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Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Alright. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. Thank you, Brandon. It's great to be with you all this evening.
Connor Coskery:Just feels good to be back at the 4 PM. I've I've told a couple of people, I was kind of an OG 4 PMer when, I first started coming to Redeemer. And, the reason I am no longer a 4 pm, attender is I have the privilege of, serving our student ministry. So I I lead our student ministry as youth minister, and we are currently meeting at 4 PM over at the Bray House. So they are in great hands, and I am excited to be here with you all.
Connor Coskery:My name is Connor Cosgry. If we haven't met, I would love to meet you. But we are going to continue our study tonight through the gospel of Mark. So if you wanna go ahead and turn to Mark chapter 1, it's where we're going to be spending our time. Last week, Joel introduced us to Mark.
Connor Coskery:We learned that Mark was a missionary with Paul and Barnabas. Most notably, he was a really close friend of Peter, the disciple of Jesus Peter. In Peter's first letter, Peter describes Mark as his son. Mark was a beloved helper, a scribe for Peter, which is why many scholars believe that Mark's account of Jesus's life is really through the perspective of Peter's. And last week we, we touched on the first eight verses and tonight we're going to look at verses 9 through 13 and these first 15 verses in Mark's gospel.
Connor Coskery:It really constitutes the preface of, his gospel account that he's about to give. In literature, the point of the preface is the author's gonna give some important information for his readers that's gonna be essential for them to understand, the purpose of what he's about to say. And so Mark uses these first verses, these first 15 verses especially, to tell us some really important information about who Jesus is. He's giving us essential information before he moves on to tell us about Jesus' public ministry, which he's going to get to really fast. For those of us who like context, I know Joel, talked about it last week of how he loves, the fact that Mark doesn't provide context.
Connor Coskery:Well, that's not me. I really do love context and so Mark can be a bit challenging. Mark writes at a really fast clip. He's gonna cover a lot of ground and not a lot of time. He doesn't bog down in the ancillary details.
Connor Coskery:He's very straightforward. He's very to the point. And the temptation, at least for me, is to run to the other gospel accounts to fill in all the gaps where there's ambiguity to to get clarity from, let's go see what Matthew said or let's go see what Luke said. There's nothing wrong with that, but tonight I'm gonna try my best not to do that. I'm gonna let mark be mark because I really believe that Mark has written his account.
Connor Coskery:What we're gonna look at tonight, his Jesus' baptism and temptation in a particular way for a purpose to give us a picture of who Jesus is, because that's overall throughout his entire account. That's what he really wants you to get. Who is Jesus? So we're gonna let Mark be Mark and we're gonna we're gonna jump right in. Last week Joel set the scene, so this is looking, particularly at these first eight verses.
Connor Coskery:We met John the Baptist who's described as the long awaited messenger prophesied by Isaiah and Malachi. He's the messenger sent to prepare the way for the Lord. And John the Baptist is in the wilderness. The wilderness was an important location for the Israelites. This is the place where the prophets predicted that God's deliverance would begin.
Connor Coskery:So John the Baptist in the wilderness and here in the wilderness, we learn that revival is in full swing. Mark says that John appeared baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And don't miss this deal detail. It says, and all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan confessing their sins. John's baptism was a baptism of repentance.
Connor Coskery:And repentance here is best understood in the general sense. Repentance simply means to turn around. You're going the wrong way. Turn around. And so we see mass numbers of Jews responding to John's call to acknowledge their stiff naked disobedience and to turn around and follow the Lord their God in obedience.
Connor Coskery:These baptisms, they were, they were unusual. They were more than the typical washing for what a, a baptism would have been at this time. This was a preparatory baptism. John was proclaiming that the savior, the messiah, he was coming. John isn't the Savior.
Connor Coskery:He says that someone is coming, someone is on the way, who will not merely baptize with
Joel Brooks:water, but
Connor Coskery:will baptize with the baptize with the spirit. And who could be so identified with the spirit that he has control to command the spirit? Well, the long the the long awaited, the long promised messiah would have to be God himself. God in the flesh. So this is the setting.
Connor Coskery:This is the occasion for which we're going to meet Jesus tonight. So read with me now verses 9 through 13 in the first chapter. Verse 9, and in those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, you are my beloved son.
Connor Coskery:With you, I am well pleased. The spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness and he was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals and the angels were ministering to him. This is the word of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:This is
Connor Coskery:to your heart. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this evening for the opportunity that we have to gather together as a community of faith to sit beneath your word and trust that your spirit is transforming us. Lord, I pray that this time, you would bless it, that you would open our minds, that you would open our hearts to receive your promises afresh. And, lord, I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart would be pleasing in your sight for you are our rock and our redeemer.
Connor Coskery:And I pray this in the name of the father, son, and holy spirit. Amen. So when we get to verse 9, when we meet Jesus, the mood is one of the anticipation. It's charged with anticipation. We have the messenger, check.
Connor Coskery:We have, we're in the wilderness, check. We're baptizing in the Jordan River. It's all the ingredients. As we begin our journey through mark, it's important to remember that the Bible is a textbook. It's not written in neat and tidy compartments for us to go to this section to just unpack and look at that.
Connor Coskery:The bible is first and foremost a story. It's an incredible story spanning history that tells us of what God has done, what God's doing now and what he promises to do in the future. A large portion of Mark's audience was Gentiles. A Gentile, was anyone born outside the nation of Israel and this means that a lot of their discipleship would have been to learn the old testament stories. They didn't grow up hearing these stories like the, like the Israelites would, like the those part born in the Jewish nation would.
Connor Coskery:So part of them, part of their discipleship growing up into that community would have been to hear about these old testament stories and how they point to the coming Messiah, how they point to now Jesus. So Mark is saying that from the very beginning, if you're going to truly understand who Jesus is, we're gonna need our whole bible. We need to open it all up. And in the first eight verses, he's pointing back to Malachi, to Isaiah, and we're going to see a lot of Isaiah tonight. Mark's going to draw allusions from Genesis, from Exodus, Numbers, the wisdom literature, prophets.
Connor Coskery:And we see, particularly in our section tonight, we see Mark highlighting the prophet Isaiah. Now a little bit about Isaiah. Isaiah prophesied during a time of great upheaval in Israel's history. Rival nations were conquering surrounding territories. And Isaiah was especially important because he prophesied about God's deliverance and restoration, both in the present and also to a future deliverance and restoration.
Connor Coskery:Isaiah offers vast sweeping vision of God himself being active in saving, redeeming, restoring, rescuing his people. Isaiah prophesied about this messenger to come who would make straight in the desert a highway for our God, where the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. It's actually Isaiah that first coins the phrase gospel or good news. Much of his prophetic ministry was preparing God's people for the arrival of this good news where god himself would come to mend the brokenhearted, to comfort the afflicted, free the captives, and secure everlasting salvation for his people. Mark engages our imagination with Isaiah and then in verse 9, introduces us to Jesus of Nazareth.
Connor Coskery:As we'll see from this moment on, from this moment on from verse 9 moving forward, the sweeping promises of the past that we read in the old testament are brought into the present. The waiting is finally over. The promised rescuer has arrived. Verses 9 through 13 describe 2 important moments for Jesus, his baptism and his temptation in the wilderness. Both are important to prepare him to begin his public ministry.
Connor Coskery:Mark's written all of this. He's written this account to help us understand and to reckon with who Jesus is. If we're going to receive this Jesus, we have to meet him on his own terms. We have to refuse the temptation to make Jesus into who we want him to be. And tonight, this evening, we're we meet Jesus who is the messiah, the anointed one.
Connor Coskery:Perhaps he isn't what we expect from a savior. He definitely caught the Jews off guard. But my hope is that as we walk through these two important moments of Jesus' life, we walk away trust in trusting that Jesus is the exact savior that we need. So let's walk through each moment and walk through his baptism and wilderness temptation, and we're going to do it slowly. So look with me at verse 9.
Connor Coskery:So in the midst of this revival, we meet Jesus who has come from Nazareth. Now, if you don't know much about Nazareth, you aren't alone. Most of the people at that time probably didn't know much either. The town of Nazareth was a backwoods settlement in Galilee. The town of Nazareth receives no mention in non Christian sources from the Roman period, meaning that it was likely a town that was just known by locals.
Connor Coskery:In true Mark fashion, he tells us very matter of fact that in those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. If you've grown up in church or you're familiar with Christianity, it can be easy to read this familiar verse in its very matter of fact tone and entirely miss the scandal of it. You aren't wrong if you read these verses and you pause and you ask, wait a minute, why? And you start doing the logic in your head. You're like, okay.
Connor Coskery:Well, John's giving a baptism of repentance. Jesus wasn't a sinner, so he didn't need to repent. What's Jesus doing in that water? Anyone else have that question? The other gospel accounts, they provide a little more explanation, but Mark doesn't.
Connor Coskery:He essentially says, Jesus was baptized by John. And I believe that part of the answer lies in the simplicity. Remember, this happened in the midst of revival. Droves of people were coming from all over the country to be immersed in the Jordan river, to be cleansed both literally of their filth, they would have been really dirty, and symbolically of their sins. Every type of person is likely represented.
Connor Coskery:The rich, the poor, the afflicted, the destitute. This water would have been filled with all of the dirt and impurities and muck as they were washed from their bodies, and Jesus says, I want in that water. Why did Jesus submit himself to baptism? Jesus is baptized to fully Before he even begins his public ministry, Before he even begins his public ministry, Jesus is preparing their imaginations for the type of salvation he is bringing. It's not going to look like great political conquest, but instead it's a beautiful exchange.
Connor Coskery:That's the type of salvation he's bringing. Not military might, but an exchange. Where the the apostle Paul, he would later say for our sake, he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God. It's an exchange. And this is good news for us.
Connor Coskery:Amen. Perhaps you've made a mess of your life. Perhaps you're sitting here tonight and you're like Connor, I, I'm filthy. It can be tempting to think that Jesus, when he looks at you, he treats you like my 4 year old who is touching a bug. That's not it.
Connor Coskery:When Jesus walks into the water to be baptized, he assures us that that is not the case. Jesus takes our mess. Jesus takes your failure. He takes your wretchedness and he puts it on himself. He takes our record of failure, and this is the exchange part.
Connor Coskery:He doesn't just take it from us, he takes our record of failure and then he gives us his record of perfection. He takes our disobedience and he gives us his obedience. Your sins are washed from you and they are placed on Jesus. Your mistakes no longer define you. The pressure to get your act together, it's relieved.
Connor Coskery:Faith in Jesus means that you're washed and made clean. The way that we do baptism here at redeemer, you know, we fill up this pool. Sometimes it's warm, sometimes it's really cold, depending on the season. But it's it's a wonderful picture because it really gives us a picture of the drama that takes place. You know, those who are, asking to be baptized, they walk into the pool and they vow to follow Jesus with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Connor Coskery:There isn't something mystical or magical about the water and the promise of being a beloved child isn't contingent on their obedience, but on the perfect obedience of the sun. And in baptism you go under the water and that means dying with Christ and then rising means rising to him with newness of life. We just sang about it. And it's not wrong. Most people who are, asking to be baptized, there's this feeling of intimidation.
Connor Coskery:You know, you're walking into a pool of water in front of lots of people. That's not that's that's strange. Right? But as I'm preparing, those who are going to be baptized, I try and remind them that first and foremost, this is a time of great celebration. It's a time of celebration both for you being baptized, but also for all of those who are observing it.
Connor Coskery:Each time someone is plunged in that water, we all, every single one of us has the opportunity to view, to witness the incredible exchange of the gospel where our sins are drowned in the water and we rise to newness of life. When Mark says that in those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John, He was baptized to fully identify with his people and foreshadow the salvation that he is bringing, the coming salvation. But verse 10 shows us that Jesus' baptism was no ordinary baptism. So look at verses 1011 and we see that when he came up out of the water, immediately saw the heavens being torn open and the spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, you are my beloved son.
Connor Coskery:With you I am well pleased. Mark describes the heavens being torn open. It's a very unusual and rare word. Visually, it gives us the sense of the heavens literally being ripped open so that God can come down. And Mark also uses it to foreshadow what's going to happen in the future.
Connor Coskery:The next time Mark uses this word is when Jesus is on the cross and the temple curtain is torn in 2, symbolizing humanity no longer being separated from God. So at the beginning, we have this picture of the heavens being torn open and God coming down to man. And then the other bookend, Mark's going to use this word again to evoke our memory and it's going to say, the curtain's torn in 2 to where we can then go up to God. Mark's very particular with his language. He's going to do this all throughout, so hopefully we continue to point them out.
Connor Coskery:That after the heavens are torn open, the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus like a dove and the voice of God calls out, You are my beloved son. With you I am well pleased. In one striking sentence, we see the drama of the trinity on display. The holy spirit is descending like a dove, the voice of the father, the beloved son. This description of the Holy Spirit's descent, it's intentional.
Connor Coskery:This sense is fluttering or hovering And it's meant to evoke that image at creation in Genesis 1 when the spirit hovered over the chaos of the waters. What Mark's doing here is he's showing us that just as in the original creation in Genesis 1 in the very beginning, all were present. Father, Son, and Spirit, all are present now to announce the arrival of Jesus who will bring about a new creation. A new creation is coming and this has been the plan since the foundation of the world. And when Jesus comes out of the water, he's met with the father's delight.
Connor Coskery:The father testifies, you are my beloved son. With you, I am well pleased. It's another striking phrase. Mark is, he's challenging us again. Open your whole bibles, because what he's doing here is he's referencing 2 different scriptures in one short phrase.
Connor Coskery:He's represent, he's, he's referencing 2 scriptures, Psalm 2 and Isaiah 42. Psalm 2, it describes the messiah in royal terms, how this messiah will reign as king over all of his people. But as Isaiah 42, that describes the suffering servant who will die for the sins of the world. Just three verses, that's what we've covered. Mark covers a ton of ground.
Connor Coskery:In subtle, succinct prose, he's building radical expectations and it's going to take the rest of the gospel to fully understand this. We're not going to unpack it all tonight. However, Jesus' baptism, it gives us strong clues for what to expect. Jesus isn't a messiah who's going to save Israel through political and military might, much as what they expected. No.
Connor Coskery:What he's come to do is he's come to rewrite his people's story and give his life as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world. This was good news. This was the good news that Isaiah was preparing the way for for God himself coming to his people. This was good news for the Jewish people and this is good news for you and I. Why?
Connor Coskery:I think two particular reasons. The first is that this shows us that Jesus is the messiah we need. You know, Joel, Joel encouraged us last week to, to assess what are the ways that we're trying to, create Jesus in our own image. We see right here is that Jesus is the messiah we need. The Israelites thought that he was going to come in, he was gonna overthrow Rome, and he was gonna establish his reign, but Jesus flips the script.
Connor Coskery:What we need is a substitute. The messiah we need is a savior who doesn't hold us at arm's length, but enters our mess to take it from us. We need someone to cancel our debt. We need one who obeys fully in our place. We need someone to wash us clean of our filth.
Connor Coskery:We need forgiveness in place of our guilt. We need the security of adoption. And already at his baptism, the father, son, and holy spirit are preparing the way for these promises to be fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus, the messiah who came to represent and identify with his people entirely. The second piece of good news is that when you place your faith in Jesus, a new creation happens.
Connor Coskery:You're enveloped into Christ. That's what it means is we're going to read, as you read throughout the new testament and you hear this phrase, in Christ, in Christ, in Christ. When you place your faith in Jesus, you're enveloped into Christ, meaning that Jesus is imperishable, undefiled, non fading, inherit inheritance becomes yours. This means that God looks at you and he says to you what he said to Jesus on the day of his baptism. He looks at you not as you look at yourself and he says to you, you are my beloved child.
Connor Coskery:With you, I am well pleased. Sit in that for a moment. When you place your faith in Jesus, God the father looks at you and he says what he said to Jesus on the day of his baptism. You are my beloved child. I delight in you.
Connor Coskery:With you, I am well pleased. Do you believe that God looks at you like this? He really, really does. When we believe this, it has the power to transform our lives. We're gonna see this with Jesus in the next section.
Connor Coskery:How it propels and equips him for the next stage before he enters his public ministry. Guys, it's hard to remember that. We could all sit here and nod our heads and say, yep yep yep, I believe that, I believe that, and 2 hours from now, we find ourselves doing something and we're like, oh, I forgot. We need to find ways to remind ourselves and bring these promises, these words to life. The church that I went to in college, we would celebrate or we would do our our home groups, our small groups.
Connor Coskery:Every other week, which made it really confusing for a college student trying to remember all our end. Off week, on week. Anyways, one of the reasons that we don't do that here at Redeemer, that we do our home groups, we meet in home groups every week, is out of the fact that we really we really believe that we need to remember these promises every week, that we're really quick to forget, that by the time it gets to Wednesday or Thursday, we need that reminder from brothers and sisters of like, hey, guess what, you're washed and made clean. Hey, if you're in Christ, God the father, he delights in you. We need that.
Connor Coskery:One way that we, in in youth group that we we do this is, we have a short, 4 question catechism that we, that we do. It's called a gospel identity catechism. Learned it from a mentor of mine and have stuck with it ever since. If you know me, you know that I love catechisms. But what we do is it's 4 questions.
Connor Coskery:We do it at the end of youth group every week, and it's meant to remind our students, the way that I set it up is, hey, you're about to leave these walls, and when you leave these walls, there's gonna be an onslaught of people, things, media, whatever you want to call it, trying to tell you this is who you are and you have to do this in order to be this, to be loved, to be accepted, to be cared for. And we just wanna remind them, hey get hey guys, that's not true. This is who you are. It's 4 questions and it, follows the, the trinity and it says, the first question is, who does the spirit say that you are? And altogether, we say washed and made clean.
Connor Coskery:Who does the son say that you are? I'm righteous and forgiven. Who does the father say that you are? I'm an adopted child of God. And then all together we say, okay Christian, who are you?
Connor Coskery:And we all say, we're sinners saved by grace. We need these reminders of who we are because when we believe and we receive these words, when we receive the delight of the father, it has the power to transform how we see ourselves
Joel Brooks:and then how we live.
Connor Coskery:And we see in fact that it's the delight of the father that prepares the way for Jesus to enter the battleground of testing in the wilderness. So look with me at verse 12. See Jesus doesn't linger after his baptism, but the spirit immediately drives him out into the wilderness for 40 days to be tempted by Satan. Once again, Mark gives us myriad of echoes from the old testament words and phrases like wilderness, 40 days, Satan, all of these are intended to take us back to Genesis, to Exodus. If we go back to Genesis, we see the spirit who hovered over the chaos of the unformed waters, the father speaking creation into existence, humanity created by God and launched into the world, and then very soon after creation, Satan enters the picture and he tempts Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.
Connor Coskery:And in the garden, God told Adam, don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or you will die. God's saying trust me, trust my word. Satan tempted Adam and Eve casting doubt on God's good word. And Adam and Eve failed the test and plunged the human race into a cycle of sin and brokenness, perfect harmony being replaced with brokenness. Yet still that very first sin was confronted with a promise of future rescue.
Connor Coskery:Despite Israel's continual disobedience, God promises to never let his people go. He goes so far to covenant himself with his people. They will be his people. God will be their God. When the Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness, it's then pointing us back to Israel's wandering in the wilderness, that pivotal moment in Israel's history where God commands his first son, commands Israel to take the promised land they decide they don't want to, which means that they, consequence of their disobedience, they wander in the wilderness for 40 years.
Connor Coskery:Just like his baptism, Mark is showing us that Jesus is here to reenact the great drama of his people. Their journey from Egypt to the promised land. And the difference is where Israel was the disobedient son, Jesus, God's beloved son, will triumph. He won't fail the test. And one of the reasons that he triumphs, Mark tells us, is that he enters the wilderness equipped with the life altering words of the love of the father.
Connor Coskery:It's right after the father says, you are my beloved son. With you, I am well pleased that he is thrust into the wilderness. One commentator, he he says that perhaps this is what the angels are doing here. They're ministering to Jesus by reassuring him of that of his beloved father, reassuring him that he's with him, that he's watching over him, he's loving him, acting through him, pouring out his spirit all the time in and through him. Perhaps that is what's going on.
Connor Coskery:We don't really know. The good news, particularly as the other gospels do attest, is that Jesus goes into the wilderness and he does not break. We read of Satan's tactics in those other accounts where he, like a skilled hunter, he focuses his scope right on Jesus and he unleashes an onslaught of terror and threat and temptation. Yet Jesus perseveres until the end, trusting God's word and empowered by God's delight. The author of Hebrews would later write that Jesus was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.
Connor Coskery:This means that he experienced all of Satan's tips and tricks and schemes, all of it, Yet he came out on the other side. We've all had a time where we've messed up big time or even messed up in a small way and we go to that friend or that parent and they look us in the eyes and they put their hand on our shoulder and they're like, hey, I've been there. I I know I know what you're feeling right now. This is what Jesus is saying to us. This is what Jesus has to say to us.
Connor Coskery:He's been there. He isn't cold and far off and distant. He doesn't try to soothe our pain with platitudes, he goes there. Jesus endures Satan's temptation to the uttermost so that you can go to him for help, That when the flood of temptation comes, you can confidently draw near. The author of Hebrews says that we can draw near to his throne of grace to receive grace, to receive mercy, to receive help.
Connor Coskery:Just as Jesus went into the wilderness armed with that delight from his father, We too. We have that in our arsenal if we're in Christ. We too can resist. We can fight Satan's schemes because our identity, as we just talked about in the identity catechism, if that's our identity, if our identity is that, then we are secure. Satan can't knock us off kilter.
Connor Coskery:Our temptations, they can't name us. Our failures, they can't name us. Or beloved children. The promise of Isaiah is ours. This is one of my favorite scriptures from Isaiah and this would have been a promise that the Israelites would have held on to tightly.
Connor Coskery:It says, fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. Friends fear not for I have redeemed you. I've called you by name.
Connor Coskery:You are mine. As we begin our journey through the life of Jesus according to Mark, he makes it clear that Jesus is the Messiah that they've been waiting for. He's he's he's he's unlike what they were expecting, but this is the messiah that they've been waiting for. And as the messiah, the messiah necessarily represents his people. This means that what is true of him becomes true of them.
Connor Coskery:This is the messiah they needed and it's the messiah that you and I need. One who claims us, one who takes our place, who breaks open the heavens to so identify with his people that what is true of Jesus becomes true of you today. It's going to take the rest of Mark to fully understand how this incredible news can be true. So settle in, keep coming. And if you're still unsure of this Jesus, I want to encourage you to keep coming back.
Connor Coskery:Keep coming back, keep listening, let Jesus convince you that he's worth giving your life to follow. For those of you who have placed their faith in Jesus the Messiah, I wanna remind you of these simple truths. God loves you. God delights in you as a dear child. He knows your pain.
Connor Coskery:He knows how hard it is to keep going. And when that crushing weight of temptation comes, when that pain comes, remember that your identity is safe and secure in Christ. You are washed and made clean. You are righteous and forgiven. You are an adopted son and daughter of the king of the universe And together, we are sinners saved by grace.
Connor Coskery:Amen? Amen. Let's pray. God, thank you for tonight. Lord, thank you for coming to us, for tearing open the heavens to come to us, to take our place, to wash us clean, to make us righteous, to forgive us our guilt, to cancel our debt.
Connor Coskery:Lord, we need not fear for you have redeemed us. You have called us by name. We are yours. May that be what what secures us, what fixes our identity and our as we go about our days, Lord. We love you and we pray this in Jesus' name.
Connor Coskery:Amen.