Good morning. My name is Matthew Capone, and I'm the pastor here at Cheyenne Mountain Presbyterian Church,
and it's my joy to bring God's Word to you today. A special welcome if you're new or visiting with us.
We're glad that you're here, and we're glad that you're here not because we're trying to fill seats,
but because we're following Jesus together as one community, and as we follow Jesus together,
we become convinced that there's no one so good, they don't need God's grace, and no one so bad they can't have it,
which is why we come back week after week to hear what God has to say to us in His Word.
We're continuing this morning our study in the Gospel of Mark.
You'll remember that the Gospel of Mark tells the story of Jesus in His life and His death and His resurrection,
and as I've been telling you, when we look at Jesus, when we talk about Him,
we're not talking about an abstraction or an idea or a theory.
We're not talking about a mythical figure.
In fact, we're talking about a real man who lived in real time and real space,
and so I've been giving you these facts about Jesus to help us remember just the earthiness and the reality of Him.
I've told you a couple times, two weeks ago, that He was born in Bethlehem, five to six miles south of Jerusalem.
He grew up in Nazareth, 64 to 65 miles north of Jerusalem, and Jesus had brothers and sisters.
I told you last week, He had at least seven.
Now, why do I say at least seven?
Why did I not give you an exact number?
Well, it's because the Bible does not give us an exact number.
In Mark 6, verse 3, which we'll come to eventually,
and also in Matthew 13, verse 55, we're told that Jesus has four brothers.
Their names are James and Joseph and Judas and Simon, so four brothers, and then He has sisters.
So we're not told how many sisters He has.
We just know that He has two or more.
Now, why the Bible doesn't tell us?
My personal theory, which I can't prove, is that He had so many sisters that they couldn't name them all.
We actually don't know exactly why it doesn't tell us.
But just do the math with me.
So you've got four brothers.
Jesus is number five.
Then you've got two sisters, six and seven.
So that's how we have at least Jesus being one of at least seven brothers and sisters.
So as I said last week, if you have a lot of brothers and sisters, Jesus feels your pain.
Okay, this morning we are coming.
We're continuing going slowly through Mark chapter 1.
We're coming now to verses 12 and 13.
And we're asking our two questions for the gospel of Mark.
Our first question is, who is Jesus?
And our second question is, how do we respond to Him?
Who is Jesus?
How do we respond to Him?
And we saw at the very beginning, chapter 1, verses 1 through 8, that Jesus is the one who comes looking for our repentance.
So He comes as the physician.
Remember, Jesus tells us in Mark chapter 2, verse 17,
those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
I've come to call the righteous, but sinners.
So He comes as the physician.
We have to respond to Him by admitting our need.
Remember, need is the price of admission for Jesus.
Then last week we looked at Jesus' baptism, and we saw that Jesus is not just the physician.
He's also the king that we see from Psalm 2, the king who rules over the nations.
And He's also the suffering servant from Isaiah.
So He's so great on the one hand that the heavens are torn open for God to speak about Him.
He's so humble on the other hand that He receives baptism from John the Baptist,
who's unworthy even to untie His sandals.
And so He stands in the place of sinners.
This morning as we come to verses 12 and 13, we're going to see, again in our question about Jesus,
we're going to see Jesus' perfection, and we're also going to look at Jesus' power.
We're going to look at His perfection and His power.
And with that, I invite you to turn with me to the Gospel of Mark chapter 1, verse 12.
You can turn there in your worship guide.
You can turn there in your Bible.
You can turn there in your phone.
Regardless of where you turn, remember that this is God's Word.
And God tells us that His Word is more precious than gold, even the finest gold,
and it's sweeter than honey, even honey that comes straight from the honeycomb.
And so that's why we read now Mark chapter 1, starting at verse 12.
I invite you to pray with me as we come to this portion of God's Word.
Our Father in heaven, we thank you again that you have spoken to us,
and we ask that you would speak to us clearly this morning by your Word,
that you would show us Jesus, that we would understand more who He is,
and that you'd encourage us and you'd challenge us to follow Him.
We ask that you do these things by your Spirit,
that you would help us do what we cannot do alone,
which is to hear from you and to respond.
We ask these things in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
If you are familiar at all with rock climbing,
you know that there's at least two types of climbing you can do.
You can do what's called free climbing,
or you can do what's called free solo.
And if you're free climbing, it means that you use ropes
and you use safety equipment not to help you, but just to protect you.
So you're using all your own strength to move up the rock.
The good thing is if you fall, you have a rope to catch you.
If you hit the ground, you have a helmet to protect you.
Now, free solo, however, is a step beyond that.
You have to use all your own strength to push yourself up the rock,
just like in free climbing.
But in free solo, you have no safety equipment.
So you don't have any ropes to back you up.
Often, if you see pictures or video of people free soloing,
they have no helmet either.
And so it is just you and the rock.
And you can imagine, obviously, this is extremely dangerous.
Less than 1% of people who rock climb will do free soloing
because it's basically you have to be crazy to do it.
Now, if you have Disney Plus or Netflix,
you probably know where I'm going here.
The movie Free Solo came out in 2018,
and it tells the story of this man named Alex Honnold
whose free solo's El Capitan,
which is this 3,200 feet flat, just straight up rock face
on Yosemite National Park in California.
And so he does what no one has done before,
what is literally crazy.
In fact, at some point in the movie,
they find out his amygdala doesn't really work.
So he doesn't have an appropriate measure of fear
like a normal person would.
And we track his time as he's training
and preparing to climb up this flat rock face.
Now, his friend, Tommy Caldwell,
who has his own movie called The Dawn Wall,
shows up at various points throughout Free Solo
and he tells us this to explain what it is
that this man's up against.
Imagine an Olympic gold medal level achievement
that if you don't get that gold medal,
you're going to die.
That's pretty much what free soloing El Cap is like.
You have to do it perfectly.
And then later he tells us,
I think everybody who has made free soloing
a big part of their life is dead now.
And so he lays out the stakes for us.
It is either perfection on the one hand
or death on the other.
That's what this man is up against.
It's a binary choice.
He's either going to succeed or he's going to die.
And so as it comes to the point in the film
where he's actually going to do the climb,
his girlfriend, Sunny, leaves town
because she can't stand to be there
where he's doing the climb.
She just waits with a cell phone
so that she can receive news
about whether he's been successful or not.
Of course, if you've watched it,
you know how it ends.
He makes it to the top in just under four hours.
And so we see at the very end of the movie this text.
On June 3rd, 2017,
Alex Honnold becomes the first person
to free solo El Capitan.
It took him three hours and 56 minutes.
Now I tell you all this
as we come to Jesus' time in the wilderness
because Alex does two things here.
First of all,
he does something that's absolutely perfect.
He is able to climb up
at a completely 90 degree straight up rock face
for 3,200 feet with no helmet and no ropes.
Not only does he do something
that's completely perfect,
he also is able to succeed
where no one else has been able to.
He succeeds where others have failed.
And as we come to this passage this morning
in Mark chapter one,
we are looking at something very similar.
When we talk about Jesus,
as I mentioned during our confession of faith this morning,
we often talk about the fact that Jesus dies for our sins.
He paid the penalty for our sins.
And amen, we believe that's true.
That is our hope.
What we also need to remember
is that Jesus did not just take the punishment we deserve.
He also lived the perfect life
that we should have lived but did not.
And we see that perfection,
that sinlessness of Jesus throughout his life.
We're gonna see it throughout the gospel of Mark.
We see it in a special way here in this passage
because Mark is highlighting for us
that Jesus does what is perfect.
He succeeds where others have failed.
And specifically, he succeeds here
where the nation of Israel failed.
And I'll explain.
Remember last week, I talked about the fact
that we can hear just a few notes sometimes
in the New Testament,
and it will pull up for us this whole story
from the Old Testament.
Just like Mark did that last week,
he's doing it this week as well.
And so I invite you to turn back in your worship guide
and look at our reading from Deuteronomy chapter eight.
And I'm gonna show you this echo here that's happening.
There's this echo that happens
between the New Testament and the Old Testament.
First of all, Jesus is out in the wilderness for 40 days.
You'll see in Deuteronomy chapter eight in verse four,
God tells them you were in the wilderness for 40 years.
So Jesus, 40 days being tempted.
He's tempted Israel in the wilderness for 40 years.
We're told, again, wilderness, by the way,
appears in the book of that chapter,
that reading three times.
We see it in verse two.
We see it in verse 15.
We see it in verse 16.
If you've been with us for a while,
you know that repetition in the Bible really matters.
So wilderness here is an idea showing up over and over.
Same thing in this reading from Mark.
We see the word wilderness show up in verse 12 and verse 13.
We saw it earlier, by the way.
John the Baptist is out baptizing in the wilderness.
So there's this echo of 40 days, 40 years.
There's the echo of the wilderness.
There's even an echo of wild animals.
If you look in verse 15 of Deuteronomy chapter eight,
God tells them about the scorpions and the serpents
that he saved them from.
Why is Jesus faced with wild animals as well?
Look at verse 13.
Because he is in the wild and dangerous wilderness,
just like Israel.
And if that were not enough,
we can also see here,
angels were ministering to him.
Deuteronomy chapter 16,
God talks about how he cared for Israel in the wilderness.
Now, if you think that I'm just making this up
and I just happened to find some words that correspond,
I'll tell you in Matthew chapter four
and Luke chapter four,
which are the other passages
that talk about Jesus' temptation,
Jesus actually quotes directly from Deuteronomy chapter eight.
And so we're meant to see here this pattern,
this incident here that helps us understand
what Jesus' ministry will look like.
He is going to do perfectly
where in the past everyone else has failed.
Jesus is going to do what was previously impossible.
Because of course,
if you know the story of Israel in the wilderness,
you know part of the reason they were wandering for 40 years
is because of their lack of faith.
They rebelled against God.
As they wandered in the wilderness,
they grumbled against God.
There were people there who were not allowed
to enter the promised land.
They weren't able to go in
because of their lack of faith.
And so we need to have that background,
that understanding as we come to this passage.
If you've watched Free Solo,
you know there's something strange and foreign
and exhilarating about watching this man.
He's literally climbing up a crack.
Like you think maybe he's going to have all these holes,
but he's not.
There's this crack in the wall
and he's just wedging his fingers between it
to go up 3,200 feet.
So there's something that's not real about it.
In the same way,
there's something not real
about what's happening with Jesus here.
He is doing what for anyone else would be impossible.
He is able in the wilderness for 40 days
to withstand this temptation,
this opposition.
He's surrounded by animals
and he's tempted by Satan here.
Oh, I didn't point out another echo.
By the way, Deuteronomy 8, verse 2,
Jesus talks about testing Israel.
Here we see Jesus is tempted.
And so there's an echo there as well.
And so that's the point for us first
as we look at who Jesus is.
Jesus is the perfect one.
Jesus succeeds where Israel failed.
Jesus succeeds where we fail as well.
Jesus is the one we look to for our perfection.
He is the one we look to for our righteousness.
And so that's our first question, right?
We're asking who is Jesus?
We're also asking how do we respond?
By the way, these are not questions
that I just came up with.
These are the questions
that the Gospel of Mark actually asks itself.
In Mark chapter 8,
Jesus is going to ask his disciples,
who do people say that I am?
They're going to tell him
and then he's going to say,
okay, who do you say that I am?
So we're looking forward to that chapter
as we ask this question.
The question of how we respond
is also a question from the Gospel of Mark
and also in chapter 8.
In chapter 8, verse 34,
Jesus says,
if anyone would come after me,
let him deny himself,
take up his cross and follow me.
And so Jesus is saying,
you have to respond to who I am.
I demand a response.
And so that's part of our paradigm
as we come over and over.
It's from Mark chapter 8
and I want us to think,
I'm introducing this new category of 834.
If anyone would come after me,
let him take up his cross and follow me.
So if Jesus is the perfect one,
how are we meant to follow after him?
Well, one of the ways
that we're going to deny ourselves
is that Jesus has to be our perfection.
In other words,
we have to find our identity in Jesus
more than anything else.
We have to find our righteousness
in Jesus more than anything else.
We have to see him
as the one who's obedient for us.
And if we don't,
we'll fall into one of two traps.
First of all,
if our identity is not in Jesus,
we'll be tempted to find
our perfection in ourselves.
There's this question
of what motivates someone
to be willing to risk their lives
so dramatically
by climbing up with no ropes 3,200 feet.
And Alex gives us an answer
at one point during this documentary.
He gives us a couple answers,
but I'm just going to tell you one.
Now, there's this meditation
throughout the film
on the nature of death
because of course,
it's in his face
every time he does this, right?
And so he says this,
look, I don't want to fall off
and die either,
but there's a satisfaction
to challenging yourself
and doing something well.
That feeling is heightened
when you're for sure facing death.
You can't make a mistake.
If you're seeking perfection,
free soloing is as close
as you can get.
And it does feel good
to feel perfect
for a brief moment.
In other words,
Alex is looking to himself
for perfection.
Now, I would imagine
most of you,
probably none of us,
look for perfection
in doing death-defying feats.
However, there are all sorts of ways
in our lives
we look to ourselves
to justify ourselves.
And it can play out like this.
Maybe you're the trash talker.
You're desperately trying
to convince yourself
that you're okay.
The way you do that
is you need to talk
about other people's failures.
If someone else
fails more spectacularly
than you do,
then everything's going to be fine.
You're all right.
You are justified.
You can find
your satisfaction in that.
Maybe you're someone
who's consumed,
not by trash talking
about individuals,
but about the world.
You're convinced
that the world is terrible
and it's going to hell
in a handbasket.
And so if you can talk
about that all the time,
then obviously you're good
by comparison, right?
You don't do those things
that those people out there do.
You don't believe
those things
that they believe.
You're safe.
You do all the right things.
You are your own justification.
Maybe you're a tribalist.
You just know
you're not like
those terrible conservatives
or those terrible liberals.
As long as you stay away
from them,
you'll be okay.
And so we're taking
God's law, right?
And we're reducing it
to something manageable
and controllable.
We'll get to the Pharisees,
by the way,
before too long.
Maybe you're someone
who's obsessed
with always looking right
and doing right.
Appearances are everything.
Okay, no one can come over
to your house
unless it's absolutely perfect
because they can't see
that you are anything less
than justified.
Maybe you're the performer
and the pretender.
People are only allowed
to get so close to you
before they receive
the stiff arm
because you can't handle
other people
knowing the truth.
And we could go on.
But if Jesus
is not our perfection,
we are tempted
to try to be
or appear
perfect ourselves.
The other ditch
we can fall into,
maybe you know
you're not perfect
and so instead of
asking Jesus
to be perfect for you
and looking to him,
you want,
you demand
other people
be perfect for you.
The closer
you tie
your identity
to someone,
the harder it is
for you to handle
failure in them.
Now you know this
intuitively.
There's things
that people would do,
can do,
that you just laugh at,
right?
You just think that's,
or it's not a big deal
to you.
Maybe that's a little quirky,
maybe that's a little silly,
but you know,
that's just them.
But if someone
who's related to you
does it,
the feeling
is very different,
right?
It's like nails
on a chalkboard.
What's forgivable
in other people
is unforgivable
in this person.
Why?
Because you're so tied up
in your identity
with them,
you can't allow them
to be anything less
than perfect.
It's why there's things
that we find endearing
in people we know,
they're just our friends
that we find excruciating
about our family members.
It's because our identity
is tied up in them.
We need them,
in other words,
to be perfect for us.
So it's hard to show grace
for other people's mistakes,
right?
Because they're making you
look bad.
It's what happens
when parents drive
their kids to success,
not because of their desires
for them,
but because they want
the glory that comes.
They want people to know,
I am the perfect parent.
We are the perfect family.
And so looking to Jesus
as our perfection
allows us
to actually love
the people
who are closest to us.
Jesus frees us
to be close
to imperfect people.
Imperfect people
like you and me.
Of course,
this takes us
back to Mark 1,
verses 1-8.
Remember we said,
need is the price
of admission.
If we want
to follow Jesus,
we have to admit
our need.
The question is,
how do we do that?
One of the ways
we do it
is we know
it's okay
to admit our need
when we know
that Jesus
is the one
who's perfect for us.
When we know
we can look
to his perfect life
on our behalf.
That's what makes it safe
to live a
verse 1,
1-8 sort of life.
That's what makes it safe
for us
to confess our need
to God
and to others.
And so Jesus,
he's our perfection.
We respond to him
by letting him
be that for us.
We don't demand it
of ourselves.
We don't demand it
of others.
Now we could also talk
about following Jesus
in suffering here.
That's another portion
of this passage.
We're going to save that
for later in the Gospel of Mark
and I'll point you back
to this passage
because we're going to have
plenty of opportunities
to talk about that.
But as we look
at this idea
of following Jesus,
remember I told you
we're going to look
at his perfection
and his power.
The question is
how is it
that we look
to Jesus?
How do we experience
him as the one
who makes things right
rather than everyone else?
And Jesus gives us,
Mark here gives us
a hint.
There's something
I did not talk about
last week
because there's so much
in each of these verses
even as our readings
are so short
that I want to point
your attention to this week
if you have your Bible open.
I want you to look
at verse 11
from last week
that comes
right before
verse 12.
Verse 11 says,
And a voice came
from heaven,
You are my beloved son.
With you
I am well pleased.
Then immediately,
verse 12,
the Spirit drove him
into the wilderness
and he was in the wilderness
40 days being tempted
by Satan.
Now Mark's narrative
is so tight,
it's so concise,
there is no coincidence here.
We are meant
to see the contrast,
the juxtaposition,
the connection
between those two verses.
In other words,
why is Jesus
able to go
out into the wilderness
and withstand temptation?
Jesus goes out
and withstands temptation
out of his identity
and relationship
with the Father.
He hears
God's pleasure in him
and it's out of that
that he's able
to remain faithful.
Some people have put it this way,
even Jesus
needed to know
his Father was proud of him.
Jesus is acting
with the rest of the Trinity.
He's not out of relationship
with him.
We just saw
Father, Son, Holy Spirit
all at once
in verses 8-11.
That's why we did
the confession of faith
last week
about the Trinity.
Jesus does this
in his relationship.
He has a secure
attachment
and identity
with the Father.
And so Jesus
walks in that
as he's faithful
in temptation.
That is the power
that he has.
That he has
perfect communion
with the Father
and the Spirit.
Brothers and sisters,
the same
is true
for us.
Our power
comes,
our ability
to obey
comes,
our ability
to follow
Jesus
comes
as we hear
God's voice
of pleasure
over us.
In other words,
God's grace
always comes
before obedience.
I pointed this out
before in our worship service.
There's a reason
we have the confession
of sin
and the assurance
of pardon
before we have
the offering.
Because we give
as children of God.
We don't give
to become
children of God.
Jesus here
obeys
as a member
of the Trinity.
He doesn't obey
to become
a member
of the Trinity.
It is his
identity
and connection
and love
with the Father
that is his power.
Now I told you
that I was going
to give you
Alex gives us
two reasons
he climbs.
One of them
is because
he wants to be
perfect.
He loves that
feeling
for a moment.
There's a somewhat
darker reason
we get some
glimpses
throughout this
documentary
into what
his life
was like
growing up.
His mom
narrates
that his
father
was distant
and often
the only thing
Alex would
heal from
his parents
was criticism.
And then
he goes on
to talk
about
what his
mom was
like.
He said
my mom's
favorite
sayings
are
almost
doesn't
count
or
good
enough
isn't.
No matter
how well
I ever
do at
anything
it's
not
that
good.
The
bottomless
pit
of
self
loathing.
I mean
that's
definitely
the
motivation
for
some
soloing.
In
other words
Alex's
search
for
perfection
comes
out of
his
disconnection
from
his
parents.
He
looks
to
find
it
in
himself
because
he
does
not
have
the
voice
of
his
father.
Brothers
and
sisters
we
do
not
follow
after
Jesus
to
earn
God's
favor.
We
follow
after
him
because
we
know
that
we
already
have
it.
God
does
not
say
to
us
almost
doesn't
count.
God
does
not
say
to
us
good
enough
isn't.
God
says
to
us
in
Christ
you
are
my
beloved
son.
God
is
not
to
understand
Jesus'
action
in
this
one.
I
know
some
of
you
have
picked
up
this
book
called
A
Theology
of
Mark
by
Hans
Beyer
and
he
says
this
talking
about
God's
affirmation
of
Jesus.
There
is
great
encouragement
for the
disciples
in
this
affirmation
which
is
not
only
the
affirmation
of
Jesus
as
the
eternal
son
of
God
who
is
well
loved
by
his
father.
Nor
is
it
only
the
affirmation
of
the
divine
glory
of
Jesus.
There
is
far
more
to
it
than
for
us
to
simply
understand
that
he
is
the
exalted
son
of
man.
Rather
since
we
are
adopted
sons
and
daughters
believers
benefit
from
and
are
included
in
the
father's
love
for
his
son.
We
indeed
receive
this
profound
affirmation
from
God.
we
have been
brought
into
a
family
in
which
every
natural
and
adopted
member
receives
that
kind
of
love
and
that
inclusion
in
divine
love
is
based
neither
on
where
ask when we come to God is, why did you adopt me? The affirmation of the father's love for the son
is thus extended to his adopted children. Brothers and sisters, if you are in Christ,
the father's affirmation of his love for the son is extended to you. It's when we hear that,
that we're able to put our identity in him rather than anything else. And so who is Jesus?
Jesus is the perfect one. How do we respond to him? We look to him for perfection.
We don't look to ourselves. We don't look to others. Let's pray.
Our father in heaven, we thank you that your word comes and it tells us the truth that if we
belong to you, we have your favor. That we don't work to earn or achieve our adoption,
but it's simply that it's adoption. You have taken us as your sons and your daughters. And so we're
freed from striving and pretending and performing. And instead you offer for us to simply follow
after you in love and obedience, knowing that we're secure and there's nothing in heaven and on earth
that can separate us from the love that you have for us in Christ. We thank you. It's for this reason
we're able to pray these things. And so we ask them in Jesus name. Amen. I invite you to stand for our
closing hymn.