Mark 1:9-11
Someone’s Here
Remember, Mark is a fast-paces gospel. He covered a lot of territory
with very few words. The first 13 verses of Mark is basically an
introduction to the life and ministry of Jesus. Mark will get us to
the actual life and ministry of Jesus faster than any other gospel
writer.
Let’s follow Mark’s train of thought:
I. \\#1-8\\ Jesus was announced.
A. John the Baptist was the announcer.
B. We looked at John last week. He was an amazing man.
C. However, even more important than the announcer was His
message.
D. John’s message was, "Someone is coming."
1. John’s message was not new.
2. In fact, it is almost the oldest message, being first
given in Genesis 3:15.
3. There is really only one message older.
a. It was given in Genesis 2:17.
b. That message is that the wages of sin is death.
c. God worded it a little differently, "in the day thou
eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die."
d. But is the same message.
E. So John told the world that Someone was coming.
1. That is about all Mark records of John’s announcement, but
there is much more.
2. John actually told the world who the Someone was and that
the Someone was here.
John 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming
unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God,
which taketh away the sin of the world.
3. That is an important part of John’s message.
a. I am not sure why Mark did not record that part of
John’s announcement.
b. I suspect it is because he preferred to let One much
bigger than John the Baptist tell his readers who
that Someone was and that the Someone was here.
c. I suppose that because in the next verses, he did
just that.
II. \\#9-11\\ Jesus was authenticated.
A.\\#9\\ The Locations
Mark 1:9 And it came to pass in those days, that
Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was
baptized of John in Jordan.
1. You may not be at all interested in it, but the Bible
tells us both where Jesus came from and where He came to.
2. Jesus came from Nazareth:
a. Nazareth is a small village on the hills of a dry,
dust bowl.
(1) To give you an idea of the size, at the time of
Jesus, there was only one well there.
(2) I’ve been to it.
(3) It’s still not much today.
b. \\#Luke 1:26\\ Nazareth was the city of Mary and
probably Joseph \\#Luke 2:4\\.
c. Mary and Joseph left Nazareth to go to Bethlehem when
Jesus was about to be born because of Caesar’s tax.
d. \\#Matt 2:14\\ From Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph fled
for a time to Egypt.
e. \\#Matt 2:22-23\\ After the death of Herod, they
returned to Nazareth where Jesus was reared.
f. Apparently, Nazareth was home to Jesus until He went
to be baptized, somewhere around the age of 30.
g. \\#Luke 4:16-29, Matt 13:54-58\\ Nazareth will never
accept Jesus.
(1) I suspect because He lived virtually His first
30 years there and never did any miracles.
(2) Sadly, I can understand that bitterness.
(a) They were a poor people.
(b) Nazareth was the type of place that if you
had any money, you moved away.
(c) In thirty years, I imagine a lot of people
were injured, got sick, and even died.
(d) It would be human to wonder why Jesus did
not do anything to help those people,
especially if they were your loved ones.
(e) Why did Jesus not help them?
i. Answer - It was not time yet.
ii. But we need to learn something
important here.
iii. It may have been the timing of God that
prevented Jesus from helping those
people His first 30 years, but it was
the bitterness of the people that
prevented Jesus from helping those
people His last 3 1/2 years.
iv. Too many people let bitterness at God
deprive them of their blessings from
God.
f. \\#Matt 4:13\\ Ultimately, Jesus will make
Capernaum His headquarters in Galilee.
3. Jesus came to Jordan.
a. The Jordan River is the life’s blood of Israel.
b. It is a river formed mostly from the rains and snows
of the mountains north of Israel.
c. It flows the full length of the land, from north to
south, which is the longest direction across the land.
d. The Jordan River sits in the bottom of the Jordan
Valley and it is the richest top soil in the area.
(1) I remember asking our guide how deep the top soil
was, as the earth beneath it is rock.
(2) He said only a few inches.
(3) Yet that valley produces some an abundance of
largest fruits and vegetables you will ever see.
(4) Driving through the marketplace, I believe it
was Jordan, we saw strawberries as big as
tomatoes.
e. Of course, Jesus did not come to the Jordan for the
food, but because that is where John was.
f. There was plenty of water there and John was
baptizing.
(1) John’s message and act of baptism was renowned
with all of Judea going to him to be baptized.
(2) And Jesus went there for the same reason, to be
baptized of John.
B. \\#9-11\\ The Baptism
Mark 1:9 And it came to pass in those days, that
Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was
baptized of John in Jordan.
10 And straightway coming up out of the water,
he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a
dove descending upon him:
11 And there came a voice from heaven, [saying],
Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased.
1. We talked about baptism last week.
a. John baptized unto repentance; that is, he baptized
a person when that person acknowledged that he was s
sinner who was repenting and turning to God.
b. That is all that John’s baptism meant because that
was all of the message they had at that time.
2. Jesus went to be baptized, but not because He was a
repenting sinner.
3. Jesus was baptized…
a. …to identify with us.
(1) Jesus has never asked anything from us that He
did not do.
(2) For all of us, born after the cross, He did the
things He asks of us first, before we do it.
(3) Sometimes we make much of the fact that Jesus
asked us to give Him our lives—not our deaths
but our lives.
(a) Some think God asks too much of us when He
asks us to surrender our lives, not for Him
but to Him.
(b) We need to remember.
i. Before Jesus asked us to surrender
our lives….
ii. …even before Jesus gave up His
life…
iii. Jesus first surrender His life.
(4) Jesus never asked us to do anything that He
did not do first.
(5) That includes being baptized.
(a) Baptism identifies us with Jesus.
(b) Summiting to baptism tells the world that
we believe Jesus came, lived, died, was
buried, and arose for us.
(c) It is a visible proclamation that as a
Christian, we should want to make for Him.
(d) But some Christians hesitate and some flatly
refuse to be baptized.
(e) Do you realize Jesus didn’t even need to be
baptized?
(f) He was baptized to be identified with you
and now you are refusing to be baptized to
be identified with Him.
b. …to set the example of doing right.
(1) Mark does not emphasize this at all, but Matthew
did.
(2) John did not want to baptize Jesus.
Matt 3:14 But John forbad him, saying, I have
need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to
me?
15 And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer
it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to
fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him.
(a) John already knew who Jesus was. (Remember
John’s birth was a miracle foretold by an
angel and his parents knew that Mary’s
Child was the Messiah. You know they told
John who Jesus was!)
(b) Now Jesus comes to John to be baptized as
if Jesus needed it.
(c) John told Jesus correctly, "I am the one
who needs you to baptize me!"
(d) But Jesus answered, "Suffer it to be so."
That means "Put up with it right now."
(e) Then Jesus added, "It is the righteous
thing to do." That is, it is the right
thing to do.
(3) Jesus was baptized not because He needed it, but
because it was the right thing to do.
(a) God had given John this visual picture of
repenting, surrendering, and obeying God.
(b) Jesus was not repenting but He wanted the
people to know that He was surrendered to
and obeying God.
(c) So although Jesus did not need baptism, He
surrendered to it because it was the right
thing to do.
(4) God help us to do the right thing, whether it
does us any good, whether we like doing it,
whether others understand when we do it, or none
of the obey.
(5) Let’s just do the right thing because it
"fulfills all righteousness."
c. …to be identified to us.
(1) John was identifying that Someone who had been
promised back in \\#Ge 3:15\\.
(a) John had been announcing that Someone was
coming.
(b) Now, He had come.
(2) Jesus did not HAVE to be baptized to be
identified.
(a) The sign God gave was of the Holy Spirit
descending and abiding on Him.
John 1:33 And I knew him not: but he that sent
me to baptize with water, the same said unto me,
Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending,
and remaining on him, the same is he which
baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.
(b) That could have happened anywhere; but like
God chose to let Jesus’ first miracle be at
a wedding as an endorsement of the home, so
God chose to let Jesus be identified at His
baptism as an endorsement of baptism.
(c) Friend, it doesn’t matter how you look at
it. God made baptism important!
(3) As Jesus was being baptized, all three Members of
the Godhead are clearly visible.
(1) The Son is being baptized.
(2) The Spirit is descending.
Mark 1:10 …the Spirit like a dove descending
upon him:
(3) And the Father’s voice was thundering.
Mark 1:11 And there came a voice from heaven,
saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am
well pleased.
(4) Why? Because God was telling us who Jesus was.
(1) Jesus is His Son.
(2) Jesus is that Someone promised long ago.
(3) And while man still does not understand the
plan of God,
III. \\#12-13\\ Jesus was assayed.
Mark 1:12 And immediately the Spirit driveth
him into the wilderness.
13 And he was there in the wilderness forty
days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild
beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.
A. As soon as Jesus was authenticated, the battle began.
B. \\#12\\ Notice that it may have been the devil who tempted
Jesus, but it was the Holy Spirit who set Him up.
1. The Holy Spirit drove (cast out, expelled, put forth, sent
away) Jesus into the wilderness.
2. Why?
a. Maybe because God wanted to get the preliminaries out
of the way up front.
b. The devil is going to do his best to destroy everyone
and everything, so God let him go at Jesus full force
on day one.
c. The results of the testing are given in Hebrews.
Hebrews 4:15 For we have not an high priest
which cannot be touched with the feeling of our
infirmities; but was in all points tempted like
as we are, yet without sin.
3. By the way, you and I have never seen the devil at full-
force because God has never let the devil put more on us
than we can bear.
1Cor 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you
but such as is common to man: but God is
faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted
above that ye are able; but will with the
temptation also make a way to escape, that ye
may be able to bear it.
a. We may not have borne it because we chose not to bear
it, but we have never seen the devil when he had a
free reign on us—and we never will.
b. Jesus went out to the wilderness and let the devil
test Him for 40 days.
c. Neither you nor I or even Adam and Eve could last 40
minutes in a round with the devil.
If Jesus could not have withstood the temptation of the devil, He
could not have been the promised Someone, so God decided to let Satan
spend 40 days beating his head against a rock, the Rock of Ages.
Satan pulled every dirty trick he had out of his bag of sins. Jesus
never winced at a one of them.
What does that prove? That the Someone is here. From that point on
the devil should have known full well what was going to happen to his
head. It was going to get broken. The battle is on. The devil will
now do everything he can do thwart God’s plan. He must think he can
win although I don’t know how. Maybe for all of his strength, he is
not too bright. But one things is for certain. Someone is here.
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