Sunday, October 12, 2025 PM

and all the people of Jerusalem, and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.

And John was clothed with camel's hair, and wore a leather belt around his waist, and was eating locusts and wild honey.

And he was preaching, saying, After me, one is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals.

I baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. Now it happened that in those days

Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And immediately coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opening, and the

Spirit like a dove descending upon him. And a voice came out of the heavens, You are my beloved

Son, in you I am well pleased. And immediately the

Spirit drove him to go out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan.

And he was with the wild beasts, and the angels were ministering to him. Now after John had been delivered up into custody,

Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and believe in the gospel. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for tonight.

We thank you for your precious and magnificent word, that gives us a better view of your

Son. And Lord, as we meditate upon your Son, upon his messenger, may we be edified, may we get to know him better and grow in the grace and knowledge of our

Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, we know you've done great things in the past, and you'll do great things tonight and tomorrow.

You are good, Lord. We thank you for your goodness, and we give you praise tonight, in the name of Christ.

Amen. So I'd like to start with a question.

What's the first thing that you tell someone who's going through a hard time? When a fellow believer's going through a trial, how do you come alongside that believer and minister to them, and help them in that trial?

Mark here is writing to Christians under persecution in first century Rome, and he comes alongside them, inspired by the

Holy Spirit, and he speaks to them Jesus. He simply brings them the gospel of Christ, and gives them a better view of the

Savior, of the Son of God. He writes to encourage believers, as well as evangelize unbelievers.

He seeks to convince his audience, in verse 1, that Jesus is the Christ, the

Son of God. And he brings this gospel, this good news, to believers in first century

Rome. We can definitely help our brothers and sisters in practical ways, coming alongside meeting needs, and that's good.

That's loving in concrete and good ways. But one way that is absolutely glorious and good every single time, is to tell them about Jesus.

At the very end of his life, the Apostle Paul reminded Timothy, remember

Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of the seed of David, as preached according to my gospel.

And someone could probably think, well, is there anything else you can tell me?

But that was one of the main things that Paul left to Timothy, was remember Jesus Christ. Keep him as your focus.

And oftentimes, we can be tempted to think, well, we already know that. Give us something a bit more practical here.

But let's never count the gospel short. Let's always treasure it, and hold our

Savior dear in our hearts as our most precious treasure. And let's give that to our brothers and sisters.

Going through a tough time, let me tell you about Jesus. Remind you of who he is, what he's done, and that helps the believer lift his mind, his heart heavenward, to seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

And so Mark does that. He brings this gospel, inspired by the Holy Spirit, with a bunch of these stories received from the

Apostle Peter, and he brings them to the Christians in Rome. And where does he start?

He starts with the messenger of the king. He tells of John the Baptist, who was prophesied in the

Old Testament. There was a prophecy in the Old Testament that said that God would send a messenger ahead of the

Lord, who will prepare the way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the

Lord, make his paths straight. And citing these passages from the Old Testament keeps with the context of Christians in Rome.

Because the word gospel means good news, and the people of Rome would understand that word.

That was a word that meant that a new king, a new ruler, came on the political scene, and he brought this promise of peace.

And here is Mark telling of the Savior King, the absolute ruler, the one with all authority.

He comes, and he promises peace. He himself is the Prince of Peace, making peace with the holy

God and with sinful man. The messenger of an earthly king would go ahead of the king and make the path clear, make sure there'd be no distractions, no blocks.

The king had a clear path to where he was going and enter into the city. He would make preparations of all different kinds, and he'd make the way straight.

And John the Baptist was a messenger that went ahead of Christ and didn't prepare roads, but he prepared hearts.

He came as a preacher, preaching the judgment of God, but also the possibility of forgiveness, of confession of personal sins, and he called people to that.

He called them away from Jerusalem, away from the temple, to something new.

The Lord God was doing something new, and John was calling people to that.

He appears in the wilderness, preaching and making ready the way of the Lord. If there's any question as to what does it mean that Jesus is the

Christ, the Son of God, does that mean that Jesus is totally separate from the

Father, totally separate from Jehovah? No, but he is actually the

Lord himself, because John the Baptist goes ahead and makes ready the way of the

Lord. He makes ready the way for Yahweh to come, the great

I Am, and that's Jesus. Mark makes it plain right here in the very opening of his

Gospel. Jesus is truly God. And all throughout this

Gospel account, we'll see the humanity of Christ on full display. He'll be one who is hungry, who grows thirsty and tired, he falls asleep in the boat during a storm, because he's weary, and his humanity shows that.

But at the same time, Jesus is still truly God, as well as truly human, and Mark makes that plain throughout his

Gospel. John the Baptist comes ahead, and he appears in the wilderness, and he calls people to the

Jordan River. He calls people out of Jerusalem to the wilderness, and it's reminiscent of that great exodus where God brought his people out of Egypt to leading up to the

Promised Land, that promise of rest and peace that the Lord would bring. And here is

John, right before the new covenant, right before Jesus Christ comes, saying, come out of what you've been in, come out of the old covenant, and come to something new that the

Lord is doing. Come to that point, the Jordan River, where they cross over from the wilderness into the

Promised Land, into that place of rest and security that the Lord brought to his people. And John looks a little different, doesn't he?

Verse 6, he was clothed with camel's hair, and wore a leather belt around his waist, and was eating locusts and wild honey.

He looks very similar to Elijah, and he comes in the spirit of Elijah, that prophet of God, bringing a message of the

Lord, bringing a message of the Son of God who is to come. And as a faithful prophet, he is indeed faithful to speak of the judgment of God, as well as the possibility of forgiveness for sins.

And he's a humble preacher. Verse 7, and he was preaching, saying, after me one is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals.

In that day and age, as a rabbi would have disciples, the disciples would do pretty much anything that the rabbi would tell them to do, except for one thing in particular.

They wouldn't stoop down and undo the sandals and take them off of the rabbi. That was the job for the slave.

And here is John the Baptist saying, I'm not even worthy to do that. To be a follower of Christ, I'm a slave of Christ, but to stoop down and undo his sandals, ultimately

I'm not worthy. I shouldn't be here, but I am, and I'm serving the

Lord. Pride is oftentimes the root of many evils and many sins, but humility is oftentimes the root of many virtues.

A humble heart is one that is submitted to the Lord, submitted to His mighty hand, and that accepts the declaration of who the

Lord calls him to be, who the Lord describes him to be. Yes, Lord, I am your slave, and I will do as you tell me to do.

I'm not worthy to be here, but by your grace, I am what I am, and by your grace alone.

Verse 8, I baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the

Holy Spirit. Here John continues to show that he's humble, acknowledging that he's not the one who changes hearts.

He just brings the message, and he trusts that change unto the Lord. He baptizes with water, but he can't change the heart.

He can't cleanse the heart that is marred and broken with sin. He acknowledges that only

Jesus Christ can do that. As we look at the messenger of the

Lord God, the messenger of Jesus Christ, we see one who is bold. We see one who speaks truth.

We see one that brings the message, but acknowledges that he can't bring the growth. He sows the seed, but he leaves the growth unto the

Lord. And shouldn't we mirror that in ourselves and in our lives?

As we are slaves of Christ, shouldn't we also have a humble heart, acknowledging,

Lord, you've made me to be the person you've made me to be. I am your slave. I am owned by you, body and soul.

And what a joy that is to be owned by the Lord Jesus Christ, to have him be

Lord of our lives. And as the

Lord gives us a humble heart, may that humility lead us to boldness and courage, not because that certainty and strength comes from us, because John the

Baptist says, I'm not worthy to be here. The strength's not in me. It's in my

Lord. I depend upon him. He's the one that changes hearts. He's the one who gives me the strength to do what he calls me to do.

It was the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians who faced the trouble of different preachers coming in, false preachers, and trying to bring an assassination attempt on his character.

They were trying to make a foothold, a wedgehold into the Corinthian church. And so in order to do that, they had to go after the character of Paul.

And so they brought many attempts and many false accusations against him. And the response of Paul, in part,

I'm nothing but an earthen vessel. You say that I'm weak, that I'm not very strong, that I'm not very eloquent in speech.

You're right. I'm an earthen vessel. But this earthen vessel is used by the grace of God to carry matchless and glorious treasure.

The Apostle Paul said, in this earthen vessel is the glory of the gospel.

It's the glory of Jesus Christ. And why is that the case? We have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the excellence of the power, the excellence of the glory might be unto the

Lord and not unto me. And we see that same spirit of humility in John the

Baptist here. He says, I'm not worthy to be here, but by the grace of God, I am what

I am. I'm here. And that led to great boldness, great strength, because he relied upon his

God, not upon himself. Praise the

Lord that he has changed our hearts. He's cleansed us.

And through the washing of regeneration by the Holy Spirit, he has made us clean. He has declared us to be clean.

And only he can do this, and he has done this. He'll be sure to bring us home.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for tonight. We thank you for your precious word.

We thank you, Lord, for the reminder to have a humble heart that leads to great boldness, to great strength, not because we have the strength, but because the strength comes from you.

Lord, when we're unsteady, you are a rock, the rock of our heart. And we thank you,

Lord, that you use weak vessels to bring about your message, to bring about your glory.