Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Milford

The Gospel According to Mark 1:1-8 [NLTse]

This is the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God. It began ² just as the prophet Isaiah had written:
“Look, I am sending My messenger ahead of You, and He will prepare Your way. ³ He is a voice shouting in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord’s coming! Clear the road for Him!’”
⁴ This messenger was John the Baptist. He was in the wilderness and preached that people should be baptized to show that they had repented of their sins and turned to God to be forgiven. ⁵ All of Judea, including all the people of Jerusalem, went out to see and hear John. And when they confessed their sins, he baptized them in the Jordan River. ⁶ His clothes were woven from coarse camel hair, and he wore a leather belt around his waist. For food he ate locusts and wild honey.
⁷ John announced: “Someone is coming soon Who is greater than I am—so much greater that I’m not even worthy to stoop down like a slave and untie the straps of His sandals. ⁸ I baptize you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit!”

Sermon
You would’ve thought people would have avoided John the Baptist with his message about “sin separating us from God” and the need for everyone to repent. But they flocked to him. Why?

Perhaps they were desperate to hear from God and John clearly seemed to be a prophet. Perhaps because he spoke so openly about sin and forgiveness people experienced him addressing the real things going on in the deep places of their hearts. I’ve come to believe, however, in addition to all these reasons, that crowds flocked to John the Baptist because through confessing and repenting of their sins John promised them the Spirit-filled life Isaiah had foretold.

The Prophet Isaiah 32:15-20 [NLTse]
Look, a righteous King is coming! And honest princes will rule under Him. ² Each one will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert and the shadow of a great rock in a parched land.
³ Then everyone who has eyes will be able to see the truth, and everyone who has ears will be able to hear it. ⁴ Even the hotheads will be full of sense and understanding. Those who stammer will speak out plainly. ⁵ In that day ungodly fools will not be heroes. Scoundrels will not be respected. ⁶ For fools speak foolishness and make evil plans. They practice ungodliness and spread false teachings about the Lord. They deprive the hungry of food and give no water to the thirsty. ⁷ The smooth tricks of scoundrels are evil. They plot crooked schemes. They lie to convict the poor, even when the cause of the poor is just. ⁸ But generous people plan to do what is generous, and they stand firm in their generosity.
⁹ Listen, you women who lie around in ease. Listen to Me, you who are so smug. ¹⁰ In a short time—just a little more than a year—you care[free] ones will suddenly begin to care. For your fruit crops will fail, and the harvest will never take place. ¹¹ Tremble, you women of ease; throw off your complacency. Strip off your pretty clothes, and put on burlap to show your grief. ¹² Beat your breasts in sorrow for your bountiful farms and your fruitful grapevines. ¹³ For your land will be overgrown with thorns and briers. Your joyful homes and happy towns will be gone. ¹⁴ The palace and the city will be deserted, and busy towns will be empty. Wild donkeys will frolic and flocks will graze in the empty forts and watchtowers ¹⁵ until at last the Spirit is poured out on us from Heaven. Then the wilderness will become a fertile field, and the fertile field will yield bountiful crops.
¹⁶ Justice will rule in the wilderness and righteousness in the fertile field. ¹⁷ And this righteousness will bring peace. Yes, it will bring quietness and confidence forever. ¹⁸ My people will live in safety, quietly at home. They will be at rest. ¹⁹ Even if the forest should be destroyed and the city torn down, ²⁰ the Lord will greatly bless His people. Wherever they plant seed, bountiful crops will spring up. Their cattle and donkeys will graze freely.

Sermon
John’s message must have been, “Yes, you are a sinner! Yes, you must repent of your sins! But don’t do it just to ease your conscience. Don’t do it just to get “right” with God. Do it because the Messiah’s coming, and with Him a new day’s coming! He is God’s righteous king, and He’s bringing with Him a day of absolute transformation – making all things new! The sin and the death and the selfishness and the uncertainty that have marked every person, every society, and the whole creation is going to begin unravelling with His coming. He will come pouring-out the Holy Spirit!
“Come! Don’t miss it! Be a part of it!” John must have preached. “But only God is bringing it, and the path to God is by confessing and repenting of your sins and trusting in Him. He alone the way to this new life.”

In Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ movie the Lord Jesus is carrying the cross through the streets of Jerusalem. His mother, Mary, cuts through an alley to get ahead of the crowd that is keeping her from Him and reaches Him just as He falls under the burden. Exhausted under the crushing load, the Lord looks up and sees her. Beaten and bloodied and through broken teeth He proclaims, “Behold, I make everything new!”

Isn’t that why Jesus came? I mean, do we all really need more rules? Did the angels and the shepherds and a young girl’s shameful pregnancy all come about just so people could be moral? Yes, Jesus would be the King, of course, and that would be great because Jesus is great, but doesn’t that fall a little flat? Think of the wise men and king Herod slaughtering all the babies Jesus’ age in an attempt to kill Him, and the devil getting personally involved desperately seeking to tempt Him astray… Doesn’t it all seem to be leading to so much more than just attending church, trying to be nice and helping those around you as you have the time, and looking forward to a peaceful and placid “Heaven” some day? I mean, if that’s all its leading up to, don’t you kind of want your ticket price back?

Hallelujah! that what Jesus has started is not simply a cleaned up version of the same old thing. No, He says, “What no eye has ever seen, what no ear has ever heard, what no mind has ever begun to imagine, what God has prepared for those who love Him!

What Jesus has begun, pouring out the Holy Spirit, is a new creation: The heavens will disappear like a computer screen losing power, and the continents will be rocked like dice in a cup. It’s going to all be gone! in order to make room for something new!

That’s why you read your Bibles, isn’t it? In the hopes of something new? That you’ll be transformed? That this life you know will be gone and a new life will begin?

It’s working! It has started, my friends!

Don’t you pray hoping for communion? Hoping for a closeness and a meeting, to get run-over by God? Keep it up, He’s coming!

At Christmastime this Scripture is often read: “The nations shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” (2:4) Isaiah is describing the Spirit-filled life! “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.” (Isaiah 11:6) “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing.” (Isaiah 35:1) It’s all the Spirit-filled life!

This is what Jesus has brought. This is what the Spirit-poured-out produces! Our wild, uncultivated lives will become like gardens, and our garden-like lives will become like forests-of-every-good-thing! Yes, seek justice, fairness, and to live righteously day by day. But do so knowing that God’s Spirit within you produces these things as you seek to make Christ and His Kingdom your number one aim. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things – whatever you might be striving and longing for – will be supplied to you!”

Has your life been a desert? As you pursue the King He will pour out His Holy Spirit upon you, and by His grace and in His strength, as you confess your sins and repent, just watch His fruitfulness and abundance transform your desert into blossoms and rejoicing!

Have you been looking out for number one? “Every man (and woman) for themselves?” Has “do it to them before they do it to you” been your motto? As you love your neighbor as you love yourself, as you “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, as you ask and seek Jesus to drench you and keep you soaked with His Spirit, you will watch the Lord transform those whom you used to see as “competition” or “prey” into your community and your partners, and transform your stinginess and self-preservation into self-giving and life.

Does war and anger and revenge and unforgiveness govern your heart? As you receive the Holy Spirit from Christ our King His love and acceptance will make you new so that you can recognize your faults and leave behind those ways that keep you from the Savior. As His Spirit transforms you you just watch your best weapons for protecting yourself and getting your way be transformed into His best tools for building others up, forgiving them, and caring and sharing this new life with them! Can you imagine those you’ve treated as enemies being transformed into friends that stick closer than a brother (or sister)? That’s the work of His life in us!

But maybe you are the only Christian in your family or among your friends or where you work, and you wonder what you can do to against your folks or your spouse or your kids and others. How can “just you” make a difference?

But it’s not your words you speak nor your compassion you show or your righteousness you are living. No, in this new life all this comes from Jesus with the Holy Spirit poured out. Ours is simply the activity and the doing: Sharing His new life with the poor and those far from God; offering comfort to the brokenhearted; speaking release and freedom to those captive and imprisoned; telling those who are in mourning that God’s favor has come! As we seek Him and offer ourselves to Him as vessels of His grace, it’s the Holy Spirit Who actually comforts and sets free and gives hope and makes new!
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It is your work, but as you do it it is God working in you, giving you the desire and the power to accomplish what pleases Him. (Philippians 2:12-13)