WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.419 morning. My name is Matthew Capone, and I'm the pastor here at Cheyenne Mountain Presbyterian 00:00:05.419 --> 00:00:10.580 Church, and it's my joy to bring God's Word to you today. A special welcome if you're new or 00:00:10.580 --> 00:00:14.120 visiting with us. We're glad that you're here, and we're glad that you're here not because we're 00:00:14.120 --> 00:00:20.640 trying to fill seats, but because we're following Jesus together as one community. And as we follow 00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:25.339 Jesus together, we become convinced that there's no one so good they don't need God's grace, 00:00:25.339 --> 00:00:30.940 and no one so bad they can't have it, which is why we come back week after week to see what God has 00:00:30.940 --> 00:00:36.480 to say to us in His Word. We're continuing now in our series on the Gospel of Mark, so I invite you 00:00:36.480 --> 00:00:41.420 to turn there with me now. You remember that the Gospel of Mark tells the story of Jesus in His life 00:00:41.420 --> 00:00:46.480 and His death and His resurrection. And when we talk about Jesus, we're not talking about an idea 00:00:46.480 --> 00:00:51.900 or an abstraction or a theory. We're talking about a real man who lived in real time and real space. 00:00:51.899 --> 00:00:56.659 So last week, I mentioned the fact that He was born in a town called Bethlehem, which is five to six 00:00:56.659 --> 00:01:03.200 miles south of Jerusalem, and He grew up in a town called Nazareth, 64 to 65 miles north of Jerusalem. 00:01:03.460 --> 00:01:08.439 That's just to give us a sense of reality, right? I'll tell you this week, Jesus had brothers and 00:01:08.439 --> 00:01:16.759 sisters. In fact, He was one of at least seven kids. So if you come from a large family, Jesus knows what 00:01:16.760 --> 00:01:22.400 that's like. If you have both brothers and sisters, Jesus knows what that's like as well. 00:01:22.939 --> 00:01:27.880 Now you notice I said at least seven brothers or sisters. Why did I say at least, and why did I not 00:01:27.880 --> 00:01:34.000 give you an exact number? That's a great question. I'll tell you next week. Okay, we're coming to 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:40.160 Mark chapter 1. You remember we're asking two questions. We're asking who is Jesus, and how do we 00:01:40.160 --> 00:01:45.860 respond to Him? And last week, we saw that Jesus is our Savior. He came with the baptism of the Holy 00:01:45.859 --> 00:01:51.219 Spirit, which means that He had the power to do real change in us. He had the power of the Holy 00:01:51.219 --> 00:01:57.500 Spirit. And so we talked about the fact that Jesus is the doctor. He told us in Mark chapter 2, verse 17, 00:01:57.620 --> 00:02:03.159 He's come not for the righteous, but for the sinners, because those who are well have no need of a 00:02:03.159 --> 00:02:08.240 physician, but those who are sick. And so you'll remember we talked about if you are interested in 00:02:08.240 --> 00:02:15.319 Jesus, you have to admit real need. That is the price of admission. You can take the class, or you can 00:02:15.319 --> 00:02:21.060 audit it. If you want to take Jesus' class, you have to come with humility, admitting and confessing 00:02:21.060 --> 00:02:26.539 your sins. This week, we're going to come with those same questions, who is Jesus? And we're going 00:02:26.539 --> 00:02:33.900 to see two things. Jesus is both our King, and He is our Redeemer. He's our King, and He's our Redeemer. 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:38.379 It's with that, I invite you to turn with me to Mark chapter 1. We're going to be starting at verse 9 and 00:02:38.379 --> 00:02:43.719 going through verse 11. You can turn with me in your worship guide near the end. You can turn in your Bible, 00:02:43.719 --> 00:02:48.800 or you can turn on your phone. Regardless of where you turn, remember that this is God's Word. 00:02:49.359 --> 00:02:54.319 And God tells us that His Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, which means that God 00:02:54.319 --> 00:03:00.960 has not left us to stumble alone in the dark, but instead He's given us His Word to show us the way 00:03:00.960 --> 00:03:03.860 to go. And so I invite you to read with me now, starting at verse 9. 00:03:05.460 --> 00:03:13.300 In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when He came up 00:03:13.300 --> 00:03:19.140 out of the water, immediately He saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on Him 00:03:19.140 --> 00:03:27.480 like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, You are my beloved Son. With you, I am well pleased. 00:03:28.480 --> 00:03:32.040 I invite you to pray with me as we come to this portion of God's Word. 00:03:33.160 --> 00:03:37.820 Our Father in Heaven, we thank You and praise You that Jesus was a real man, 00:03:37.819 --> 00:03:42.799 is a real man who lived in real time and real space. And we thank You that You have given us 00:03:42.799 --> 00:03:47.919 Your Word, His words, that we would know the way to go. We ask that You would use this passage this 00:03:47.919 --> 00:03:54.379 morning to strengthen us and encourage us and also to challenge us. You would show us our points of 00:03:54.379 --> 00:04:00.560 need for Your grace, and You'd show us how You meet us at those very same points of need. And we thank You 00:04:00.560 --> 00:04:04.819 most of all that we don't have to earn these things or deserve them, but instead we can simply ask for 00:04:04.819 --> 00:04:15.539 them in Jesus' name. Amen. Of all the many sad things that happened in 2020, you might remember 00:04:15.539 --> 00:04:21.120 one of them what happened at the very beginning of November, which is that Alex Trebek finally died. 00:04:22.199 --> 00:04:28.300 And if you know the name Alex Trebek, you know he's the host of Jeopardy! for 37 years, this iconic 00:04:28.300 --> 00:04:35.100 game show. However, growing up, we did not watch Jeopardy! as a family. And so there was a joke that 00:04:35.100 --> 00:04:39.620 people would say or use that I had to have explained to me. And you might be familiar with this joke. 00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:44.220 It's not something you tell, but it's something you sing. There's times when someone might, and I'm going to do 00:04:44.220 --> 00:04:52.920 this, they might start humming. And I won't continue because there's enough suffering in the world without 00:04:52.920 --> 00:04:58.759 you hearing me say the rest of it. But what are people trying to do or say when they hum the 00:04:58.759 --> 00:05:04.040 Jeopardy! song? Well, they're poking you. They're saying a couple things. First of all, maybe it's time 00:05:04.040 --> 00:05:09.580 for you to finally make a decision. You have taken way too long. And so instead of just saying that, I'm 00:05:09.580 --> 00:05:15.639 going to hum the song. They might be saying, you know, this is just a long process. We've got to figure 00:05:15.639 --> 00:05:22.639 it out, right? But in doing that, they don't have to explain anything else. No one hums the Jeopardy! theme song. 00:05:23.079 --> 00:05:27.899 And then says, by the way, this is the theme song from Jeopardy! which was hosted by Alex Trebek. 00:05:28.479 --> 00:05:32.939 And he did it for 37. They don't do any of the things that I just explained to you. Nothing else 00:05:32.939 --> 00:05:40.779 needs to be explained, right? You can hear four notes and it calls up all these other pieces of 00:05:40.779 --> 00:05:48.959 information. It's so known and recognized that nothing else needs to be said. This morning as we look in 00:05:48.959 --> 00:05:55.479 verses 9 through 11, this is what is going on in this passage. There are some notes that are being 00:05:55.479 --> 00:06:01.599 played that call up all sorts of pieces of information and background. We are going to see 00:06:01.599 --> 00:06:08.979 here quotes from the Old Testament that are just a few notes from much larger songs. That's what we're 00:06:08.979 --> 00:06:12.919 going to dive into here. And it's important to understand as we read the Gospel of Mark, some people 00:06:12.920 --> 00:06:18.240 like to think of the New Testament as more important than the Old Testament. It's in fact critical for us 00:06:18.240 --> 00:06:23.560 to understand the Old Testament as we read the New Testament because these are Old Testament songs 00:06:23.560 --> 00:06:28.220 that are being sung. I'll give you an example. There's a show that's recently come out called 00:06:28.220 --> 00:06:33.240 WandaVision, which if I remember correctly is based on Marvel Comics. I haven't watched it, so I'm just 00:06:33.240 --> 00:06:41.920 I'm trying to nerd up here. And my housemate was watching it and he was multiple episodes in and I 00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:45.639 was sitting down with him for a minute to watch it with him. And he started trying to explain it to me 00:06:45.639 --> 00:06:49.180 and he finally just said, you know, honestly, if you don't watch it from the beginning, it's going to be 00:06:49.180 --> 00:06:55.139 kind of impossible to understand. Now the Bible can stand by itself. The Gospel of Mark can stand by 00:06:55.139 --> 00:06:59.900 itself, so I don't mean to intimidate you. But unless we understand its Old Testament background, 00:06:59.899 --> 00:07:07.319 we are not going to fully grasp what is going on here. We have to know these few notes that are 00:07:07.319 --> 00:07:12.339 being sung to understand what Mark is telling us. And so we're going to see again those two notes, 00:07:12.419 --> 00:07:18.239 first the king and then the redeemer. First the king. One of our notes we have here, and we're going 00:07:18.239 --> 00:07:26.719 to jump to verse 11. God speaks over Jesus here and says, you are my beloved son. You're my beloved son. 00:07:26.720 --> 00:07:32.980 When we hear this word son being caught up, God calling someone his son, that's just a few notes 00:07:32.980 --> 00:07:38.000 of a larger song that goes throughout the Old Testament. And the idea of God's son in the Old 00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:47.000 Testament is the idea of the king. We see this in 2 Samuel 7, verse 14. David is referred to as God's 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:52.200 son that he's established on his throne. Even more important though is the background of Psalm 2, 00:07:52.199 --> 00:07:58.759 which we read earlier this morning. And if you were with us, summer of 2019, we looked at Psalm 2 in 00:07:58.759 --> 00:08:07.680 detail. And Psalm 2 is about God putting his king in Zion to rule over the nations. And he says in 00:08:07.680 --> 00:08:17.659 verse 7, you are my son. And so we hear just this one note from this declaration. And immediately those 00:08:17.660 --> 00:08:25.140 who are familiar with the Old Testament think, aha, this is talking about God's son. This is talking 00:08:25.140 --> 00:08:32.540 about the king. The promises of Psalm 2, that there's going to be a king who rules over all the nations, 00:08:33.019 --> 00:08:40.759 that promise is fulfilled now in Jesus. He is the ultimate king that David looked forward to. 00:08:40.759 --> 00:08:47.960 And so Mark is able in this very short, compressed section, just three verses in that statement, 00:08:48.120 --> 00:08:55.879 to communicate all of those things to us. The point is this. When Jesus operates in this world, he operates 00:08:55.879 --> 00:09:04.240 as the king. He is not just coming as a savior. He is not just coming as someone to teach. He is the 00:09:04.240 --> 00:09:12.379 fulfillment of Psalm 2, coming as the king of both heaven and earth. You think Jesus is a great teacher? 00:09:13.440 --> 00:09:20.299 Amen. Jesus is a great teacher. He's the best teacher. He's also the king. You think that Jesus 00:09:20.299 --> 00:09:26.060 is a savior? Yes, Jesus is the savior. He's the greatest savior. You know what? He's also the king. 00:09:27.159 --> 00:09:34.100 You think Jesus is kind and loving and humble? Yes. Amen. Jesus is kind and loving and humble. 00:09:34.100 --> 00:09:41.519 He's also the Psalm 2 king who's going to come and bring justice to the nations. People will say 00:09:41.519 --> 00:09:46.540 things like, Jesus is my king. Now, that's a wonderful thing to say. I hope Jesus is your king. 00:09:47.120 --> 00:09:55.240 You know what? Jesus isn't just your king. Jesus is the king. And he is the king, whether you like it 00:09:55.240 --> 00:10:04.840 or not. He is coming to fulfill Psalm 2. And so it's hard for us to get expansive of enough of a 00:10:04.840 --> 00:10:11.860 view of vision of Jesus. It's hard to get a large enough vision of him because what we see in Psalm 2 00:10:11.860 --> 00:10:18.759 is something so great it could only be filled by someone divine. Something so great you might begin 00:10:18.759 --> 00:10:24.379 to doubt if it could actually be a reality. And I've mentioned a lot of different things from Psalm 2, 00:10:24.439 --> 00:10:30.059 which shows us what this looks like. This king rules over the nations. This king brings justice. He 00:10:30.059 --> 00:10:36.740 defeats the wicked. Everyone around the world comes to worship and be with this king. Okay, this is 00:10:36.740 --> 00:10:42.480 also, by the way, in Psalm 2, if you remember, the nations come to oppose this king. So it's not just that 00:10:42.480 --> 00:10:48.220 he comes in victory. But there are people who hate him, who fight against him. The nations scoff and 00:10:48.220 --> 00:10:53.360 laugh at him. What's going on right here in the Gospel of Mark, and the reason I'm going through this 00:10:53.360 --> 00:10:59.720 so slowly, is in this very beginning introduction, Mark is giving us the framework that we need to 00:10:59.720 --> 00:11:05.340 understand Jesus. Yes, we're going to get to miracles. Yes, we're going to get to healings. Yes, we're going 00:11:05.340 --> 00:11:11.800 to get to Jesus' teachings. And as we look at those things, we have to understand who he is. 00:11:12.479 --> 00:11:19.019 We are looking last week, this week, and next week at Jesus' identity. And so this begins to make 00:11:19.019 --> 00:11:24.039 sense. As we go forward in the Gospel of Mark, we're going to look back on this section. Oh, Jesus 00:11:24.039 --> 00:11:28.379 gives sight to someone who's blind? Well, of course he does. That makes sense, right? He's the king. 00:11:28.859 --> 00:11:33.620 Jesus is going to care about people from every tribe and tongue and nation? Well, of course he's going 00:11:33.620 --> 00:11:39.719 to do that. He's the Psalm 2 king that every people group comes to. And so this is, in some ways, 00:11:39.720 --> 00:11:46.980 just a background of what's to come later in the Gospel. Jesus casts out demons? Well, of course he 00:11:46.980 --> 00:11:51.899 does. He's the greatest king, right? He's going to have authority over everything and everyone. 00:11:53.580 --> 00:11:59.740 And so for us, Jesus as the king means if you are here this morning, for anyone in this world, 00:11:59.820 --> 00:12:07.680 there is either relief or rejection. There's either relief or rejection. If you remember the very end of 00:12:07.679 --> 00:12:13.839 Psalm 2, it says this in verse 12, kiss the son lest he be angry and you perish in the way, 00:12:14.299 --> 00:12:23.000 for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. One thing we're going to see 00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:28.659 as we go through the Gospel of Mark, it's been pointed out that as we reach the end, the responses 00:12:28.659 --> 00:12:36.299 of people to Jesus become more extreme. That is, either they grow in their love for Jesus or they grow in 00:12:36.299 --> 00:12:43.459 their rejection of Jesus. And the point for us is to highlight that as we encounter Jesus, those are 00:12:43.459 --> 00:12:49.899 our only two choices. There's a sense in which, I've told you before, knowledge is dangerous. There's a 00:12:49.899 --> 00:12:55.740 sense in which it is dangerous for you to be here and to be walking with us through the Gospel of Mark. 00:12:55.959 --> 00:12:59.839 Because what we see in the Bible is that one of those two things becomes true. 00:12:59.840 --> 00:13:07.759 You will not leave the journey, the story of Scripture unchanged. Either you will grow in your 00:13:07.759 --> 00:13:14.360 love of Jesus and see his beauty more and more, or you will grow in your rejection of Jesus, 00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:21.740 and you will dislike him and despise him more and more. But what we learn about this king is you can 00:13:21.740 --> 00:13:29.960 either take refuge in him or you can perish. You can take refuge in him or you can perish. Those are 00:13:29.960 --> 00:13:38.680 the only two options for this king. If you have relief, you're those who take refuge. You can say, 00:13:38.820 --> 00:13:44.159 hey, evil is going to come to an end. There is a God, a man, a king who's powerful enough to put 00:13:44.159 --> 00:13:53.379 all evil away. He's able to make it right. Or you face rejection. The words of Psalm 2, verse 12, 00:13:53.459 --> 00:14:02.120 become true. You perish in the way. There's no middle ground with Jesus, in other words. 00:14:02.879 --> 00:14:08.459 You have to pick where you fall, what your opinion and your thought of him is. I'll leave it there 00:14:08.460 --> 00:14:14.120 because we're going to continue to visit that as we continue in this gospel. It's going to accelerate 00:14:14.120 --> 00:14:21.060 more and more as we make our way to the end. For those of us who do consider ourselves Christians, 00:14:21.180 --> 00:14:26.620 those who seek refuge in the king, the response for us, remember we're asking the question, how do we 00:14:26.620 --> 00:14:31.080 respond to Jesus? One of our responses is what we're doing this morning. We worship him. 00:14:31.080 --> 00:14:39.520 We just sung several songs worshiping Jesus as king. Not only do we come and worship him, we also 00:14:39.520 --> 00:14:46.000 listen to him. If he is the king, if this is truly providing us with the framework we need for the 00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:51.080 rest of the gospel, then we want our ears to be open. We need to be attentive to what Jesus has to 00:14:51.080 --> 00:14:58.440 teach us here in this book. It's setting the stage for the rest of the story to come. There is no one 00:14:58.440 --> 00:15:04.500 who's going to go unchallenged by Jesus. All of us are going to hear things from Jesus that we don't like. 00:15:06.380 --> 00:15:11.360 All of us are going to be called to do and be things by Jesus that we don't want to do and be. 00:15:12.140 --> 00:15:19.480 It's in those moments as we walk through this true story together that we come back to verse 11 and 00:15:19.480 --> 00:15:28.420 remember, yes, I don't like what Jesus has to say here, and I know that he is the king. I know 00:15:28.419 --> 00:15:38.779 he's God's beloved son. Not only is Jesus the king, though, he is also the redeemer. There's another 00:15:38.779 --> 00:15:44.899 note that's being sung here, just a few notes from another larger song of the Old Testament, 00:15:45.559 --> 00:15:51.279 and that's from a song that we find in Isaiah. We see here not just that he's the beloved son, 00:15:51.279 --> 00:15:59.620 we're also told, with you, I am well pleased. And this is a reference to Isaiah chapter 42, verse 1. 00:16:00.079 --> 00:16:04.100 And if you're familiar with the book of Isaiah, if you're an old timer, as I like to call anyone 00:16:04.100 --> 00:16:11.459 who's been here more than a year, you were with us in 2017. At the very end of 2017, during Advent, 00:16:11.559 --> 00:16:17.399 we looked at the four servant songs of Isaiah, which are portions in Isaiah. It's chapters 42, 49, 00:16:17.399 --> 00:16:25.720 50, 52, and 53, that give these songs about a servant. As we saw in 2017, those are songs 00:16:25.720 --> 00:16:32.600 about Jesus. Isaiah chapter 42, verse 1, is the very first verse of the very first song. 00:16:33.539 --> 00:16:42.019 So what we're hearing is just the first few notes, but it pulls up, it brings up everything that we 00:16:42.019 --> 00:16:48.100 learn about the servant in Isaiah. And so everything that's true of that servant is being applied here 00:16:48.100 --> 00:16:54.360 to Jesus. And that servant, the focus there is not on his kingship, but on the fact that he comes 00:16:54.360 --> 00:16:59.419 to suffer. So if you're looking at Isaiah 42, verse 1, you'll see a few things. First of all, 00:16:59.460 --> 00:17:04.700 it's the one in whom my soul delights, is what's said. That's where we see the echo of my beloved son. 00:17:05.259 --> 00:17:10.700 We're also told that this servant, God says, I have put my spirit upon him. This helps us understand 00:17:10.700 --> 00:17:16.460 why the Holy Spirit is descending in this passage. We could have a whole sermon about that. One of the 00:17:16.460 --> 00:17:21.039 reasons the Holy Spirit is descending is because that's what's true of the servant in Isaiah. 00:17:21.819 --> 00:17:27.640 It's this fulfillment, just like we saw last week, the fulfillment of the prophecies. And we see the 00:17:27.640 --> 00:17:34.080 same thing. There's an overlap between Psalm 2 and Isaiah chapter 42, because 42 says he will bring 00:17:34.080 --> 00:17:40.580 justice to the nations. So we have this same king, but with a different emphasis, not on his 00:17:40.579 --> 00:17:46.220 rule and destruction of evil, although it appears here, but on his suffering and his dying. In fact, 00:17:46.259 --> 00:17:51.119 that's what we see. If you were paying close attention, our passage this morning for our 00:17:51.119 --> 00:17:57.500 assurance of pardon came from Isaiah chapter 53. And I'm going to read the larger section now so we 00:17:57.500 --> 00:18:03.980 understand what is being taught here about Jesus. This is from chapter 53, verses 3 through 6. 00:18:03.980 --> 00:18:12.480 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. As one from whom men hide 00:18:12.480 --> 00:18:20.819 their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our 00:18:20.819 --> 00:18:28.839 sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our 00:18:28.839 --> 00:18:36.579 transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. 00:18:37.439 --> 00:18:45.059 And with his wounds, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone 00:18:45.059 --> 00:18:54.939 to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. In other words, Jesus is not just 00:18:54.940 --> 00:19:02.740 the king who's come to bring justice. He's also the king who's come to receive justice. He is going 00:19:02.740 --> 00:19:09.799 to take upon himself the punishment that his people deserve. All we like sheep have gone astray. We are 00:19:09.799 --> 00:19:15.120 all people who've sinned. We're all people who've rebelled against God. We all deserve to be crushed 00:19:15.120 --> 00:19:22.900 like the nations in Psalm chapter 2. And this king is not just going to crush. He's going to be crushed. 00:19:22.900 --> 00:19:29.460 He is going to receive the penalty of sin. That's why it says, verse 5, with his wounds, 00:19:29.820 --> 00:19:36.820 we are healed. As we're looking at the identity of Jesus, last week we saw he had the power to 00:19:36.820 --> 00:19:41.980 change us. He comes with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is what works in our lives 00:19:41.980 --> 00:19:46.400 to change our hearts and our minds. Here we see not that he comes with the power to change, 00:19:46.700 --> 00:19:52.880 but that he pays for the change. Last week we saw he had the power to change. This week we 00:19:52.880 --> 00:19:59.580 we see he pays for the change. And he's going to pay for the change with his own life, with his own 00:19:59.580 --> 00:20:08.540 blood. This answers another question for us. You might have noticed I skipped to verse 11. 00:20:09.560 --> 00:20:14.020 And we have before that, though, verses 9 and 10, where Jesus gets baptized. And this raises a 00:20:14.020 --> 00:20:19.720 question people have been asking for a long time. Why in the world does Jesus have to get baptized? 00:20:19.720 --> 00:20:26.259 We talked about last week, baptism is the way that we say we're in need. We're sinners who need 00:20:26.259 --> 00:20:33.700 forgiveness. Jesus isn't a sinner and he doesn't need forgiveness. So why in the world is he getting 00:20:33.700 --> 00:20:45.120 baptized? Yes, that's the point. Jesus comes and does what he doesn't have to do. Jesus comes and does 00:20:45.119 --> 00:20:52.099 what is appropriate for us. He receives what we should receive. So just as we deserve God's punishment, 00:20:53.119 --> 00:20:58.619 but Jesus takes it for us, he is giving a signal of that at the very beginning. We need baptism. 00:20:59.339 --> 00:21:07.579 Jesus associates with our need by receiving baptism as well. Yes, it doesn't make sense. That's the point. 00:21:07.579 --> 00:21:15.599 Yes, Jesus shouldn't be baptized. He doesn't need to. That's the point. He chooses to do what he doesn't 00:21:15.599 --> 00:21:24.199 have to do all the way to his death on the cross. Jesus takes the place of sinners. That's the point. 00:21:25.159 --> 00:21:33.519 Sinners get baptized. Jesus takes their place. Jesus gets baptized as well. And so there's a 00:21:33.519 --> 00:21:37.359 contradiction in a sense. There's two things that don't really make sense together here in this 00:21:37.359 --> 00:21:44.379 passage. Jesus as king and redeemer are two things that shouldn't go together. On the one hand, he is 00:21:44.379 --> 00:21:50.119 the great king of the entire world. On the other hand, he comes from this obscure place. We're told he 00:21:50.119 --> 00:21:56.079 came from Galilee in verse 9. We're going to go off into a whole rabbit trail about this, but he comes from 00:21:56.079 --> 00:22:00.740 Galilee, which is different than where people were coming to be baptized by John. They were coming from Judea. 00:22:00.740 --> 00:22:06.519 Galilee is not where you would expect this great king to come from. Bethlehem is not where he should 00:22:06.519 --> 00:22:12.799 be born. And so you have this great king who comes from a obscure place. Even more than that, he's so 00:22:12.799 --> 00:22:20.579 great on the one hand that the heavens rip open to make a pronouncement about him. Verse 10, the heavens 00:22:20.579 --> 00:22:26.380 were being torn open before God makes this pronouncement. This, by the way, is another note that's meant to pull 00:22:26.380 --> 00:22:31.760 up a greater song from the Old Testament. The heavens being ripped open is a sign of God's action, his 00:22:31.760 --> 00:22:38.240 return, his presence, his proclamation. So Jesus is so great on the one hand that the heavens are ripped 00:22:38.240 --> 00:22:45.600 open. He's so humble on the other hand that he receives John the Baptist's baptism. And you'll remember 00:22:45.600 --> 00:22:53.440 last week, verse 8, we ended with John saying, the one who comes after me, I'm not even worthy to untie his 00:22:53.440 --> 00:23:00.279 sandals. And then immediately, the next verse, Jesus receives that baptism. And so it's highlighting 00:23:00.279 --> 00:23:06.880 for us over and over again, Jesus is the king who's greater than we can imagine. He's also the king 00:23:06.880 --> 00:23:13.279 who's more humble than we can imagine. You might think of Jesus receiving John the Baptist's baptism 00:23:13.279 --> 00:23:22.220 in this way. Some of you know, I have a sort of janky gym in my garage. And I want you to imagine 00:23:22.220 --> 00:23:28.879 Arnold Schwarzenegger shows up to my garage, travels from California. And he comes in and he says, 00:23:28.960 --> 00:23:33.879 Matthew, I want you to teach me. I want you to teach me about lifting. I want to learn the stretching 00:23:33.879 --> 00:23:38.779 program that you're doing. However you're setting up your weekly, I want to copy the same thing. 00:23:38.779 --> 00:23:48.480 What would I say? I'm not even worthy to hand him the chalk bag, right? Even more so, Jesus coming 00:23:48.480 --> 00:23:56.980 here to John. He is, in being the king and the redeemer, he's the humble king. He's the king who 00:23:56.980 --> 00:24:05.019 is greater and more humble than we expect. And so again, we're asking, who is Jesus? How do we respond? 00:24:05.019 --> 00:24:09.900 How do we respond? Not just to the fact that he's the king, but also that he's the redeemer? 00:24:10.980 --> 00:24:16.420 Well, we're going to come back to the same question we had last week. If we are healed by Jesus' wounds, 00:24:16.960 --> 00:24:26.519 are you healed by Jesus' wounds? Are you willing to admit your need? I'm talking about this in 00:24:26.519 --> 00:24:32.279 generalities today because I know as we go through the gospel of Mark, we're going to see this in very 00:24:32.279 --> 00:24:39.000 specific ways. There's going to be incredibly specific applications. Are you continuing to ask 00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:47.339 Jesus to heal you? It's not enough to say or know or believe, Jesus healed me a long time ago. I don't 00:24:47.339 --> 00:24:56.980 need him anymore. No, Jesus is coming for everyone. And so it's not just that Jesus is our king. 00:24:56.980 --> 00:25:07.720 Is Jesus also a healer no matter how long you've been a Christian? Do you know how much you need to be healed? 00:25:09.279 --> 00:25:19.799 Do you know how much you need Jesus' wounds? Are you willing to submit to this king? Are you willing to follow him? 00:25:19.799 --> 00:25:32.159 Is he your redeemer? And as we go through this gospel, that challenge, that question is going to come up over and over again. 00:25:33.279 --> 00:25:41.579 Of course, we know that Jesus here is beginning his ministry. This is often called his commissioning or the inauguration of his earthly ministry. 00:25:41.839 --> 00:25:47.639 And as I've pointed out many times before, I love bookends, things that repeat at the beginning of something and at the end. 00:25:47.640 --> 00:25:51.660 We see this word for ripping, the heavens being torn open. 00:25:52.380 --> 00:25:56.380 We're going to have to wait a long time in the gospel of Mark before we see that word again. 00:25:57.160 --> 00:26:03.400 When it shows up a second time, it's going to be for the ripping of the curtain in the temple, 00:26:03.880 --> 00:26:07.840 which occurs after Jesus' death. 00:26:09.360 --> 00:26:16.500 In other words, Jesus is able to be our redeemer because he knows the journey that this begins 00:26:16.500 --> 00:26:18.559 with one ripping will end in another. 00:26:19.240 --> 00:26:22.140 It is going to end with his death. 00:26:23.039 --> 00:26:24.420 He is going to come. 00:26:24.500 --> 00:26:31.339 He's going to pay the price and the penalty for us and our sins by dying the death that we deserve on the cross. 00:26:32.019 --> 00:26:34.579 There is one ripping here at the beginning, 00:26:34.779 --> 00:26:39.380 which points forward to another and final ripping at the end. 00:26:39.380 --> 00:26:45.540 And so as we look at this passage, brothers and sisters, this morning, we are just clearing our throats. 00:26:46.700 --> 00:26:50.180 We are just getting a sense of who Jesus is. 00:26:50.260 --> 00:26:54.300 We're getting the foundation, the background, the 101 of this gospel 00:26:54.300 --> 00:26:59.820 so that we can continue to understand Jesus as he goes forward in his ministry. 00:26:59.819 --> 00:27:11.039 In his autobiography, My Share of the Task, Stanley McChrystal talks about many points during his military career, 00:27:11.099 --> 00:27:13.720 and he shares of the time that he was at Fort Benning in Georgia. 00:27:14.539 --> 00:27:20.539 He was in the 3rd Ranger Battalion, and he witnessed something that he never witnessed before or after. 00:27:21.139 --> 00:27:27.000 It was in the March of 1989, and they were going through an exercise, 00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:31.359 which was the change of command on Fort Benning, and while this change of command was occurring, 00:27:32.519 --> 00:27:35.200 he saw this incredible example of leadership. 00:27:35.359 --> 00:27:40.460 There were 500 rangers standing in formation in the drizzle waiting for the ceremony to start, 00:27:40.579 --> 00:27:44.579 and rather than bringing them outside, they just let them stand outside in the rain for hours. 00:27:45.700 --> 00:27:50.059 Now, that might be unusual, but what's even more unusual is this. 00:27:51.079 --> 00:27:53.960 About 20 minutes before we were meant to start the ceremony, 00:27:53.960 --> 00:27:57.279 a single uniformed individual emerged from the building, 00:27:57.940 --> 00:28:02.539 walked across the soggy grass, and sat in one of the wet chairs facing the rangers. 00:28:03.279 --> 00:28:07.000 It was a special operations commander, Major General Gary Luck. 00:28:07.620 --> 00:28:14.059 As the rain fell steadily, he sat there, looking at us, every ranger eye on him. 00:28:14.819 --> 00:28:16.279 He didn't wave or call out. 00:28:17.039 --> 00:28:18.740 He didn't order us into rigid attention. 00:28:18.740 --> 00:28:23.980 He simply sat still under the same rain that fell on us. 00:28:24.980 --> 00:28:30.859 At one point, someone sent a young soldier running from the center with an umbrella that he tried to hold over luck. 00:28:31.319 --> 00:28:35.720 But with a reassuring pat on the shoulder, the general sent the soldier away. 00:28:36.660 --> 00:28:39.440 He sat at least 100 yards from the formation, 00:28:40.099 --> 00:28:45.980 but I never saw a commander closer to soldiers than he was at that moment. 00:28:45.980 --> 00:28:53.779 Brothers and sisters, Jesus' greatness comes not just in his power and his authority, 00:28:54.079 --> 00:28:55.660 although he has them. 00:28:56.380 --> 00:29:03.380 His greatness comes in that he is willing to sit in the rain with us. 00:29:03.900 --> 00:29:08.180 He received the baptism that was meant for us. 00:29:08.660 --> 00:29:11.539 He stood in the place of sinners. 00:29:11.539 --> 00:29:16.299 He comes to take on our sin and our suffering. 00:29:16.579 --> 00:29:16.980 Let's pray. 00:29:18.859 --> 00:29:23.099 Our Father in heaven, we praise you and thank you again for your word. 00:29:23.200 --> 00:29:29.200 We ask again that you would challenge us that you're the king and you'd comfort us that you're the redeemer, 00:29:29.420 --> 00:29:33.759 that you would remind us that no one has ever been closer to us 00:29:33.759 --> 00:29:37.339 because you join with us in our sin and our suffering. 00:29:37.339 --> 00:29:40.859 We ask that you would drive that deep into our hearts this morning and this week, 00:29:40.939 --> 00:29:43.500 that we would grow in our love and obedience to you. 00:29:43.559 --> 00:29:46.159 And we ask these things in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. 00:29:46.599 --> 00:29:46.879 Amen.