s love flows to you, “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

Sermon: A Lion In The Wilderness (Mark 1:1-3)

A Lion In The WildernessSunday, April 2nd, 2023Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 1:1-3The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; 2 As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. 3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

Sermon: The Duties of Children (Ephesians 6:1-4)

Text: Ephesians 6:1-4Title: The Christian Family Pt. 7: The Duties of ChildrenDate: March 19th, 2023Location: Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, Washington
 
https://localchristendom.com/the-christian-family-part-7-the-duties-of-children/

Sermon: The Blessing of Children (Psalm 127-128)

Text: Psalm 127-128Title: The Christian Family Pt. 6: The Blessing of ChildrenDate: March 12th, 2023Location: Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, Washington
 
https://localchristendom.com/the-christian-family-part-6-the-blessing-of-children-psalm-127-128/

Sermon: How To Fix A Bad Marriage (Matthew 18:21-35)

Text: Matthew 18:21-35Title: The Christian Family Pt. 5: How To Fix A Bad MarriageDate: March 5th, 2023Location: Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, Washington
https://localchristendom.com/the-christian-family-part-5-how-to-fix-a-bad-marriage-matthew-1821-35/

Sermon: Preparing For Marriage (Proverbs 24:27)

Text: Proverbs 18:22, Proverbs 24:27Title: The Christian Family Pt. 4: Preparing For MarriageDate: February 26th, 2023Location: Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, Washington
https://localchristendom.com/preparing-for-marriage-proverbs-2427/