Our sermon text this morning is Mark chapter 1, verses 1 through 3. Listen to God’s word. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

Let’s pray together. Lord, as your word has been read and soon will be proclaimed in preaching, give us reverence and holy attention. Prepare us to hear the voice that announces your salvation and to welcome your promised king by your spirit. Illuminate our minds, convict our hearts, strengthen our faith in Christ and grant that we would not be hearers only, but doers of your word. And we pray this in Jesus’ name. And again, God’s people say, amen. Please be seated.

Brothers and sisters, as we begin our walk together as pastor and congregation, I think it’s appropriate also that we start a sermon series in the gospel of Mark. and over the next weeks, months, maybe not years, but we will work our way through the Gospel of Mark.

Mark is the shortest, it is the briskest, and in many ways the most vivid of these four Gospels. He doesn’t begin with genealogies or birth narratives, he rushes right into the action. He writes like a herald with urgent news, the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Now, this Gospel is likely written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit by John Mark, who was a companion of the Apostle Peter. And Peter was eyewitness to the accounts that are here and supervises this work that Mark is doing. It’s believed it’s primarily written for believers in Rome, a persecuted church that needs to know that Jesus is the conquering Son of God who came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

And it’s a very fast-paced gospel. It’s very action-packed. In fact, you find the word immediately, and then this, and then this, or immediately, over 40 times, because it’s bang, bang, bang, bang. He’s moving through this. His portrait of Christ is active, powerful, compassionate, and authoritative.

It shows the Son of God on the move, preaching, healing, casting out demons, confronting unbelief, and laying down his life. And so Mark wants us to behold Christ as the mighty servant king who came to bring the good news of God’s kingdom to a weary world.

And he begins, fittingly, not with the voice of Jesus, but with the voice of one preparing his way. Listen to this voice in the wilderness that begins the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. And so, As we look at this passage here, notice this beginning of the gospel, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Mark is not wasting any words here. He plunges straight into this message. He’s eager to tell the world what it most, not what it wants to hear, but what it needs to hear. There’s no genealogy, no infancy narrative, no preface addressing to Theophilus that you see in Luke.

Instead, it’s just a thunderclap of a declaration, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. That verse serves as both the title and the thesis of Mark’s entire gospel. Everything that follows, every miracle and parable and confrontation and crucifixion and resurrection, unfold what this opening line proclaims to us. So let’s look at this word by word. The beginning. What’s happening here is a new work of God has dawned.

That echoes Genesis 1.1.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So just as creation began with the voice of God breaking into the void, now new creation begins with the word of God made flesh entering into the world. The same God who said, let there be light now sends his son as the light of the world.

Now, Mark is signaling here, this is a new epoch in salvation history, redemptive history, this inauguration, this beginning of the kingdom of God. Now, we see that God’s kingdom all the way back at the beginning of creation, but here especially we see it on steroids, as it were, amped up, more fleshed out, more fully developed. And so what follows is not merely biography, it is cosmic renewal. Through Jesus Christ, God is creating again.

He’s remaking men and women. reconciling sinners to himself and restoring what was lost in Adam. So this is the beginning of the gospel not only in a chronological sense but looking at the whole arc of God’s purposes throughout scripture here and culminating in the new heavens and new earth where righteousness dwells where we’ll be with the Lord forever and ever and ever.

Here especially This dawn has broken, the long night of silence is over. For 400 years, the voice of prophecy has not sounded amongst God’s people. Malachi was that last one, but now God is again speaking, heralding the coming of his Christ, our Savior. Heaven had seemed closed, but now God speaks again, this time not through another prophet, but through his own son.

Believer, do you see what this means? When Christ comes into a life, it is a new beginning. The same creative power that spoke the worlds into being now speaks light into our darkened hearts. And no past is too broken, no heart too barren for the Lord to say again, let there be light. Do you believe that?

This is the beginning of the gospel. The gospel is the good news of God’s grace. In fact, that word would be familiar to Mark’s first hearers and readers in the Roman Empire. Good news meant a royal proclamation, this evangel. Good news, Caesar has triumphed, peace has come to the empire. But Mark boldly borrows that imperial term and he reclaims it for God. The true good news is not about Caesar’s reign, but about Christ’s redemption. The gospel is not human speculation, moral advice. It’s not religious tradition. It is news, the announcement of something that’s happened in history. It tells us that God has acted decisively for our salvation in his son as we confess who for us and for our salvation came down and was made man. It’s not a word of what we do for God. but what God has done for us.

Every word of Mark’s gospel will unfold this good news, the good news, the sick are healed, the sinners are forgiven, demons are cast out, the guilty are justified, the cross is not defeat, but victory, and the tomb is empty. So this gospel that turns despair into hope, rebellion and repentance and death into life, That is what is being proclaimed. Isaiah had long prophesied such good news. How beautiful are the feet upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who says to Zion, your God reigns. So this prophecy finds its fulfillment here in Jesus Christ. God reigns, not through armies, but through a crucified and risen King.

This is a message that the church must never lose. The world doesn’t need a moral tune-up. It needs good news from heaven. And this gospel still begins wherever a sinner turns to Christ, no matter how many times you have failed. In Jesus Christ, there is a new beginning. The old has passed away. Behold, all has become new, as Paul will say. A new hope. from the same God who once said, let there be light. This is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He’s the person at the center here. And those words, Jesus Christ, carry the weight of eternity. Jesus is his human name, the name given by the angel before his birth. You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. It means the Lord saves. His very name declares this mission, that salvation belongs to the Lord.

And the name Christ, in Greek it’s Christos, Hebrew, Meshiach. It’s not a surname, but it’s a title. The Anointed One, the long-awaited King, who fulfills all Old Testament offices of prophet and priest and king. Every prophet who spoke truth, every priest who offered sacrifice, every king who ruled with righteousness, all point to him. All the promises of God find their yes and amen in Jesus Christ.

He is the seed of the woman who crushes the serpent, it’s Genesis 3.15 promises. He is the true son of David whose kingdom shall never end, the servant of the Lord who bears our iniquities. And so what Mark is saying here, here is the one for whom history has waited. Here is God’s answer to sin’s tragedy and creation’s groaning.

So if we would know who we are and why we exist, we have to begin here with Jesus Christ. Life’s meaning, history’s purpose, eternity’s hope, they all converge in Him. So all preaching, all worship, all witness must be centered on Christ. A Christianity that loses sight of Jesus is no Christianity at all. And this is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This declaration here is one that just shouts his deity. He’s not merely a man chosen by God, not merely a prophet sent by God, he is God himself, the eternal son come in human flesh.

And again, this title here in Mark 1.1 is gonna bookend this gospel, the lips of the Roman centurion utter, In 1539, truly this man was what, say it with me, the son of God. Mark wants us to see that Jesus’s divine identity is revealed most clearly in his suffering love. The one who still storms, who casts out demons, is the same one who’s crucified for sinners. His power and his mercy are one.

Israel’s kings were called sons of God by covenant, but Jesus is the Son, not by adoption, but by eternal generation, the second person of the Trinity, consubstantial with the Father. Jesus is not God’s Son because he was adopted. He is God’s Son because he’s always been the Son. From eternity, he comes from the Father.

He is the second person of the Trinity, and he is the same in being as the Father. So when he acts, God acts. When he speaks, God speaks. And thus the good news is not simply that God sent help, but that God himself came. The creator has entered his creation to redeem it.

This confronts every false religion and shallow spirituality. Jesus is not one teacher among many. When I was in Myanmar and Nepal, Buddhists and predominantly Hindu countries, Jesus is okay with them. You just add him into the mix, but you cannot hold to his being exclusively the way, the truth, the life. No one comes in the father, but by him. He’s not option A or option B or whatever. He’s not optional to salvation.

He is the son of God, our maker, our judge, our redeemer. So to reject him is to reject the one who sent him. To receive him is to receive eternal life. Let this truth anchor you when the world mocks your faith or minimizes our Savior. The one we follow is no mere moralist or mystic.

He is the Lord of heaven and earth. Well, so much pact. into this one verse, a new beginning, God’s doing something fresh, a gospel, God’s gracious announcement of salvation, a person, Jesus, the Messiah, the divine son. And the rest of this book is going to prove and display what this verse declares to us. The storms will obey Him, the demons will fear Him, the cross will reveal Him, and the resurrection will vindicate Him. This is where our faith begins, beginning that Jesus Christ, believing upon Him as the Son of God, is the good news for sinners. So, God introduces His Savior to the world, not through kings or scholars, but through a solitary voice crying in the wilderness. The gospel begins in heaven’s glory and it first echoes from the desert floor.

That’s where Mark takes us next. Notice here in verses two and three, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight.

So this promise This gospel, this good news, is rooted in God’s ancient promise, because Mark does not begin his gospel with human opinion or cultural observation, but with a solid rock, a divine revelation, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet. So before we even meet John or Jesus, Mark reminds us, this is not a new story. but the long-expected fulfillment of what God has already spoken.

This is not the invention of a new religion. It is a continuation of one redemptive story, the outworking of God’s covenant faithfulness through the ages. From that very first promise in Eden, the seed of the woman shall crush the serpent’s head, to the promises made to Abraham, Moses, David, every strand of scripture has been leading to this moment. So when Mark says, as it is written, he is signaling to us the unbroken authority of scripture. God has spoken, and what he has spoken has now come to pass.

The gospel is not detached from the Old Testament, it is the flowering and fulfillment. Your faith, Christian, doesn’t rest on shifting sand. but on the bedrock of a God who keeps his word. In a world that’s just chock full of empty promises and broken covenants, the Lord remains faithful. The unfolding of the gospel proves that God never forgets what he has spoken, though centuries may have passed. So when you doubt his timing or his care, remember, He has kept his promise to send a forerunner and the Messiah at the appointed time. And if he has done that, then he likewise will keep every promise he has made to you in Jesus Christ. Now notice this messenger he sends. Mark is combining three Old Testament passages. Exodus 23, 20, Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way. Malachi 3, 1, Behold, I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me. Isaiah 40, verse 3, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.

So he is weaving these together, he’s showing us that the forerunner’s ministry stands within the great sweep of salvation history. God has always promised to send a messenger before the coming of the Lord to prepare his people. And so this imagery comes from the ancient Near East. When a king travels, heralds will go on ahead to prepare the road, removing obstacles, filling ruts, straightening paths, proclaiming the king’s approach. But why is the king coming? to further establish his rule and to pass judgment on evildoers and reward those who are doing what is right in his sight. So spiritually, John’s ministry is just that, is preparing the hearts for the arrival of the true king.

And he is sent before your face, that is before the very face of the Lord Jesus. This is intimate, personal language. The messenger comes immediately in the king’s presence. The Lord himself is coming to his people. John’s task is to make ready the road.

And then this striking phrase, the voice of one crying in the wilderness. The wilderness in scripture is a desolate place. It’s empty, harsh, seemingly God forsaken. But again and again in this story of redemption, the wilderness is where God meets his people. It was in the wilderness that Israel was delivered from Egypt and formed into God’s covenant nation. It was in the wilderness that God fed his people with manna and gave them his law. It was in the wilderness that Israel’s unfaithfulness was most exposed and where God’s mercy shone most brightly.

And now centuries later, the voice of God is heard again in that same wilderness, not in Jerusalem’s temple courts, not in the halls of power, but in the barren places where men have no hope in themselves. And this is profoundly fitting. Redemption always begins in the wilderness of human helplessness. God’s grace meets us not in our pride and plenty, but in our poverty and need. The wilderness is the picture of our hearts apart from Christ, empty, fruitless, parched, and yet it’s there that God speaks. Maybe you feel as though you’re in a wilderness, dry, weary, forgotten. Take heart. The same God who spoke in the Judean desert still speaks today through his word His gospel comes to wilderness souls. Before revival comes, refreshing rain. There must first be desolation that makes us thirst for him. Now his message, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

Now, The Lord here in Isaiah 40 verse three refers to the covenant God of Israel, but Mark is applying that directly to Jesus. And this is one of the earliest clear testimonies in the New Testament to Christ’s deity. Mark is saying the one whose way that’s being prepared is none other than the Lord himself come in the flesh.

The Lord who once led his people through the wilderness by cloud and fire now walks among them as the incarnate son. The highway of God’s return to his people is now being built through repentance, through faith, through the opening of hearts to receive their king. Now John is the final prophet of the old covenant, the herald who bridges that silence between Malachi and Messiah. His voice is the trumpet that announces the dawn, but the road he prepares leads not into Sinai, but to Calvary. The way of the Lord is the way that will end at the cross, where the Lord makes straight the path of salvation for his people. So when God’s word says, prepare the way of the Lord, it’s not merely a historical note, it is a personal command. The king still comes to his people, and he still calls us to prepare the way. What obstacles must be removed from the road of your heart? What valleys of sin need to be lifted up in repentance? What mountains of pride must be brought low in humility? See, repentance is not merely remorse.

It’s making room for the king. Every act of confession, every step of obedience, every moment of surrender is like clearing the path for Christ to reign more fully in us. So by beginning his gospel with a fulfilled prophecy, Mark is teaching us something essential about the character of God. He is faithful across the centuries. from Isaiah to John the Baptist, spanning more than 700 years, seven centuries of waiting and praying and longing. And yet, when the fullness of time came, God acted precisely as he had promised. The covenant God who promised salvation has now come himself to bring it.

The wilderness voice is proof that God’s silence never means his absence. Maybe you have prayed for years for a loved one, for revival, for healing, for strength, and heaven seems silent. Remember this. God is never late. His promise ripens at the perfect moment. What seems like delay oftentimes is preparation. If he kept his word to send the forerunner and then his son, he will keep every word he has spoken to you in Christ Jesus. Let every fulfilled promise in scripture feed your confidence in the promises yet to come. Note this pattern of God’s redemption is always the same from wilderness to glory.

So the wilderness is not wasted space. It’s God’s training ground for grace. There’s a book number written a number of years ago, I think, by John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Cancer, when he had diagnosed with this. Well, let’s write a book, Don’t Waste Your Wilderness. That barrenness in your life, that seeming emptiness there, it is God’s training ground for you for grace.

He brings his people low that he may lift them up. He empties them of self so that he may fill us with his spirit. And the same Lord who called Israel through the desert now walks with us through ours. The path he commands us to make straight. He himself walks by his spirit within us. The one who calls us to repentance also gives us the grace to repent. The God who says prepare the way also prepares our hearts.

And as we come to the Lord’s Supper in a few moments, we’re gonna see that the call of John the Baptist doesn’t end in the wilderness, it leads us here. Prepare the way of the Lord. It’s not only a message for the crowds at the Jordan, it’s a message for his church gathered at the table. For what is the Lord’s Supper? but a place where the king meets his people.

It’s a message here for us. Here, Christ doesn’t come in visible glory, but he truly comes to us by his spirit. And he sets before us the signs and seals of his body and blood. Here, he assures us that the gospel that we’ve heard is not only true, but it is for us. But the way of this table is the same way John preached. repentance, and faith. We don’t come casually. We don’t come carelessly. We do not come trusting in ourselves. We come confessing our sins. We come turning from them. We come trusting in Christ alone.

As the apostle says, let a person examine himself then and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. This table is not for the proud, but for the penitent, not for the self-satisfied, but for the truly hungry, not for those who think themselves worthy, but for those who know they are not, and yet trust in Christ. And here’s the good news, the one whose way we prepare is the very one who’s prepared the way for us. John said, make his path straight, but Christ has made our path straight through his cross.

He has borne our sins. He has removed every obstacle of guilt and condemnation. He has opened a new and living way into the presence of God, so we come. We come out of the wilderness of sin into the presence of our King. We come not to earn grace, but to receive it. We come not because we are worthy, but because Christ is worthy. And we’re here at this table. The voice of the wilderness gives way to the feast of the kingdom. The king who came is the king who died. The king who died is the king who rose, and the king who rose now feeds his people. So let’s prepare our hearts. Let us come with repentance and faith, and let’s receive Christ as he’s offered to us in his gospel. Let’s pray together. Our gracious God and Father, we thank you for the voice that calls us to prepare the way of the Lord. And we thank you even more for the Lord himself who has come to seek and to save the lost.

And as we come now to your table, we confess our sins before you. We acknowledge that we’re not worthy in ourselves to partake of these holy things. Our hearts are often divided, our repentance too shallow, our faith too weak. And we thank you that our hope is not in ourselves, but in Jesus Christ, your Son, our Savior, who has made full atonement for all our sins. By your Holy Spirit, prepare us now, grant us true repentance, sincere faith, and a deep hunger for Christ. Remove every distraction, every hardness of heart, every lingering sin that would hinder us from coming rightly.

Feed us, we pray, with Christ himself. Strengthen our faith. Assure us of your love. Unite us more closely to our Savior and to one another as His body. And as we partake of this supper, lift our eyes beyond the wilderness of this world to the coming feast in your kingdom, where we shall sit down with Christ in glory. And we ask all this in His name, even Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Amen.