Well, good morning. If you would
open your Bibles with me this morning to the book of Mark,
we're going to begin a study in the gospel of Mark this morning.
Before we begin, let's bow before our Lord, seek his blessing. Our Father, which art in heaven,
holy, reverent, is your matchless name. And Father, it's with fear
and trembling that we bow before you this morning. knowing that
we come before the thrice holy God, the God of heaven and earth.
And Father, how thankful we are that we can come into your courts,
into your very presence and call you our Father because of your
mercy and your grace. Father, we're thankful. We're
thankful that you're God alone. We're thankful that you always
do exactly according to thy will and thy purpose and that no one
can Stay your hand or question what you're doing. And Father,
I beg of you this morning that it would be thy will to bless
us as we look into your word this morning. Father, bless us
with the sight of our Lord Jesus Christ by faith. Father, I ask
that you would enable me to rightly divide the word of truth that
you give me of your spirit and Father, enable me to do what
no man is sufficient to do. to preach Christ, to point sinners
to Christ the Savior. And Father, be with us as we
hear, and we beg that you'd apply your word to our hearts. Father,
we ask that you would be with those who are away from us, that
you give them traveling mercies, that you bring them back when
it's time. Father, above all, we ask that
you would be pleased today and in the coming days and weeks
that you might be pleased to show us your glory. For it's
in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, for his sake and
his glory we pray, amen. I've titled the lesson this morning,
The Beginning of the Gospel. Now the four gospels, Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John, they give us an account of the life of
the Lord Jesus Christ. They all give accounts of different
things that the Lord did during his earthly ministry. A few events
are found in all four Gospels. Most usually, an event might
be just found in two or three of the Gospels. But these four
Gospels, even though they deal with the same timeframe, they
deal with the things that the Lord was doing, they're not repetitive. They each give us a different
view of the same person. They each give us a different
view of Christ. The book of Matthew is written
to show us Christ the King. Where is he who's born king of
the Jews? Matthew shows us that Christ
is the king from all eternity. The Gospel of Luke shows us Christ
is the son of man. The son of God became a real
man. He became bone of our bones and
flesh of our flesh, just like you and me, except without sin,
so that he could be the representative of sinful men. God can't be the
representative of a man, can he? Got a different nature. So
God took on him flesh. He became a man so he could be
the representative of his people and undo for them everything
Adam did to him. Then the gospel of John shows
us Christ as the son of God. Luke the son of man, John the
son of God. John shows us the Lord Jesus
Christ is God. That's why he has the right and
the power to save sinners. Now Mark writes his gospel to
show us Christ the servant of God. As we go through this study,
we're going to see this. The son of God came into flesh
to be the father's servant. He came to do the job that the
father set him to do. He came to do the will of his
father. He didn't come to do his will. He came to do the will
of his father, which is exactly what a good servant does. They
do the will of their master. Christ came to accomplish the
salvation of God's elect. That's why the father sent him,
to save God's people. He came to make God's elect righteous.
He came to justify them. And Mark, when he writes here
of Christ the servant, he makes sure we know this. Christ got
the job done. Christ the servant got the job
done. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
successful savior. He sat down on the right hand
of the majesty on high. You know why he sat down there?
The job's finished. There's no more work left to
do. He finished it perfectly. The whole book of Mark is about
Christ's obedience as the servant, his obedience to his father.
Now, why is that so important? Why is it so important that you
may see the obedience of Christ? It's because his obedience is
the obedience of his people. His obedience is the only obedience
you and I will ever have before the Father. That's why it's so
important we see his obedience. John Gill calls this, this gospel
of Mark, a joyful account of the ministry, miracles, actions,
and sufferings of Christ. All of that is what it took to
save sinners like us. And it's interesting, Mark doesn't
tell us anything about the Lord's birth. He doesn't tell us anything
about the Lord's earthly or early life. He doesn't tell us much
about the Lord's life during these three and a half years
of his ministry. Mark doesn't even tell us very
much about the sermons and teachings of our Lord. But what Mark does
is he gives us a deeper account of the miracles that the Lord
did, more than any of the other gospels. You see, Mark is writing
to tell us if Christ works his acts, those things that he did
so that we can see that his work, his work of redemption is finished. And it's important for us to
see that this servant, servant of God, he finished the work. And I'm telling you that work,
the work of Christ, the work of Christ in redemption, it makes
a difference. in the people, he came to say.
It makes a difference. I know that we're not perfect.
I know you know that. I'm not saying that we're perfect.
But I'm saying when God is pleased to reveal his son to us, there's
gonna be a change. There's gonna be a change. See,
the Savior, God's servant, he does a work for God's people. His work of obedience, his work
of obedience unto death, his sacrifice, That's a work for
God's people, to put their sin away, to make them righteous
and justified before God. But the Savior also does a work
in God's people, in them. He does both, a work for them
and a work in them. And the writer of this gospel
is a real good example of that truth. At one time, the writer
of this gospel, we call him Mark, but it's John Mark. John Mark,
you're familiar with John Mark. At one time, apparently, John
Mark wasn't much. He just, he couldn't get very
good accountable to John Mark. The Apostle Paul just was so
confident that John Mark was not ready for the ministry. He
divided with Barnabas over it. Barnabas thought John Mark was
ready for the ministry. He wanted to take them on this
missionary trip that Paul and Barnabas were gonna go on. And
the Apostle Paul was so convinced that John Mark was not ready
for the ministry. He was not ready for this work.
He divided with Barnabas over it. These men were close friends,
close servants of God, and Paul divided with him over it. And
there's no record in scripture that Paul and Barnabas ever reconciled. But old Paul reconciled with
John Mark. Listen to what Paul had to say about John Mark later. Well, Paul was in prison at Rome. Paul wrote to Timothy. Now this is the Apostle Paul.
This man gave his life to preach the gospel to people. You think
of that. I mean, he gave his life. He
put his life in danger. He gave himself to be beaten,
to be stoned, to be whipped, all so that he could preach the
gospel to people. And while it looked like Paul's
ministry was just, you know, being so successful, Paul had
a lot of friends. Paul got thrown in prison. for preaching the
gospel. Suddenly, Paul didn't have no
friends. People deserted him. They turned their back on him.
They wouldn't identify with Paul anymore. And Paul told Timothy,
only Luke is with me. Everybody else has forsaken me.
And Paul said, now, Timothy, I know your plan on coming to
see me. And when you do, bring John Mark. He's profitable to
me in the ministry. He's profitable. See, the work
of Christ for John Mark also was a work in him, wasn't it?
It made him grow in grace, made him grow up and made him profitable,
useful in the ministry. And then the Holy Spirit used
John Mark to write this gospel to show us Christ the servant,
to accomplish the work of redemption for his people because he did
everything that it took to please his father, to make them righteous
in the sight of his father. Now remember, Mark here is writing
about the father's servant. And the book of Mark reads like
what I think a day in the life of a true servant would really be like. Many of you might remember that
show Downton Abbey. It had the upstairs rich folks and the downstairs,
you know, the servant folks and how those servants, I mean, men,
I mean, their whole life was about serving, wasn't it? Their
whole life was. That's our Savior. That servant
hits the ground running first thing in the morning. And that
servant just goes quickly all day long from task to task to
task to task. I mean, there's no OSHA rules
requiring a 15-minute break and a half-hour lunch hour. I mean,
just quickly going from task to task to task to task to serve
the Master. to make the master happy with
them. And the true servant just keeps up that pace all day long
until it's bedtime. And they go to bed. And you know
why they go to bed? So they can get up early in the
morning, hit the ground running, do the same thing all over again,
quickly going from task to task to task. That's the way the gospel
of Mark reads. I mean, he doesn't talk about
the interlude between, you know, when the Lord, you know, did
this miracle or did this work and did this one. He just jumps
right from one to the other, right from one to the next, to
the next, to the next. That's what the three and a half
years of our Lord's ministry was like. He just quickly went
from task to task to task. Wouldn't take a break, would
he? There he sat at the well, there in Samaria, and that Samaritan
woman comes up. He's thirsty. He's tired, he's
hungry. He sent the disciples to get
meat. But what was he doing? He was
there to reveal himself to one of God's sheep. Just constantly,
wasn't he? Constantly going from one thing
to the next to the next. And he kept up that pace until
from the cross he cried, it's finished. The job was finally
finished. Now the very first book or the
very first first verse of Mark tells us, it's all Christ. The gospel is all Christ. Christ
is all of the purpose of God. Christ is all in salvation. Christ
is all in righteousness. Christ is all in justification.
Christ is all in our holiness. It's all Christ. Look what he
says here, Mark 1.1, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
the son of God. Now that word beginning, it means
a whole lot more than the starting point. It doesn't mean the starting
point, but it means a whole lot more than that. The word has
to do with principality and power. Principality and power. The word
has beginning, has several meanings. The first one is this. It means
the origin. Now Mark says here, this is the
gospel of Jesus Christ. He's the origin. The good news
of the gospel. The gospel has good news for
sinners, doesn't it? You know where the origin of all that
good news comes from? From Jesus Christ. It all comes
from Him. The good news of the gospel that
we have to tell is all because Christ the servant accomplished
all the work that the Father sent Him to do. The gospel begins
with Christ. He's the origin of it. And it
ends with Christ. What did he tell John and Isle
Patmos? I'm Alpha and Omega. The beginning
and the end. He's the origin of the gospel. Then second, the word beginning
means the person or thing that commences everything. The person
or thing that starts everything. It means the first person in
a series. It means the leader. Now all of salvation is commenced. It all starts with the Lord Jesus
Christ. It all starts with him. He's
the first person. He's God's first elect. He's
the first one. He is the one who has all of
the preeminence. He's the leader of his people.
He's the captain of our salvation. And all of the gospel, this is
the gospel. I love how Mark says this. You
know, we say, we just use the term gospel a lot. You know,
does he preach the gospel? This man preaches the gospel.
Well, there's lots of so-called gospels out there, isn't there?
Lots of different messages. Mark makes sure we know exactly
what he's talking about. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's the good news of Christ.
All the good news that we have to tell flows from Christ. It begins with Christ and it
flows to his people from him. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
fountainhead. He's the fountainhead of the gospel. He's the fountainhead
of all mercy. He's the fountainhead of all
grace. He's the fountainhead of forgiveness. He's the fountainhead
of righteousness. He's the fountainhead of justification.
He's the fountainhead of salvation. He's the beginning. Then third,
this word beginning means that by which anything begins to be. The active cause that causes
things to be. Well, that's Christ our Savior,
isn't it? He is the active cause of every
blessing. God sends to a sinner. He's the
active cause of it. Christ is the active cause of
mercy from the father. Now, mercy is the judge, not
giving us what we actually do deserve. That's what mercy is.
Well, the Lord Jesus Christ is the active cause of mercy. Do you know why the father who
is always just, who always does what's right, He never gives
somebody something they don't deserve. Never, never, ever,
ever. You know why the father who's
always just is merciful to people like you and me? Why doesn't
the father give us what our sin actually deserves? Because he
gave Christ our substitute, what our sin deserves. Now he can
be merciful to his people because Christ put that sin away. See,
Christ is the active cause of mercy. You see that, don't you? Then the Father is gracious to
his people because Christ is the active cause of grace. Grace is giving people what they
do not deserve. Why does the Father give us what
we don't deserve? We don't deserve to be forgiven
of our sin. We don't deserve eternal life. We don't deserve
righteousness. We don't deserve any blessing.
We don't deserve to be accepted to God. We don't deserve that
God would ever hear us. We don't ever deserve that God
would look on us in favor. Why does God give us what we
don't deserve? Because he gives his people what
Christ the servant earned as a man made under the law. See,
Christ is the cause of grace. He is the reason the Father can
be gracious to his people. Christ is the cause of the forgiveness
of sin. You know why he is the active
cause of the forgiveness of sin? Because our sin is forgiven by
the blood of his sacrifice. He willingly shed his blood that
the sin of his people would be forgiven. He's the cause of it. Christ is the cause of righteousness. You and I can never make ourselves
righteous, but God says his people are righteous. They are. Now
what's the cause of that? How did that happen? Christ the
Savior. He had made him sin for us. Him who knew no sin, that we,
sinners like us, might be made righteous. Made the righteousness
of God in him. Christ is the cause, the active
cause of righteousness. Righteousness, it all comes,
every blessing of God that you can think of, it all comes from
Christ. It's never because of what we've
earned. It's never because of what we deserve. It's always
because of what Christ has earned. God's blessings never come to
us because of who we are. It's always because of who Christ
is. He's the active cause of it. Now, I've said this once so far
in this lesson, and it can't be said once too often. I try
to tell you this all the time. The gospel is a person. It's
a person. The gospel of Jesus Christ. It's the good news of who he
is. The gospel is not the right set of doctrinal statements.
Now, if you got the person, you'll understand the doctrine. If you
got the person, the doctrine will be plain to you. But you
can have the doctrine and not have the person. You can have
the doctrine and not have life. The gospel is not somebody spitting
out the right you know, a number of doctrinal statements. The
gospel is a person. It tells us about the Lord Jesus
Christ. The gospel points us to Christ.
It tells us who Christ is. Mark tells us here, the gospel
of Jesus Christ, the son of God, this man, Jesus Christ, Jesus
of Nazareth, he's a real man. People knew him. People that
would read this gospel when Mark first wrote it, many of them
knew this man, Jesus of Nazareth. Mark said he's the son of God.
That man is the son of God. He's the God man, both God and
man. He's God, so he can satisfy God. He's God so he can satisfy God's
holiness. He's God so he can satisfy God's
justice and righteousness. And he's a man so he can be our
representative. He's a man so he can die. The law demands death for our
sin. God became a man so he could die. Die in the place of his
people so that they'd never die. That's who Christ is. He's the
God man. That makes him, since he's God
and man, he's the only one qualified to save sinners. Then the gospel
tells us what it is that Christ accomplished. A lot of people
talk about what Christ accomplished, and usually what you hear is
this. He accomplished something if you do something to ratify
it, if you do something to make it apply to you. The gospel of
Jesus Christ tells us this. Here's what Christ accomplished.
Eternal redemption for his people. He brought in eternal righteousness. He brought in redemption for
his people. They're redeemed. They're redeemed. And He'll see
to it that they're given life. Their salvation's accomplished.
They cannot perish. Then the gospel tells us why
Christ did what He did. Now why did the Son of God come
in the flesh? Why did He do all these things
that we read of Him? Why did He do that? Everybody
knows Christ died on a cross, right? Everybody knows, I mean,
pretty much in the whole world, everybody knows Jesus Christ
was born in Bethlehem about 2,000 years ago. Everybody knows that.
But you know what nobody knows unless God teaches them? Why? Why did he come? Let me tell
you. God's word tells us. He came
so that God could be just and holy and right and still justify
sinners like you and me. That's why Christ came. And then the gospel tells us
where Christ is now. He's seated in glory. He's seated
on the throne in glory. And like I said a little bit
ago, you know why he's seated? The job of salvation is done. It's
done. Janet and I, most of you know,
live in a very, very old house. I'm not much of a handyman, but
what handyman things, you know, that I can do around the house.
You know, it takes longer than it should when I'm doing it.
It's exhausting, you know, when I do it. And man, I gotta sit
down all the time. I mean, I'm doing something,
I gotta sit down all the time. I gotta take a break. I gotta
catch my breath. It's never finished. It's never
finished. I mean, I'm pushing 60 years
old. We got 50 years of work to do
in an hour. I mean, it's never going to get
done. Do you know why Christ sat down? Dan, the job is done. That's why he sits. The job is
done. See, the gospel tells us that
Christ is the beginning. He's the cause. He's the fountainhead. He's the active cause for everything. that God will ever do for a sinner.
And I thought three things that I wanted to give you before we
quit this morning. The first one is this, about
Christ being the beginning. Christ is the beginning of creation. John 1 says this, remember that
John 1, the gospel of John shows us Christ, the son of God. In
the beginning was the word. The word was with God, the word
was God. I mean, right in the very first
sentence, John tells us what his whole gospel is about. The
word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things
were made by him, and without him was not anything made that
was made. Everything in this physical creation,
you know how it came to be? The Lord Jesus Christ spoke it
into existence. He said, let there be light and
there was light. Let the dry land appear and it appeared.
Let the animals appear and it appeared. but to firm and appear
and be divided. He said it, and it was so. And
when it was all done, God said, it's very good. Everything that
exists, exists because of him. And it's all sustained because
of him. He's the beginning, he's the cause of this creation. But
something more than that, creation was also made for Christ. It was made for his glory. Colossians
1.16 says all things were made by him. Anybody with any sense
knows that. Somebody made all this and it
had to be God. This didn't evolve. This is stupid. Let's guess that's not politically
correct, but that's so. It's stupid. God made all this. But you know what's so wonderful?
I mean, this is wonderful. It was also made for him. For
him. Almighty God created the world
by speaking. He made a perfect garden and
from the dust of the earth, he formed a man. He put that man
in that garden. He took a rib out from him one
day, made him a help me. There's a man and a woman, perfect,
in a perfect garden. And one day, Adam took that fruit
that God told him not to eat, and he ate it. He did it on purpose. He did an open rebellion against
God, saying, I'm gonna be God. I'm gonna be the one to make
the rules. I'm gonna be the one to decide what's good and evil.
That's why Adam took that fruit. Now, did that surprise God? Of
course not. God knew what Adam was gonna
do. Why didn't God stop him? Huh? Why didn't God stop him? It would
have stopped a whole lot of pain and suffering and darkness in
this world if God had just stopped Adam from sinning against him,
wouldn't it? Let me tell you why God didn't
stop him. Because this creation was made for Christ. It was made
for his glory. God made this creation, put man
in it and allowed man to fall so that Christ could get glory
and save the sinners out of it. That's why he's the beginning
of creation. He's the cause of it. Then second,
Christ is the beginning. He's the cause of the new birth.
The second creation that's born in the hearts of God's people.
Do you know what the very first miracle this recorded scripture
that our Lord performed. He went to that wedding feast,
Cana of Galilee, and they ran out of wine and he turned the
water into wine. That's the first miracle that
our Lord performed. And this is how John describes
that miracle. John 2, 11. The beginning of
miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee and manifested forth
his glory and his disciples believed on him. Now this is the beginning
of miracles. It's the preeminent one. It's
the cause. Turning the water into wine.
Making the water to be what it was not. That is the preeminent
miracle that our Lord ever performed. It's a miracle that pictures
what God does for his people in the new birth. He makes his
people to be new creation. Now God doesn't change the flesh
into spirit, but he causes a new man to be born. And that new
man, is the opposite of that old man. Just like wine in many
ways is the opposite of water, right? The new man is the opposite
of the old man. Christ is the beginning. He's
the cause. He's the fountainhead of that
new birth. And then third, the first creation. It's all about Christ. He's the
cause of it. It was created for his glory
so that he'd have the glory in saving sinners. Well, you know
what? The second creation is going
to be all about Christ too. When Christ returns, God's going
to be done with this earth. He's going to burn it up. And
there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth where he dwells
in righteousness. All the effects of sin will be
gone. And we don't know a lot about
heaven. We don't know a lot about what will be in eternity. But
I do know eternity in heaven is this. It's all about Christ. You know, there are. Folks in heaven, I'm convinced
right now with the Savior. I'd like to see again someday. But John, I don't know if I ever
get around to it. It's all about Christ. It's about
seeing him. It's about being with him. It's
about being made like him. Heaven is not going to be about
us getting eternal vacation. Heaven is not even about us being
able to live without the effects of sin anymore. Heaven is about
the glory of Christ. That's why there's a place called
heaven. And people are going to be there. I hope we will be. You know why people are going
to be there? So they can give Christ all the glory, so they
can gather around his throne and sing his praises, talk about
what he's done for us. Lord Jesus Christ is the beginning. He's the cause. He's the reason
for heaven. As we go through this, this gospel,
I hope that we see that more clearly throughout these 16 chapters.
It's all Christ. He's the beginning. All right,
hope the Lord will bless that to you.