Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn to Mark chapter 1. This morning, we're gonna look at just 5 verses, but you're gonna need to buckle up because these verses pretty much give you the content of the entire Bible. I'm also a little sleepy. I was getting coffee earlier and maybe you're tired as well. And I, I opened up the little plastic creamer thing.
Joel Brooks:I I poured the coffee in the trash can, and I put the plastic thing in my coffee. So that's that's my state of mind this more. It's gonna be fun. We're gonna have so much fun together as, as we unpack this. For those of you who are new, we began a study going through the gospel of Mark last week, and we talked about how Mark is action packed.
Joel Brooks:He's fast, he's to the point, and you will never see it more than just these few verses before us this morning. So Mark 1, we begin reading in verse 9. 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.
Joel Brooks:You are my beloved son. 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. And this is the word of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:Yes, sir. If you would, pray with me. Father, once again, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you are not silent to us, but you are eager to reveal yourself to us. And you've done that through your word.
Joel Brooks:And so we ask that by your spirit, you would open up our hearts and minds to receive it. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Joel Brooks:It's actually rare that all 4 gospels record the same event. They all of course record the death and the resurrection of Jesus. They all record the time that Jesus fed the 5,000, through just a few loaves and a couple of fish. That's the only miracle of Jesus that all 4 gospels include. All 4 gospels also write about Jesus' baptism.
Joel Brooks:This is pretty odd. It's pretty odd that all 4 would include this one event here, because it's actually pretty problematic for us. This raises a lot of theological problems for us that Jesus went to go be baptized. I mean, if Jesus was sinless, and John is doing a baptism of forgiveness, repentance, and forgiveness, why does Jesus need to be baptized? You you see the problem there.
Joel Brooks:Why would He do this? So the question is, why did every gospel writer decide they needed to include this one story even though it poses such a significant theological problem? Well, first off, they did it because it happened. It happened. And they're not just making stuff up.
Joel Brooks:Remember I told you, Mark was written while the eyewitnesses to Jesus were still living. So the people remembered this event. They would know if Mark chose not to write about it. So the gospel writers, they they couldn't just not include it since everyone knew it happened. Even when they don't fully understand why it happened.
Joel Brooks:We see this in Luke and Matthew. When they write about this, they acknowledge the difficulty of it. You know, they make a point to mention, that John the Baptist actually tries to stop Jesus. It's like, woah, woah, woah, woah. You cannot come into these waters to be baptized.
Joel Brooks:I have need to baptized by you. You don't need to come here and be baptized by me. This is just like the times, you know, I tell, Lauren Starnes, I'm gonna sing the doxology, not you. It's like, the the order's wrong. No.
Joel Brooks:She needs to be the one singing. John knew that, but Jesus said, no. No. Permit it for righteousness. Mark, however, doesn't raise those objections.
Joel Brooks:He just records Jesus was baptized. But why was Jesus baptized? Well, I believe that Jesus here is identifying with us sinners. He is acting as a representative, and he is repenting on our behalf. Think of this.
Joel Brooks:Not only can we not live a righteous life on our own, we cannot even repent on our own. Jesus, He not only had to live a perfect life for us, Jesus actually had to go through the process of repenting for us. Our salvation is completely dependent upon Him. Do you see just how much you need Jesus? You know, I I find this that I will sin and I'll repent of it.
Joel Brooks:And then, I'm telling you just just a few seconds later, I'm like, you know, I kinda had some pride in that repentance. Probably should repent of that. And so then, I will repent of the pride that I had in my former repentance. And then I will go and I'll do the same sin again that I just repented of. So apparently, I didn't have a sincere repentance.
Joel Brooks:Any of you ever repent of something and within just a few minutes, you do it again? You need someone to repent for you. Jesus didn't just live a perfect life for you. He repented for you. I love this image here of Jesus getting in line with sinners like us going to be baptized.
Joel Brooks:He is becoming like us so that we might become like Him. After Jesus came up out of this water, several dramatic things happened here. 1st, we see that the heavens were opened. When you think of the heavens opened, don't, you know, think of like, there's like a little window opening in the sky, and you get a little glimpse of, you know, streets of gold or pearly gates or things like that. That's that's not what's meant when the heavens are opened.
Joel Brooks:It's more like, a curtain is being lifted in our present reality to where we don't just see the physical world, but we see the spiritual world that occupies the same space. And so you you see both at the same time. In other words, you get to see what God is doing behind the scenes. This isn't a normal experience, for us as Christians. We don't have eyes that can see the spiritual world, which is why all the time we're asked to walk by faith and not by sight.
Joel Brooks:But here, when the heavens are opened, it's just seeing. Jesus gets to see the spiritual world. He gets to see the physical world. He understands what's really happening in this moment. And the heavens are opened and actually, Mark uses a very violent term for this.
Joel Brooks:He doesn't just say opened like the other Gospels. He says that the heavens were torn apart. And he's later gonna use this exact phrase at the end of the gospel, torn apart. They're gonna be the bookends to his gospel. 2 tearing apart.
Joel Brooks:First, at the very start of Jesus' ministry, at His baptism. And then when Jesus died and the temple veil curtain was torn apart. And what Mark is showing when he hit we have these these bookends, these 2 tear aparts, he's showing that it is through the life and the death of Jesus that heaven is now open to us. No longer is there this barrier, but but it's been ripped apart. If you wanna know what God is doing in this world, Mark says, look at Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Look at Jesus, and you will see exactly what He is doing in this world. The barrier between heaven and earth has been broken in Him. And in this moment when Jesus saw and He heard, His Father speaking, then the Spirit of God comes and descends upon Him like a dove. And a voice says, you are my beloved son. With you, I am well pleased.
Joel Brooks:There are so so many beautiful things happening in this moment. I just wanna encourage for those of you who, you know, you you get up maybe in the morning and and you read scripture and you kinda partially understand and you keep reading, keep doing it. What you're gonna find over a lifetime is like the layer under the layer under the layer under the layer of what God is trying to communicate to us and you see so many beautiful layers in this moment. First thing that you see here is, well, you just look at how the Spirit of God fell upon Jesus. The spirit fell as a dove.
Joel Brooks:Now we're so familiar with the story, we we don't need anything about how significant this is. But remember, Jesus here, he is being anointed for ministry. Anointed with power for ministry. Power to preach. Power to heal.
Joel Brooks:Power to raise the dead, power to take on the religious establishment of His day. He's being anointed with power. So one would expect that the symbol of that anointing would be perhaps something powerful. If it was gonna be a bird, you would, you would expect some kind of, bird of prey or or perhaps an eagle to come and to rest upon him. That's more of an image of power, isn't it?
Joel Brooks:But instead, what you see is the spirit of God descends in the most gentle of forms, the most gentle of creatures. Eagles, birds of prey, well, they hunt. They inflict harm, but a dove can only bear it. A dove is the perfect symbol of peace. It's the gentlest of creatures.
Joel Brooks:Do you know that there's only one time in scripture where Jesus actually tells you what's going on in his heart, what his heart is. I mean, we have all these teachings of Jesus. I mean, he's explaining who he is. He's explaining his submission, all of these things, how we're supposed to live, but there's only one time he specifically talks about his heart. And and it's in perhaps one of my favorite passages of scripture, Matthew 11, when he says, come to me all who weary and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Joel Brooks:Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. I am gentle and I am lowly in my heart. He's the king of kings. He is the Lord of lords, and he's so gentle. I mean, this means when you fail him, you don't have to brace because he is gentle with you.
Joel Brooks:When you have doubts, he gently understands. You never need to fear some some angry outburst when you come to Jesus because He is gentle with us. He is lowly of heart. Let me just ask you when you think of the world and how they view Christians. Do you think they view Christians more as a bird of prey or as a dove?
Joel Brooks:Do you think they view Christians more as people who are struggling for power or who are striving for gentleness? There is a gentle power of Jesus that we see here when the spirit of God descends upon him like a dove. Now besides being a symbol of peace, a dove is also a symbol of new creation. Remember, the story of the flood and knowing the ark and he sends out a dove. And we know a new creation is beginning when the dove returns with the olive branch.
Joel Brooks:We actually have right there, stained glass. Of the, the 4 symbols that we have through scripture stained glass in this building, one of them is of the dove returning back with the olive branch. It's a very significant moment in human history. And so it's it's a symbol of a new creation, and that's actually what we're seeing here. You know, a dove was present or the imagery of a dove in the very first moments of creation.
Joel Brooks:In Genesis 1, we read these words. 1st word or first verse of the Bible, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness covered over the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. That word hovering is the word fluttering. It's the same word that's used to describe later in scripture a bird fluttering over something.
Joel Brooks:As a matter of fact, if you go through the old read the oldest Aramaic translation of the old testament, it's called the Targum. It's what the people, the Jewish people would have been reading in the 1st century because they spoke Aramaic. This is how Genesis 1 is translated. The Spirit of God was fluttering over the face of the waters like a dove. So do you get a little glimpse into the beauty of the moment that's happening right here at Jesus' baptism?
Joel Brooks:Jesus, He He comes out of the water and then the spirit of God once again comes and flutters over the waters beginning getting a new creation in Christ. Christ is bringing out a new creation in this entire world. So the baptism of Jesus here is actually a creation story because Jesus is no ordinary man. He is the son of God. He is now being anointed by the spirit in order to bring about a new creation.
Joel Brooks:And we're gonna see that everywhere that Jesus goes throughout the the gospel of Mark, everywhere He goes, new creation happens. He restores everything. When He came to you, didn't Jesus recreate you? Is that what Paul's talking about in 2nd Corinthians 5 when he says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away.
Joel Brooks:The new has come. When Jesus came out of those baptismal waters, the old passed away. The new was coming through His kingship. Just like the first creation story in Genesis, we also see all of the members of the Trinity at work here in this new creation story. Here, we clearly see God existing as 3 persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Joel Brooks:We have the father speaking words of love to the son and the holy spirit coming and resting on Jesus. Let me explain the Trinity to you this way. Yes. I'm gonna clear up everything for you. You've been waiting for this moment.
Joel Brooks:I I realize that each of the persons of the trinity being God, and yet all 3 together also being God is more than a little confusing. But don't dare just think this is a doctrine or just some song we we sing in holy, holy, holy. Don't think it's just some kind of line item in in ancient confession. This is a transformational truth. The gospel is summed up and God being a triune God.
Joel Brooks:So let me try to explain it to you this way. When when Jesus came to this world and he taught us to do things like love your neighbor, as you as you would love yourself, or do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Where do you think he came up with that? Not it's not a rhetorical question. I'm being 100% serious here.
Joel Brooks:Where do you think he came up with it? Do you think Jesus was just, you know, walking down the road and he, you know, He he watched some children play, but like it always happens when children play, it quickly turns into fighting, and so maybe they start fighting over a toy. Or maybe Jesus, He he walks by some of the merchants and He sees some merchants cheating some customers. Or maybe he sees a Roman soldier forcing someone to do to carry a burden for him. And Jesus, maybe at those moments, he stopped and he thought, you know, the world would probably be a better place if instead of being selfish, we loved one another like we love ourselves.
Joel Brooks:What if we did to other people like like we would want them to do to us? I think that'd make the world a better place. Is that how Jesus came up with these things? No. They they came from him because he has existed as God in 3 persons.
Joel Brooks:Jesus taught us to live this way because this is how God lives. This is how God as 3 persons has lived for all of eternity. God is a community of persons loving one another, serving one another just like they do themselves. Each person of the Trinity lives to adore and to glorify the other. Do you realize the implications for this?
Joel Brooks:Do this. No. You don't Because the implications are huge. We're we're about to get a little deep here and I've had a little sleep, so y'all hang on. Okay?
Joel Brooks:Think of this. If God existed as a single person, think how different the universe would be. Think of God existing, you know, is like the typical image of God. You know, the old man with the white hair and beard, you know, and it's just Him. If He it was only God as a single person, then that would have meant that there was no love since the beginning of time.
Joel Brooks:That he did not create the universe out of love because love cannot exist with 1 person. Love can only exist in a relationship. It can't exist in a vacuum. But if God has forever existed as 3 persons loving one another, then this means that love is the ultimate reality of the entire universe, not power. Love is.
Joel Brooks:Love is what has always been there. Which is of course what the Apostle John means when he writes his letter and he says, you know who God is? God is love. God is love. What he means by that is God is 3 persons forever loving and serving and glorifying one another.
Joel Brooks:And from that relationship, this love has spilled out and created the world we have. He changes everything. God existing as 3 persons is what makes this a beautiful universe. It makes it It's what makes it a hopeful place. So I hope you see that this is way more than just some line item in an old confession.
Joel Brooks:So beautiful what we have here. I could not imagine a universe created by just a single person. Another thing just about the trinity is, my kids and I, we talk about this all the time. But it's obviously proof that the God of the Bible's real, because no one makes this stuff up. I mean, seriously, would you, if you're just gonna be, I'd like to make up, you know, religion today.
Joel Brooks:I'm gonna start with the fundamental part of this faith as something no one can understand or explain. You know, and you write that down. You don't base your entire religion on something that Good grief. We still struggle to understand it and to grasp it. But we believe this because this is how God has revealed Himself.
Joel Brooks:This is who He is and we see this here at Jesus' baptism. A number of years ago, many years ago, as you can see because I was young from those pictures, Didn't even recognize that guy up there. When I was in seminary, I had a class with a professor named James Houston. Maybe some of you have read some of the stuff he taught at Oxford, but he didn't just teach one subject. He he taught philosophy, geography, and theology at Oxford.
Joel Brooks:So he was a pretty smart dude. He was in a small group with CS Lewis, lived next door to Tolkien. J. I. Packer was his best friend.
Joel Brooks:He went on to found Regent College. He's still alive. He's a 100 years old. He lives in Vancouver, and we've been emailing each other over the last couple of months. When when I took a class with him, I once went to him after class to introduce myself.
Joel Brooks:And, he asked me who I was. And so, you know, I I said, well, you know, I'm married. I'm from Atlanta. Obviously, I'm here at Beeson, but right now, I'm working as a forklift driver. And he listens.
Joel Brooks:He goes, that's great. I didn't ask you what you did. I asked you who you are. Do you know how hard of a question that is to answer? Who are you?
Joel Brooks:Who are you? I'm a child of God. I've been learning. I'm a child of God. And I asked him, I said, how can I pray better?
Joel Brooks:He goes, pray to the triune God. Pray to the triune God. Because as his child, you're being invited into that relationship. You wanna deepen your prayer life? Pray to father, son, and spirit.
Joel Brooks:Now let's look at these words that God speaks over Jesus. You are my beloved son. With you, I am well pleased. How much time do I have? Gosh.
Joel Brooks:Buckle up. So much here. I hate leaving any of it out. You are my beloved son with whom I am well in you I'm well pleased. I what child would not want to hear that from their parent?
Joel Brooks:Even Jesus needed his dad's affirmation. I'm 50 years old. I am still being shaped by the words my father spoke over me. For some reason, a father's words carry a disproportionate amount of weight than all other voices. And they can be used to to affirm a child and to set them up for a lifetime of success, or they could be crippling and do almost irreparable harm.
Joel Brooks:Here the father, he builds his son up and he just he says, I just want you to know I love you. I am so pleased with you. Can I tell you that if you're in Christ, these are the words your father speaks to you? I love you. You're my child, and I am so pleased with you.
Joel Brooks:I I I don't pretend to know all of the voices that you've you've been listening to this week or all the struggles that you have. I can imagine that for some of you, you have heard some things this week that have been devastating. Perhaps you've overheard some of your friends talking about you and it hurt. Perhaps your professor or your your supervisor came and said your work was less than stellar. And these things have just hurt you.
Joel Brooks:Perhaps your parents have said they're disappointed in you. If that's you, hear these words from your heavenly father. You are my child and I love you and I am so, so pleased with you. Those words are a rock for you to build your life on. Those words, let them wash over you.
Joel Brooks:Let them carry you. Cling to those and no one else's. You're a child of God. Even Jesus needed His Father's affirmation. After Jesus received these words of affirmation, He went on to his mission.
Joel Brooks:But you need to see that his mission was actually shaped by these words of affirmation. So they are words of affirmation, but they're, they're more than that. The father's not just expressing his love to Jesus. He's actually fusing together 3 different passages of scripture into that one statement. He's quoting from Genesis 22, which is from the Torah.
Joel Brooks:He's quoting from Psalm 2, which is from the wisdom literature. He's quoting from Isaiah 42 from the prophets. In other words, He wants you to see that all of the Hebrew Scriptures points to Jesus being the Son of God. So we have the witness of all of scripture and then we have the witness of Father as to Jesus' identity in this short little statement. He's letting us know who He is and letting us know what He's come to do because this little statement contains the entire gospel story.
Joel Brooks:In Genesis chapter 22, this is when Abraham was asked by God to sacrifice his son, Isaac. But here you find the phrase that he's not just to sacrifice his son. Says, but take the son whom you love. That's the only time that phrase is found in scripture. The son whom you love.
Joel Brooks:So here we're we're we're seeing that Jesus is actually the fulfillment of that story. And unlike Isaac, he's not going to be spared. Jesus is going to be sacrificed. Psalm 2 is a royal Psalm. It's when God is speaking to the king or to the Messiah and he says, you are my son.
Joel Brooks:And then he tells his son, I will give to you the nations as your inheritance. Then in Isaiah 42, we hear these words from God. We open up our service with them. Behold my servant whom I uphold my chosen in whom my soul delights. I've put my spirit upon him.
Joel Brooks:He will bring forth justice to the nations. And whom my soul delights, I have put my spirit upon him. These words in Isaiah 42, they're a prophecy about this mysterious servant who's gonna come and suffer. And somehow through his suffering, he's gonna deliver all of us from our sins. And what God does is in this one statement, you are my son and you and my will, please, is He fuses together all of these scriptures into these affirming words that tell us the gospel story.
Joel Brooks:That he was going to send his son, Jesus, whom He loves, whom is the Messiah. And this son was going to be our servant and He was going to suffer and be sacrificed for our sin. And then as a result of this suffering, we along with all the nations would become his. Story of the Bible in just a few words. So these words don't just affirm who Jesus is.
Joel Brooks:They tell us why he came. The first thing that Jesus does after he receives this anointing by the spirit and comes out of the baptismal waters is that he listens to the spirit and the spirit of God then drives him out in the wilderness to be tempted. We read that the spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness and he was tempted for 40 days being tempted by Satan. I mean, you go from this one amazing moment to instantly you're attacked. We see here that being a child of God does not exclude you from temptations.
Joel Brooks:It actually puts you right in the middle of them. Some of you have been wondering. It's like, I don't understand. I mean, I got up this morning. I had my quiet time with Jesus.
Joel Brooks:It was so amazing. And man, what a struggle today was. It's like, exactly. That's that's that's how it works. The closer you get to Jesus, the more you're gonna be treated like Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Satan's gonna come after you. It's gonna be harder for him to get you to fall. So his, the temptations are gonna be, have to be taken up a notch. You used to be so easy. But now they're getting closer to Jesus.
Joel Brooks:It's harder. And so the temptations are ratcheted up. So having a good quiet time with God in the morning does not exclude you from temptation. It's likely only going to make them worse as Satan tries harder to get you to fall. And you're going to fall.
Joel Brooks:Many of you are gonna fall before you get back home today. And you're gonna be tempted in some way and you are gonna succumb to temptation and you're gonna sin. Some of you before you even get home today, some of you right now, actually. I I don't know what's going on in your heart or mind, but maybe even right now, there's there's a there's something that you've been tempted by in your falling. If that's you, hear the good news of the gospel.
Joel Brooks:Jesus did not just repent on your behalf. Jesus was tempted on your behalf. Think of this as substitutionary temptation. He was tempted in every way just like us and for us, and he never sinned. Never once did Jesus fail.
Joel Brooks:So if you're keeping track, Jesus lived for us, repented for us, was tempted for us, lived a perfect life for us, and he suffered and died for us. He has become like us so that we might become like him. That's the gospel story. How would you respond if I were to ask you who you were? Who are you?
Joel Brooks:Would you start rattling off all the things you've been trying to do? Or would you say, I am a child of God. He loves me. He is pleased with me, not because of the things I'm doing, but because I'm in Christ. Let me pray this for you.
Joel Brooks:Father, I pray for each person here that they would know the love and the pleasure that you take in them, that overflows to them, that they would experience that to the very core of their being. Thank you for allowing us to be your child. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.