People are fascinated with royalty. For much of human history, we track the rise and fall of nations based on the leaders of those nations. The movies are made, books have been written even today. People are fascinated and following the lives of those who are in royalty, even though their positions and really their responsibilities within a nation have changed. Take for example, the royal royal family there in England, right? People pick sides, they love or they hate the latest happenings of the prince that that went away, right? Wrote a book about it and people love the book and people hate the book and and really there's very few people that are neutral in this, in this case. And the reason for that I believe is because people are intrigued with families of power and prestige and position. And so the question is how do people use their power and their position to benefit the needs and services of others? Over the next 10 weeks, we are gonna take a look at the greatest of royalty, Jesus Christ himself, someone who took his position, took his power and laid it down for the cause of others. And So we're gonna be taking a look and discussing the most, talked about figure in history by studying the least talked about gospel account in the Bible, which is known as Mark. Now I call it the least talked about gospel, not just from personal preference, but from reality. The first commentary on the gospel of Mark didn't come into play until aro until around the fifth century. And for many years, people viewed it as the lowest on the rung of gospel importance. Right? John has all the I AM statements. It's got John 316, the most famous verse you have Matthew and Luke have the Christmas story and have all these other elements. Well, actually in the last 100 years or so of biblical scholarship, as more discovery like the Dead T scrolls and other pieces of documents have come into light. What they've discovered is that most likely the Gospel of Mark, even though it is the shortest of the four gospels, is most likely the first one that is written. And in fact, is one of the primary sources for Matthew and Luke in what are called the Synoptic gospels. And so the gospel of Mark is actually in the last 100 years, greatly been elevated because not only is it prominent, not only was it one of the first ones written, they believe it was written around 50 to 60 ad which puts it only about 20 years after the life of Jesus. So imagine someone putting together a documentary or a storytelling of a huge world event. For example, like 911, when someone writes that with people who are from that era, who are from that situation that are still alive, it is an eyewitness account of actual events and activities that have happened. And there's, there's great credibility there. And the reason that's important is because that if people question the validity of the storytelling of the facts shared, they could go to the direct people that were involved in that story because they were still alive at that time. And so the proximity of the writing and the sharing to the actual happening of the events is so short that it's incredible story that we have together and it's all focused on the person of Jesus. Now, before we jump into our study of the gospel of Mark, I wanna give you a little bit of background or introduction into this book together because we're gonna be walking through this book. We're not covering every single verse, but we're gonna highlight some major movements and stories in this book. And it's gonna take us all the way up to the Easter story. Now I share with you that it was written around 50 between 5060 ad. And that really some of the interesting things here is that the writer Mark was actually one of the assistants or people closely connected to Peter. So other people have called this in a sense, the gospel of Peter. And it actually, in the way, Mark writes it, it reflects the personality of Peter. So it's the shortest one. There's 16 chapters like Matthew has 28. John is 21. And so Luke has like a bazillion and so you have all that and, and then Mark is like right to the point. So Matthew and Luke, for example, cover the Christmas story and he's like, no, you don't need Christmas. Boom, Jesus. Here we go and jumps right in. And in fact, he writes it in present tense. And so even though they're past events, the way he writes it is like a story or a movie. And so it's action based, you see in Matthew stuff like the sermon on the mount and long dialogue you see in the gospel of John, which was the last gospel written was there, you see emphasis on the Holy Spirit and you see the I AM statements and these things there, Luke was a doctor and so there's a lot of details involved and he was connected with Paul. And so he covers his journey in the book of Luke and the Book of Acts. And while Mark being uh connected to Peter, it's right to the point. In fact, he uses his Greek word you um ethos, which means they translated immediately over 40 times in only 16 chapters. And so he's like immediately one thing to the next one thing to the next and where some of the gospels are framed as a narrative or a sermon or a di dialogue to persuade you into belief in Jesus. Mark just says, you make the decision. Let me just show you who Jesus is and this is great, great story and background behind it. Now, Mark himself was called in a sense, a son of Peter, not an actual son, but like a God son of Peter. In First Peter 513, he was a cousin of Barnabas that's from Colossians 410. He was, he's a son of a wealthy family in Jerusalem. In acts chapter 12 verses 12 to 14, he went on missionary journeys with Paul and Barnabas that's in acts 13. But then Paul gets mad and they got a little bit of friendship tension and break up going on because Mark leaves the mission field for a bit, goes back to Jerusalem and Paul gets angry as Paul did and, and he was like, no, I'm not taking him again and he gets mad. And there's actually a rift that you can read about an act between Paul and Barnabas over this guy, Mark. But we know that relationship gets healed and restored and we know that because at the very end of Paul's life. So one of his last letters in second Timothy chapter um four verse 10 I believe is that he's writing and he says, oh, by the way, Timothy, will you send Mark to me because he will encourage me. He is useful for ministry. And so at the end of Paul's life, he actually asked for Mark to return. So there's a restoration of that relationship. So we have this guy, Mark, he's an assistant to Peter. He's writing down the words of Peter. That's why Peter gets a little bit of favoritism in this gospel. He gets mentioned a lot. It's usually like Peter and the disciples. And so he addresses that and he writes it in that tense, in that persuasion in a storytelling in a movie sense, we get this picture of the gospel of Mark. And so some of the unique things about this is because Mark is all about showing versus telling even though it's the shortest book in the Bible or short, not in the Bible, but the gospels, it actually includes the most miracles. It actually tells of 20 different miracles of Jesus, 18 of which are in the first eight chapters. And so it's miracle, miracle miracle. It says, let me show you who Jesus is. And the reason he writes this way, the reason he frames it this way is because he's trying to answer this question. And this is really the greatest question you can ask in this life. And the question is this, who is Jesus with eternity on the line. The most important question anyone in life can answer is who is Jesus in the way Mark writes is to persuade you of the answer. But he doesn't even try to persuade you with words, but rather to show you the very character and heart of God. So if you're taking notes today, write this down as we give an introduction into Mark. And it's this that Jesus has the power and the passion to save you. Jesus has both the power and the passion to save you. This is the thesis statement for the entire book. Now, this morning's message is entitled The Crown and the Cross. And the reason for that is because those two words, crown and cross, summarize the entire structure of the book. You see chapters one through eight really give us as a structure. Chapters one through eight, actually give us the picture of the crown. It lifts up the power of Jesus and him as a king. But then it's connected to directly in a transition found in chapter eight, verse 29 when Jesus looks directly at Peter again, associate of Mark here and says, who do you say that I am? It's that big question that we're trying to answer. And from there, it changes. And those last eight chapters, chapters nine through 16 really cover about a week of Jesus life. And the emphasis is the cross and the reason these are important because the crown or the first eight chapters points to jesus' power. But then you have the cross and the remaining eight chapters points to jesus' passion. Ok. Another way to look at it is that the first eight chapters or the crown shows that Jesus jesus' authority. And then on the backside, what you see is that the cross shows jesus' affection. So you have power, you have passion, you have authority, you have affection, you need both in every situation. If you have power and no affection, that's cruel. It's greed. Right. How many leaders do we know today are out for themselves? They have money, they have position, they have title and it's all for themselves and they act in a way. What can you give me? Look at me, the world looks at me and we lift these people up as celebrities as authority. But if you don't have passion and compassion for the people that you're here to serve, you're missing it. But at the same time, ok, because that's cruel. At the same time, you need more than passion, right? Have you ever called customer service or something? Wasn't going right for a product that you ordered? And the person on the other line after waiting for like 40 minutes on hold and being transferred to five different apartments and that person has passion but no power to do anything. It's the most frustrating thing in the world, isn't it? Right? Like, hey, I'm calling because this product isn't working. Oh, I am so sorry. Ok, I'm I'm not calling for validation here. I'm calling for you to do something. About it. Right. I wish I could. You, you can. That's why, that's your job. Like that's why you're on the phone right now. Right? And if you can't, I need to talk to somebody who can. Right. This is why when you call 911, can you imagine when you called 911 and emergency services if they had passion but no power. Right. 911. What's your emergency? This is happening? Oh, no. What do you mean? Oh, no, I feel so bad for you right now. I can't. What are you gonna do? What, what do you mean? What am I gonna do? Like that's why I'm calling you. It's like, oh, I wish I could do something. Do you need to be emotionally supported? No, send help, right? You need both power and passion. And the reason that's important is because the first eight chapters are gonna elevate the ability and authority of who Jesus is. He's gonna speak to storms and storms obey him. He's gonna speak to the blind and the blind can see he's gonna heal the lane and heal the leper and all of that to show people that he has the power to forgive sins and as he's elevated with what he can do and who he is, what it does is it magnifies how low he goes see to be lifted, high shows what can be done, but then to be brought low shows how far he'll go because if you just see someone who's suffering like, oh wow. But when you see someone who has everything and gives it all up for you, see, the first couple chapters could be described as the man of miracles. But the last eight chapters are really defined and described as the suffering servant. And in fact, the theme verse for the entire book comes from Mark chapter 10, verse 45 that says for even the son of man, it's another title for a Savior came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom. For many power, passion, authority, affection, you need both. So let's jump into these first couple of words here. What's interesting here in the very beginning is that verse one is the only place that Mark inserts commentary. It's the only place he inserts because again, he's not trying to tell you anything. He's not trying to persuade you. He's just trying to show you and let you come to the verdict, a decision for yourself. And so he says this in Mark chapter one, verse one, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ or the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This is his answer to that question. Who is Jesus, the Son of God? What's interesting is that there's only one other person in this gospel that calls him the Son of God, but I'm gonna save that one for Easter. OK. Because it comes at the end of the book. So make plans for Easter now. OK? We're gonna close the series there. So the book ends the way it begins. And so it gives you the answer right up front. I like that. I like the teachers that tell you the answer. That's on the test. The greatest question we're gonna address this for 16 chapters here in church. We're gonna address this over the next 10 weeks, who is Jesus? He's the son of God. And then he, he jumps right into it and he says, as it is written in Isaiah, the prophet side note two, it comes from Isaiah 40 for those like to know. And then also he makes reference to within the statement from the book of Malachi. So he's actually quoting two different prophets in the Old Testament Isaiah written about 700 years before the coming of Jesus. And he says this here. It's and he's quoting it. He says, 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. And John appeared. Now this is John the Baptist. And so the reason this is important because he's saying there will be a forerunner, there will be someone who announces the coming of the Lord. Now, in the Christmas story, we hear this, that his birth was miraculous as well. And prophesized and we know that John the Baptist was actually a cousin of Jesus. And so he comes onto the scene and he is not exactly what you would consider bachelor television material, right? Like, but you always try to get the characters that are, have a great job or a great look or great personality or some and that's like very charismatic and fun. This dude is crazy, right? Like he is eating Locust. He is, he stinks, right? He's got some wilderness stink. I mean, they already don't bathe a lot but of that realm of stinking, he's probably worse. And the question is why would he do that? Well, because if someone came to you and was power and the position and the prestige of the royalty, right? And a little trumpet, like you might be like, OK, he's just doing that for something, right? Like he's doing that for money, right? This they're trying to pull something over us. No, 700 years before Jesus comes, he says out of the wilderness is gonna come this guy and he's gonna announce the way of the Lord. And so that's this guy. So by, by downplaying the messenger, it actually elevates the message because he says, I don't want you to miss this. Those that know me, know that I love going to Suns games. I love basketball and going and, and what's fun is when they announce the teams, there's a P A announcer right? Starting at guard, right? And they say, and everyone goes crazy, Devo Buckholz separate, right? Like why? Because it's a home team, right? So when the Suns score, they're like 123 and everyone's cheering going crazy and then when the other team scores it's two points, right? So John, the Baptist comes onto the scene and say this is the guy, he is the P A announcer here saying here is the savior of the world, right? Starting that savior coming from Nazareth of Galilee. Yeah, like he's making this announcement. He's making it so abundantly clear right now. His entrance was humble, right? The entrance was humble. Bethlehem Stable. We covered that at Christmas, right? But when it came time for ministry at this point, Jesus is about 30 years old. It was prophesized beforehand. He comes onto the scene and says this is it, this is why I'm here. John, the Baptist is about to say it's not about me, it's about him. Right? Little side note, this could be a whole another sermon other time like as Christians, we've got to start playing some home games. Do you know what I mean by that? When you play a home game, when you score the crowd cheers, right? That's as a church body. We encourage each other when something happens. We, what do we do? We get mad at the ref right? We go through, we kinda downplay what's going on. Too many of us now are playing away games. That when Satan scores on us, when Satan has a victory on us, we think that crowd is cheering against us and we do something for God. It's like two points. When, as a church body, when every time somebody takes a step makes a decision, decides to make the right choice. Have the right attitude. We should celebrate that thing. Sh shouldn't we? Why do we act like we're on an away game? I get that we're not of the world, but I've read the Bible and we win. You have the power of God at your disposal, living inside of you in the risen Savior. So that when someone makes a choice, makes a decision, we should celebrate that and go for it and surround one another and encourage and not beat each other down. But actually do that so that when it seems like it feels like Satan scored two points. Hey, it's ok, we've got this right. We go through, well, in this case, back to our message here today that Jesus comes onto the scene. And so there's a big declaration, that's why Mark doesn't start the Christmas story, right? His whole goal is because at the Christmas story, you don't quite know yet that Jesus is the son of God. I mean, he's called Emmanuel. That's nice. But the baby's not doing a whole lot, right? Maybe crying a little bit. But gee is about 30 years old, he's about to get going. And when I say get going, it's 18 miracles in eight chapters. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I mean it's an fast action packed movie. It's about to take off and we got the opening credit scene and here's John the Baptist saying here he is. And so he goes here and it says John appeared baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism for, of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. So even then it's about forgiveness, right? And that only God can save. And he's saying in all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem, we're going out to him and we're being baptized by him in the river. George confessing their sins. Now, John was clothed with Camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and eight Locusts and wild honey. Part of me thinks too that like Peter gets such a bad rap at things, you know, like he always like, oh Peter, he fell, right? He denied Jesus. And so I feel like through Mark, he's like, I'm not the only crazy one, right? Look, look at John like he's eating locust. Ok? And he goes, and so you see that it's wilderness man. It's, it's wild. It's like the Survivor shows, ok. Here comes this guy and he's out there and he says, and he preached and after say a he preached, saying after me comes, he who is mightier than I. Now the whole countryside was following his teaching but notice the humility in John, the Baptist here since 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. In verse nine, it says 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, there's the first one of over 40 times that uses that word immediately, immediately, he saw the heavens being torn open and the spirit. So the Holy Spirit was even involved in the life of Jesus ascending on him like a dove and a voice came from heaven. And I don't know about you, but I picture like a Morgan Freeman or Liam Neeson type voice, right? Like I just don't picture this tiny, soft spoken whisper like this powering picture here in a movie. And he says, here you are my beloved son with whom I'm well pleased. Thus begins the earthly ministry of Jesus. Now, why did Jesus get baptized? I think really 22 reasons that I believe that we see in scripture. Number one is that it shows the divine plan from the beginning right here is the leader of the culture at the time, John, the baptist. Well, he steps up and says it's not about me. It's about him. I can't even, I'm not even worthy to untie his sandals. He even tells Jesus that Jesus. No, you're gonna do this and then you see the spirit coming down and you see a voice from seven. This is my son. Again, it's showing that whole first one, the whole book is meant to show you the truth and reality of verse one says this is my son. So the reason Jesus was baptized, number one is because it shows the the divinity of who God was. But then number two, I think he does so to give us the model to follow, right? How do I know that? Because we fast forward to the end of his life in another gospel in earthly ministry, we see Jesus, he died, was buried, rose again, he's speaking to his disciples. And he says these words in what's known as the Great Commission chapter 28 verse 19 and 20 says, go therefore making disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. And so there is a command for us to do it. He's telling people go and do what I did. First John chapter two verse six is those who claim to believe in Jesus must walk as Jesus walked. Or other translations say that he, they must live as Jesus lived. And so Jesus was baptized to show his deity, right? The voice of God came down. And then secondly, to model for us what we're supposed to do. Because if you think about it, does Jesus really need to be baptized for salvation? Right? Because there in that verse, there it said baptize people, name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is he gonna really say baptize in my name for myself, right? What is baptism? Baptism is a picture of what Jesus did for you. And I that he died on a cross was buried, which is why you're going under the water and then coming up and then it says in Romans 64, we talked about our theme verse this year raised to walk in newness of life that if Jesus conquered death, he has the power to forgive your sins and to give you life eternity. And so therefore, it is a picture or symbol of that I have my wedding ring on. If I take my ring off, OK, I'm still legally married, right? But if I take my ring off and I walk around life without it, how do you think that makes my wife feel right? Yes, I wear it for me, but I also wear it to show the world and I and I wear it for her. So the ring doesn't make me legally married, but it is a way to show my commitment to her. It is an outward expression of an inward belief and we see this modeled by Jesus, then commanded by Jesus and then obeyed by the early church. First time the church starts acts chapter two, we read this in verse 38 it says, and Peter, same guy we talk about and mark here and Peter said to them repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your Children. And for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord, our God calls to himself. And with many other words, he bore witness and continued to exhort them saying save yourselves from this crooked generation. And so those who received his word were baptized and they were added that day about 3000 souls. Now, there are some people who teach the idea that you must be baptized to be saved. Now, we don't teach that here at Mission Grove. And I'll tell you why. Number one is that there are many instances throughout scripture in the New Testament specifically, that refers to the idea of belief, for example, right? In Ephesians chapter two verse eight, it says for you, we've been safe by grace through faith or talks about in Romans 10 to confess with your mouth, that Jesus is Lord to believe in your heart, that God raised him from the dead and you will be saved. And so repeatedly. There are these pictures of believe, obey. Follow another reason we don't say that baptism is a requirement for salvation is because when Jesus was dying on the cross, the thief next to him acknowledges that Jesus is God. And Jesus turns to him and says, I will see you in paradise. Now. Was that thief baptized? No, but I'm gonna go with the guy that conquered death and say that his word counts, right? Like, like if you go to a place like a VIP section and say, hey, I'm on the list, you know, and they create the list, the VIP list of who's allowed in like that's a thief on the cross, right? He didn't have his theology, right? He didn't have his life, right? He didn't have all those things, right? But what he got, right was the acknowledgment that Jesus was the son of God, that Jesus was savior. So that when he went up to the gates of heaven, he can just simply go uh the guy in the middle said I could come, that's enough. And then also what's interesting is that in verse 38 there it said b be baptized for the forgiveness of sins. But in verse 41 just a couple of verses later, it says these words that for all who received the word were baptized. In other words, for all who believed it, who made a commitment of faith were baptized. So they receive, they believe that Jesus is the son of God and salvation is through him. And they express, express that belief through the act of obedience in baptism. Ok? So Jesus modeled it, Jesus commanded it, the early church obeyed it. Now some people say, well, I need to go through these long classes. I need to go through that. Now, on some levels, it is good to learn about what baptism is. An early church often had a long lead time between someone's commitment and baptism. Because if you got baptized, you, you could be killed actually. So they're like, hey, you need to know this, we're being persecuted, right? But there are other examples that there's not a list of requirements for baptism, other than just genuine belief in Jesus. You see in acts chapter eight, there's a guy named Philip. He comes along this uh Ethiopian eunuch. He's an official and we read this in verse 35 says Philip opened his mouth and beginning with the scripture. He told them the good news about Jesus. Doesn't that sound like Mark one? He tells them the good news about Jesus. And as they were going along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, see what is um here is water, what prevents me from being baptized? And he commanded the chariot to stop and they both went down to the water and Philip in Munich and he baptized him, the eunuch, understand all of faith. No, they have this dramatic life change already know what he did was he publicly acknowledged of his belief and reliance on Jesus as God and for salvation. And that was enough to take that step. And so as we sit here today and as we are getting ready to close our service, I want you to consider and ask yourself two questions. Number one, who is Jesus to you? If you have doubts and questions and things, I wanna invite you to come back, process this with me. Let's process and read this together because he spends the entire book to show us so that we can come to our own conclusion here. But you have to answer that question and you have to answer that question personally. You see it's important to make that decision or choice for yourself because the next decision or the next question you have to ask yourself is have I been baptized? And the reason we practice what's called believers baptism is because the word is a Greek word baptism that means immerse. And I want to be very respectful and honoring of different traditions where they practice infant baptism, right? And, and I, and I honor, I wanna honor that and I wanna respect that. But I also as your pastor, I wanna bring a little bit of clarity to that scenario because there are no cases of infant baptism in scripture, which is not what there are repeated examples of, is Jesus himself getting baptized, telling us to be baptized to baptize others. And then the early church baptizing people and it became a natural expression of your belief or faith in Him. And so I don't wanna discredit anyone who's had that experience tradition growing up. All I, all I would say is this, that if you were baptized as an infant, you did not make that choice, right? What I invite you to do is to make that choice. Now, see, we celebrated child dedication and that's very important and to raise your child in the way of God and lifting them up because every child is a blessing. And so I don't wanna, I wanna lift it up and I hope you see that we honor that here. So it's very valuable. But the question is who is Jesus? And if you believe Him as Lord and Savior, I invite you to, to consider making that decision for Jesus and go public with your faith. And I, and, and there's a little push back and let me address this too that people, if they, they were baptized as infants, like well, if I get baptized now, what will people think? Can I just encourage you with this one? I've seen baptism from people who are nine and people who are 90 but two Jesus was baptized. Are you more spiritual than Jesus? Anybody can be baptized here if you claim on him, Jesus himself was if anybody didn't need to be baptized. It would be Jesus. But he did. So as an example. And here's the other thing I wanna encourage you with as we wrap up is that, that people are not gonna be like, oh wow. I thought they should, they're not baptized yet. What if you flipped the script? And instead of being fearful of what people might think, what if it was an inspiration to others and encouragement to others instead of saying, oh man, what will people think of me? You flip it and say, oh, I wonder who I could inspire, encouraged because I promise you that's what's gonna happen. We can celebrate with you. We can celebrate your commitment to Christ and you don't have to be perfect and you don't have to do this. But I invite you to do that. I'm gonna pray right now. If you haven't received Jesus, I want you to pray with me. If you wanna get baptized next week, I invite you to do that. And if you haven't been baptized, let's celebrate that decision, that commitment that you've already made and you pray with me, dear God. Just thank you for who you are and what you've done. Jesus. You are the son of God and you are a savior. You have both the power and the passion to save. And then you gave us the model to follow and get him baptized for those in the room who haven't received you. I pray that they commit their lives to you. Simple belief in who you are and what you've done. God, we ask for forgiveness of our sins because we can't make it on our own and we need. And so we commit our belief and our lives to you. Thank you for saving us for those that are considering getting baptized God. I pray that you would just encourage them to take that step of faith, to know that we would celebrate with them. And God right now, we're about as we take communion. It is in remembrance of what you've done that these are the two ordinance of the church, baptism and communion. And we remember who you are, what you've done and celebrate all that you've given us because you have both the power and the passion to save. We love you Jesus and you says we pray.