Jesus, the Promised Messiah

It is good to be back up here with you this morning. Last week it was a great encouragement to sit where you're sitting as we worship together and to hear Pastor Ben open up the Word of God in Malachi. Thank you, brother, for the faithful work you have done in proclaiming God's Word to us. The week before, I was at another church, a friend who gets very little relief preaching. I was able to give him some in preaching in South Carolina, and it was a joy in that the church was very much like you. They were hungry for the Word of God. It was a joy to preach for the church who obviously loved the Word of God. But it was also very different. And so it's good to be back here. It was kind of like eating at a cousin's home, where it was kind of familiar. It was still family, but it wasn't my family. So it is a joy to be back here with you. I also want to point out, there's something, my daughters recognize this. They said, we really want to be back at Jefferson Park. It's something different. They love being here. So thank you all for the work we're doing that makes it a joy for them. This morning, we're going to ask a simple question, and I hope to answer it from our text. It's a question we should be asking pretty much every week. It's, who is Jesus? Who is Jesus? Now, it's an important question for us as a church to ask, because we just sang to Jesus. We worshiped Jesus. We prayed in His name. He's fairly important this morning. to us who are gathered as Christians. But if you're not a Christian, I want to say, this is also extremely important for you. If you're going to reject Him as the one you're going to worship, you should know who He is. It's interesting as you think about, who is Jesus? What do I know about Jesus? How well do I know Jesus? I don't really put a lot of weight in surveys. I just don't like surveys. But one recently came out that I found interesting. So let me give you the data. Evangelicals were asked this question. Thousands of evangelicals were asked this question, and they were told to either agree, strongly agree, disagree, strongly disagree. All right, here's this first statement. God counts a person as righteous, not because of one's works, but only because of one's faith in Jesus Christ. That's a good statement. 81% of evangelicals said, I strongly agree. That's encouraging. You'd like to see that more up to like 100%, but that's encouraging. That's a high percentage. Okay, let's even, let's do this one. There is one true God in three persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. 94% strongly agreed. Really encouraging. Again, we've got 6% who would not align with most of church history, but we're gonna hang on here that 94% agreed that God is Father, Son, and Spirit. All right, the third statement. Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God. 78% of evangelicals agreed with that. All right, I don't think statistics usually help in any way, but 94% just said Jesus that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, of that 94%, 78% of them said He's created by God. That's confusion. The very fact that you would say Jesus is part of the Trinity, that there's a Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that means He's not created, He's part of the Creator. The concern is we want to make sure we know who Jesus is with great clarity, with great confidence, because we're coming to worship him. But I want to be careful. Maybe you're confused right now. Why is that such a big deal? Please stick around and ask me afterwards. It's okay if that's confusing, if that isn't clear why Jesus must be fully God to worship him. It's not okay to stay confused. Let's all grow up into who Jesus Christ is together. It's important as we are starting a study in the gospel of Mark. I want us as a church to pursue knowing who Jesus is together. Mark is one of the four gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, those are the four gospel accounts of Jesus Christ. There are three called the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, because they're very similar. Mark actually only has about 5% of unique information about Jesus in his gospel. What he says about Jesus, the stories he shares, the things he shares, the other gospels usually cover those. But Mark also has packed in and orchestrated and put those stories in a certain way to tell a certain, to have a certain emphasis. Throughout church history, Mark has been probably the least appreciated gospel among the gospels. It's the shortest, it's the simplest, and many thought it just didn't have a lot of flair to it. It didn't add anything that Matthew and Luke did not have. But recently, they've seen Mark actually has some fairly unique writing techniques. One of them is called sandwiching, and we'll see this over and over again. He'll tell a story, and then he'll stick another story right in the middle to help you understand the bigger story. It's a writing technique that's unique to Mark. As we look to Mark, we're gonna see a number of themes. Jesus is the suffering servant who came to save sinners. Jesus is the Son of God who forgives sinners. Jesus is the Son of Man who has all authority. Jesus is the Messiah who's making the kingdom known. I pray you'll take this book. We actually have little copies of just Mark. You'll study it. You'll read it at home. We'll come together and focus on it together. It's a great study to do with co-workers. Just walking through the Gospel of Mark with students, with neighbors, with family members. It's a great way of just getting a very clear, simple declaration of who Jesus is. John Mark is the author, as we believe. He doesn't actually state exactly who he is, but church history tells us that it's John Mark, and that he's closely tied to Peter in Rome, sharing this gospel. And it's a gospel primarily written to Gentiles in Rome, and we appreciate that because we'll have, who has a study Bible, right? If you have a study Bible, you really like those notes at the bottom? Those notes are inspired. But John, you'll see a couple times, he'll give you inspired study notes. Oh yeah, this is the Jewish custom. Let me explain to you what they're actually doing here. That's extremely helpful. Thank you, Mark. Mark will give us those, sorry. All right, so let's begin. We have three points as we look at our beginning. We're starting in Mark, and you can see there in the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, It's a bit of a prologue, not quite as extravagant as John's prologue in his Gospel, but a very simple introduction to tell us who he's writing about. He's also want to make sure we understand this isn't a new story. It's an ongoing story. And then we see kind of these high points of Jesus being baptized, and then also verses 12 and 13, going out and defeating Satan in the wilderness. A few things tie this whole section together. First and foremost, it's Jesus. Secondly, we see him functioning as the Son of God, and we see that it continues to take place out in the wilderness. We also see the Holy Spirit mentioned a number of times. We don't see the Holy Spirit mentioned that often throughout the rest of the Gospel of Mark. But we see the Spirit working, we see Him out in the wilderness, we see Him fully betrayed as the Son of God who has come to fulfill God's plan. Let's look to our first point, that is, Jesus is the good news. If we're gonna ask, who is Jesus? We want to first say, Jesus is the good news. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. What Mark's doing here is he's beginning a new chapter in a bigger story. This isn't something new God is actually bringing about something. He's been talking about for some time God had promised back in Genesis 3 15 that a son would be born who would crush Satan who would reverse the curse and then we saw God promise a son to Abraham and then a son to David and now finally we see that the son we've all been waiting for He's appeared And his earthly father doesn't matter. It's the fact that he's the son of the Heavenly Father. That's what makes this son stand out. We need to remember here, there's been 400 years of silence. There's been 400 years without a prophetic word that was authority, authoritative in the way that would lead God's people to have been waiting and longing for God to speak, and now He's finally spoken, not by another prophet, but by His own Son, the perfect revelation of God. So let's look at this, the beginning, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Let's begin. What does it mean that Jesus is God's Son? Does that mean that he's less of God than the Father? No, I want to present this to you. The Father and the Son have always existed. The Son does not depend upon the Father any more than the Father depends on the Son. You have to have a son to be a father. You have to be a father to have a son. Those two have always existed in those roles and in that relationship. It doesn't mean one is created by the other. It means their identities are tied to one another. Jesus is the Son of God, the eternally begotten Son, who has come to show us who God truly is as the one true God. The Son, who's always been with the Father as a Son, has come down now to be the servant to man, to save us. Let's look at what it means that His name is Jesus. Translated, this simply means Yahweh saves. He is the Savior. He is the one who God has sent down to finally and fully save His people. Messiah. This will be an idea anointed. He's anointed. He's the king who has come to actually win a victory. Okay, that's who he is. He's God's Savior. He is the Messiah. He is God himself, the Son of God. What does it mean that it's the gospel? The gospel, translated gospel, would be the good news. If you look at how this is normally used in context, it's helpful. Typically when, when Rome was out in a battle, and they won that battle, and a herald would come back into the city and say, we won. Good news. The gospel declaration was usually a victory proclamation. A declaration that a victory has been won. Here we see the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a victory declaration. God's one. Jesus is God's victory over our sin, over our problem, over our death, over our rebellion. It's good news. Now, a gospel account, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, those are four different men that the Holy Spirit carried along to give us a picture of who Jesus is in this victory. Matthew presents him as the true king. Mark, the suffering servant. Luke, the perfect man. John, the Word became flesh. All of those are true, but yet different ways of looking at Jesus Christ. It's important that we hear there's a victory. I actually wonder, how many out there are actually feeling right now defeated? You're entangled in sin. You're discouraged. You're actually feeling like, all right, I've gotten so much bad news, either health-wise or family updates. It's important that we realize there's good news. And I want us to think about that good news in light of our three most important enemies. First, our sin, our flesh. Our sin is a constant problem because it's constantly seeking to deter us, to move us away from God. It is opposed to God. What Paul says in Galatians, our flesh is opposed to things of the Spirit. There's a battle waging inside of us, and we want that battle to stop. Jesus is the good news that you can win that battle, and that one day it will no longer be. Satan is our other enemy. He lies. He deceives. He accuses. He longs to overwhelm you with guilt and deception. And we can rejoice that we know that Jesus Christ has crushed his head. He might roar like a mighty lion, but he has no bite. Jesus Christ is one. Our final enemy is death. We were created for life. We're all gonna die. It's not the way it's supposed to be. We no longer fear death because Jesus Christ has risen. He has given new life. He has given us his own eternal life. The good news helps our heart. It helps the deception. It gives us truth. It helps us rejoice and not fear death. I wanted to say something else about the good news. The good news fixes the problem that's inside of us. The good news does not come from the inside of us. The good news comes from outside. The good news comes down from heaven. The Father sends His Son to win the victory we cannot win. Jesus Christ is our hope. So we can talk about two different things. One, it's the gospel accounts. That's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But before we move on from the good news, the gospel of Jesus, I want to make sure we really focus on the five essentials of the gospel. You can find these throughout church history in the creeds and councils. It's the five major actions of Jesus, and I'm just going to take them from the Apostles' Creed. It begins that, when He talks about Jesus, He is the Son of God. That's who He is. But then He says He was born of a virgin. The birth of Christ is an essential act because God comes down to become like us in every way. And then it says that He suffered under Pontius Pilate. He was crucified, dead, and buried. He had to die for our sins. And then it says He rose again to new life. He is risen. Oh, we've got to work on that. He is risen. I know Christmas is next, but Easter is just around the corner. And we gather every Sunday to rejoice in the fact that our Savior is risen. He's come down. We celebrate that at Christmas. He's died on the cross. That's Good Friday. Easter Sunday, He is risen. And now he's ascended. Right now, the present, he is at the Father's right hand as our ambassador and mediator. With all authority, representing us and sending us out into the world to proclaim his good news. There's three things he's done in the past, there's one in the present, there's one still in the future. He's coming back. Jesus will return, and he will make all things new. That sin that keeps frustrating us, that will be done. Death will be no more, no more weeping. The good news is that we can enjoy the victory Jesus Christ has won today, and we are longing for the day that it is perfect and complete in every way. Who is Jesus? He's not some abstract figure. He's a real, He's our real God, who's come down to walk among us and speak with us. He's still working for us at the right hand of the Father. Be of good courage this morning, Christian. Jesus knows you better than you know yourself and that you know Him. Jesus desires a relationship with you more than you do with Him. Jesus loves you more than you love Him. Jesus has accomplished everything for us to enter into that relationship and rejoice in it fully. What we have to do is set aside our sin and embrace Him as our one God and Savior. So first, it's that Jesus is the good news. That is the beginning of His gospel, that simple, sweet declaration. There's good news. The second thing I wanted to say this morning is in verse 2. Jesus was promised. Jesus was promised. Verse 2. As it is written. This is an important formula in the New Testament, and in the Old Testament for that matter. God hasn't been silent. He's given us his word. He's given us this authoritative word in writing so that we can know what he has said, we can trust it, we can pursue it, and he's always proven faithful. As it is written, God has given us 39 Old Testament books, written over thousands of years, different cultures. And what we see there is a constant promise. I am sending help. I am with you. I am for you. I am sending help. The Old Testament is God making great promises. The New Testament is God fulfilling them. And we see here, He's fulfilled them. Every promise finds its yes and amen in Jesus Christ. As it is written, God has made promises and now he's fulfilling them. Well he says, Isaiah the prophet said, behold I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of the one crying in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Isaiah here isn't actually making a declaration just about Jesus. He's making a declaration about another important figure. That's John the Baptist. And there in Isaiah 40, if you go to the text before it, as Roger read it earlier, comfort my people. Comfort my people. God desires to comfort us in our difficulty. with a great promise, I am going to prepare the way. I am going to make my path straight. I'm going to make your path straight. All of the Old Testament had one message. Trust God. He will keep His word. All the New Testament has one message. He has fulfilled His word. It's in Jesus Christ. Now John the Baptist is a unique figure because he's the last Old Testament prophet. Because He still gets to say, He's coming. He's coming. He's coming. He's the last Old Testament prophet who's saying, still wait and expect the Lord. And then He's the first New Testament prophet, really, because He says, here He is. This is Jesus, the Son of God. The Lamb of God, who will take away the sin of the world. Who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. He makes the path straight. If you go back to Isaiah 40, one of the most interesting things about that passage is it says the way he'll make the path straight is he's going to call the people to repent of their idolatry. He's going to call the people to set aside those man-made idols so they can worship the one true God who made man and desires to save him. Verse 4. We know who that messenger is who will go before your face. Verse 4. John appeared. John the Baptist. He's baptizing in the wilderness. Now, the wilderness here, it occurs a number of times. Jesus is driven out into the wilderness, verse 12. John is out in the wilderness. The wilderness has this place of where God meets his people. It's where God comes to instruct his people, where they're separated from the busyness of their normal lives to focus on who God is. There's a sacred place here for the wilderness. And it says that John was baptizing. It actually says he's proclaiming a baptism of repentance. Now, baptism isn't unique to John the Baptist, or to Christianity for that matter. There are many, like the Essenes at this time, who practiced baptism. Many Jewish people practiced baptism, and it represented the same thing. It was a recognition that there's something dirty that needs to be washed. Baptism is the recognition that something is wrong. It needs to be cleansed. What's unique about John's baptism is this. Most baptisms of the other sects of Judaism or of the other religions, it was a self-administered baptism. It was like our baths, right? You don't get bathed. You bathe yourself. baptism was a washing of yourself. It was a self-done practice. John's baptism, he administered it. It comes to you. It's something done to you. And I believe that's very helpful, because you really can't wash yourself of your own sin. It's something done to you. John is proclaiming a baptism of the repentance of the forgiveness of sins. The baptism John is doing here, he's straightening the way by saying you need to change your way. There's something wrong that needs to be turned around. There's something that's wrong that needs to be washed. There's also something that needs to be forgiven. Notice here that all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him. And we're being baptized by Him. They are submitting to His washing in the river. Notice they're confessing their sins. They were coming, not saying, John, there might be something wrong with me. Why don't you dunk me and see if it'll help? They're coming, confessing their sins. Seeking to be washed. Seeking to be cleansed. Seeking to realize there's nothing I can do to actually wash this up myself. I need help. If you're not a Christian this morning, I want you to see that this invitation to confess your sins is what makes Christianity unique. Let me try to explain that. What happens if you go and confess your sins to the judge? You're gonna be declared guilty. That's the judge's job. If you go and tell the judge what you've done wrong, he's going to declare you guilty. What's gonna happen if you go and confess your sins to your friends? They're probably gonna start treating you differently. I hope they don't if they're Christian friends, but let's face it, if people actually knew the things we thought, the things we've done, we're afraid of the way people are going to treat us. Or is that just me? People are going to treat you differently. You might be ostracized. You might be judged. Especially your self-righteous friends are going to look down upon you and treat you poorly, as if you're less. This is what happens if you go to Jesus Christ, and you confess your sins. you'll hear the sweet words, I forgive you. I love you, I desire to restore you. Jesus Christ is the only one who desires to receive you as a sinner confessing your sin and will say, I forgive you, I desire to restore you. Now, I wanna make it very clear, it is that simple. It's that simple that you can go before Jesus Christ and you can say, I need to confess my sin, I want to be forgiven. It's that simple, but I want to make it very clear, it is not cheap. It cost the Son of God, Jesus Christ, His own life. He had to die on the cross. He had to be separated from His Father. He had to suffer the penalty for our sins so that He could then say, I've suffered. That's why you can be forgiven. I've been forsaken. That's why you can be restored. Christianity offers you forgiveness, restoration. If you're not a Christian, please don't leave here without asking somebody around you, myself. What does that mean to be forgiven? How does that work? How do I go before Jesus and actually tell him who I really am? You don't have to tell Jesus who you are. He knows. All you have to do is say, I'm sorry. Jesus, will you forgive me? If you're a Christian, this is what's supposed to make Christianity so wonderfully different. that we're a people who understand that we can, with great confidence, confess our sin and be forgiven. When we are to confess our sins, we're to forgive others of sin. The church is supposed to be this glorious community of grace where confession actually happens regularly and forgiveness happens regularly because we're regularly sinners. I don't think this is what the church at large is known for. I think we've been a bad witness of the gospel of Jesus Christ because I don't think the church at large, not just us, is known for being a people who show grace. And that's a shame. Now, I want to commend you, Jefferson Pork. I've seen grace enacted. I've seen grace working where confession of sin and forgiveness have taken place. But we can always grow here. Well, one of the questions is, do we grumble more than show grace? Do we eagerly and joyfully confess our sins, or do we talk about and confess others' sins? A gospel culture is grown when God's people all are eager to confess their own sins, not one another's. The other thing is called gossip. Let me define gossip. Gossip is when Christian 1 talks to Christian 2 about Christian 3's sin. Alright, everybody get that? I'm not very good at math. I think that works. There's 3. Christian 1 and Christian 2 are going to talk about the sin of Christian 3, not their own. What God commends, the way Christ is exalted is when Christian 1 and Christian 2, they confess their own sins and they have forgiveness. But what gossip is when Christian 1 and 2 gather to talk about Christian 3's sin. Raise your hand if you wanna be Christian 3. Raise your hand if you think you've been Christian 3. This is full participation here, come on. No one thinks they've been gossiped about at this church? You all should raise your hand. Let me just. All right, so no one wants to be number three. You're following me, right? This math equation does make sense. You don't want to be Christian three because everybody else is talking about you behind your back. That makes sense, right? Raise your hand if you've been Christian one or two. Yeah. That destroys the church. That is what keeps a church from growing up in grace. That is Satan having a joyful ride in the church. that deception, that that's okay. Complaining about members' sins is how the body is torn apart. Confessing our sin is how Jesus Christ, the head, is exalted and the body grows. Let me repeat that. Complaining about other members' sin is how a body is torn apart because it destroys trust. Confessing our own sin is how Christ is exalted and a body grows. This isn't a unique John the Baptist moment here. This is him setting up what the church is going to be. People coming to Jesus by confessing their sins together to be washed. Christian baptism is closely connected to John's baptism. These people have recognized their need to be washed. They've recognized their sin. And they've come to someone to, to wash them, to, to lead them in the way. And what's fantastic about John the Baptist is, is he does receive them, but he never says, I'm the one who's going to really help you. He does what he's supposed to do. He prepares the way. He points them to Jesus. He doesn't say, here's five steps to make yourself clean enough so Jesus, when he comes, will like you. He simply says, recognize your sin and confess it, seeking forgiveness. Let's look at what John says. Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist. It ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, after me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. He has three basic sayings here. First, he is mightier than I. He is going to come after me. As the last altest prophet, the one who's going to come after me, he's mightier. He's the strong man that we'll see in chapter 3, verse 27, who's able to bind Satan. He is the true power, the mighty warrior, the king who's going to help save Israel. John the Baptist realizes his role is to simply proclaim the one who actually has the power. He does not have the power. So he recognizes he's not the one with the power. Jesus is. The next statement is quite interesting. The strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. If you're a Jewish servant in this day, you did not have to untie the sandals of your master. That was below the role of a Jewish servant. A Gentile servant might have to, but a Jewish servant would never even be expected to stoop that low. Here, John, declares, I am not worthy even to do the task that's the lowliest task of a servant. Beneath the role of most servants. He has proper humility. He recognizes his proper position. He has a proper disposition to the one who's truly going to come, recognizing he is worthy. He is God. It's just an honor to be here. If you're a leader, or you desire to be a leader, of course Jesus Christ is the first figure you want to study, but John, he is second. He recognizes his role, and remains in it. He proclaims Christ. He proclaims Christ. He proclaims Christ. He has the humility to see the honor of that position. Now, honor, what are you talking about? He's wearing camel clothes and he's eating locusts. Where's the honor in that? Friends, he got to point to Jesus and say, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. There's no greater privileged position to be the person who gets to say that to somebody. But it takes humility to realize they need Him more than ourselves. If you want to see what a leader looks like, it's John the Baptist, who has very little pride. He is, what makes a great Christian, it's real humility, humility to proclaim Christ. Last thing he says. He contrasts himself now. I have baptized with water, but he will baptize with the Holy Spirit. Now, Jesus—the church has always said baptism is with water. What makes John's baptism different from Jesus' isn't that Jesus is a lack of water. It's that it's going to be done with the Holy Spirit. There's an internal change that takes place. Now, interestingly, the Holy Spirit was always connected to God sending him in the Old Testament. I believe John the Baptist is making it very clear that Jesus, the one who's going to come, He is God Himself who's going to give you the Spirit you've been waiting for. The Holy Spirit comes, and it takes everything Christ accomplished. The Holy Spirit comes, and He takes everything Christ accomplished on the cross. Everything He accomplished in His resurrection. Everything He gives us at the right hand of the Father, and He applies it personally and specifically to our hearts. So that it's not just a declaration of justification, we're truly being made righteous. It's not just a declaration you can have life, new life is taking place in our hearts. It's not just that you can win the battle, and Christ has won the battle, but that battle, the power to win it is in our hearts. It's an effective change of who we are and what we can do. Jesus Christ comes to change who we are and what we can do and give us the power to do what we're supposed to do and that is worship God in the first place. So Jesus is the good news. This isn't new news. There's a new chapter, but, but it's the promised good news that God has been telling us about for so long. Finally, our last point, Jesus is God's Son. We begin here with a transition to the historical narrative of Jesus himself. I'm going to read verses 9 through 13 because they really do go together, but we're going to stop at 11 to set up our baptism, and we'll continue next week in verse 12. Listen to how the Spirit functions here. In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn apart and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, you are my beloved son. With you I am well pleased. The Spirit immediately drove him out of the wilderness. That is Jesus. And he was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals and the angels were ministering to him. The first thing I want us to see here is Jesus comes to be baptized by John. Now we gotta think a little bit, alright everybody? Everybody focus. Jesus is coming to be baptized by John. John's baptism is one of repentance, confessing sin. How is it that Jesus is going to come and be baptized for repentance and confessing sin. That is confusing because we know from elsewhere in Scripture that Jesus is sinless. We see here the Father says, I'm well pleased with him. Why is he being baptized into John's baptism of repentance, the confession of sin? Why? I believe it's so that that confession of sin is actually effective. You see, Jesus is perfect. He is, he's actually come down to live the life we refuse to live and that we cannot live. He is the perfect human being who is like us in every way, yet without sin. What he's doing here in the baptism of John is he's identifying with us as sinners so that we can identify with the Father as sons. He is participating in this baptism of repentance and confession of sin so that when we are baptized in Him, He's taking our sin upon Himself, and He's giving us the likeness of His Son. He has no sin to confess. There is no repentance. What He's merely doing is connecting Himself to us sinners seeking to be saved. Now notice there's three main parts to this baptism. I mean, three main actions that flow afterwards. He comes up out of the water and immediately the heavens are torn apart. Guys, heavens. Something where everyone is obvious. Something's happening in creation. The Son of God just began His ministry, connecting Himself to sinners. This will be something like the Shekinah glory of the Old Testament, or maybe something like when Jesus Christ dies on the cross, and the mountains, an earthquake took place. Something very clear has taken place because God Himself has begun a new kind of action. The heavens are torn apart, The Spirit descends very visibly, like a dove, anointing Jesus so that He is the Messiah King, and everyone can see that He's the Messiah King. And then a voice came from heaven. You are my beloved Son. Who's the only person who can say, you're my beloved Son? The Father. They just heard God the Father audibly speak the testimony, this is my beloved Son. We see the whole Trinity in the first public revelation of the whole Trinity. The Father has spoken, the Son has come up out of the water He is being spoken of, and the Holy Spirit is descending upon Him. We see here the beauty of Jesus being the Son of God. He is the perfect son of the Father who has always enjoyed the love of the Father, except for one moment. That moment on the cross when he cries out, Father, Father, why have you forsaken me? This baptism is pointing to that moment. So that we can know the Father as our loving Father, as Jesus takes on our sin. Notice it says, I'm well pleased. He is the one who has come down to live the perfect life that we could not live. We see the Gospel taking action here for us. Because God has sent His Son to die for us. If we go back to chapter 1, verse 1. He's the Son of God. We see here the confirmation in the baptism that Jesus is the Son of God. This is an important link throughout Mark's Gospel. In Mark 8, 29, this is going to be on the lips of a Jewish disciple as Jesus is transitioning to teach his disciples he's going to die and rise again. Then, on the cross, as Jesus dies in Mark 15, 29, a Roman centurion, a Gentile, who's just been witnessing what happened, declares, surely this is the Son of God. The Son of God came to save us, and we murdered Him. That shows how how sinful we are. That shows how much we need help. It shows how much He loves us, knowing that's what would happen, and He committed Himself to do it anyway. As we just focus on who is Jesus, I want to think about here just for a moment. He's a Son of God. If He's a Son of God, He has always existed. He is the Creator that has created all that is created. It was all good before we corrupted it. So when we think about Jesus, the Son of God, we're thinking of Jesus, the One who spoke creation into existence. That, that reveals how powerful He is. He's the Mighty One with great power to save and create who has come down to us. He's the One who's been promised for a long time. Again, go back and look at Genesis 3.15. A Son will be born. He's going to bring about a new beginning. And here we see that beginning is the Gospel. He's come to His own creation to become part of it, and yet was murdered by it. As the Son of God, He's the perfect revelation of God. He's not just a prophet who's hearing and saying something he doesn't really know or understand. He's the Son of God who knows the Father, hears what the Father is saying, and says what the Father is saying as the one true Son. As a son of God, He was forsaken by the Father on the cross so that we who believe in Him can be forgiven and reconciled to the Father. As a son of God, He comes and brings us sure victory as the firstborn from the dead so that we who believe might receive His eternal life. Today, if you hear His voice, Don't reject Him. If you hear His voice to repent of a sin so that you might know Him more if you're a believer, repent, confess, and be forgiven. If you're not a Christian, do not reject the one person who can save you, and that is Jesus Christ. As we begin this series in Mark, I want us to all be prayerfully asking, who is Jesus? I want us to be pursuing this together so that we will grow up as a body meditating and focused on Him. Apart from all the other distractions of anything else, we need to focus on who is Jesus. Join me in praying fervently that we would grow up to know Him as the Son of God this week. Will you pray with me?