Key Response: You can turn to Jesus and trust him because he knows you and your needs.

Mark 1:9-15 One day Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River. As Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens splitting apart and the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice from heaven said, “You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy.” The Spirit then compelled Jesus to go into the wilderness, where he was tempted by Satan for forty days. He was out among the wild animals, and angels took care of him. Later on, after John was arrested, Jesus went into Galilee, where he preached God’s Good News. “The time promised by God has come at last!” he announced. “The Kingdom of God is near! Repent of your sins and believe the Good News!”

His Baptism

• Mark 1:9-11 One day Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River. As Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens splitting apart and the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice from heaven said, “You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy.”
• Last week → looked at John’s practice of baptism
• Recap: what was it for? Repent and turn to God…
• But what actually is baptism? Describe the practice of baptism.
• So one day, among all the crowds coming out to receive John’s baptism → Jesus showed up
• Did Jesus need to repent and turn to God? (4)
• No, the Bible says he was without sin. (We’ll look at this below.)”
• So why baptism?
• Jesus was going public.
• Note that this is his first public act, and note the heavenly signs that accompanied it to put God’s stamp of approval on Jesus. God agrees with and adds to John’s testimony of Jesus.
• Always did / said what the Father led him to do / say.
• John 8:29 “For I always do what pleases him.
• By the way, Jesus’ baptism reveals the triune nature of God.
• Even though he was fully human, he was still fully God → 2nd person of the Trinity
• All of them seen here: Father, Son, Holy Spirit (dove)
• Jesus was identifying with humanity.
• Baptism reveals his real humanity. He didn’t just appear to be human. He entered fully into our reality. 
• Hebrews 2:14 Because God’s children are human beings - made of flesh and blood - the Son also became flesh and blood….
• To the point of being baptized, even though he had nothing to repent of.
• Application: I hope you come away realizing how amazing Jesus is! Truly worthy of our attention: fully God, yet truly one of us.
• Application: get baptized!
• When you turn from self to follow Jesus…
• Baptism doesn’t save us, but it is a way that we identify with him
• Romans 6:3-4 Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.
• He identified w/humanity by being baptized even when he didn’t need to
• We now identify with Jesus by being baptized in his name

His Temptation

• Mark 1:12-13 The Spirit then compelled Jesus to go into the wilderness, where he was tempted by Satan for forty days. He was out among the wild animals, and angels took care of him.
• Saw last week → significance of wilderness
• People would have thought of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai
• Jesus’ 40 days in wilderness reminds us of the 40 years Israel spent there.
• What this points to = Jesus was identifying with fallen humanity
• We saw = Israel failed their wilderness test
• By contrast, Jesus passed his 
• Keep in mind Satan’s goal of temptation = to entice all people to sin. 
• To choose something that looks good / feels right vs. what God says
• Started in very beginning with Adam and Eve.
• If Jesus didn't pass this test, all of humanity would be lost in their sin. 
• The devil's scheme was to take Him out before the ministry even started. He does this to us too!
• Jesus is greater than Israel and fulfills everything God desired from Israel
• Where we fail before God, Jesus succeeds
• Application: Where we get it wrong, Jesus gets it right. That’s why he is qualified to be our Savior. That’s why we can trust him to represent us before God.
• Here’s where this gets practical. It’s a great comfort to know that Jesus has been tested / tempted in all the same ways we are, so he understands our weaknesses.
• Hebrews 4:15-16 This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we did, yet he did not sin. So let us boldly come to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.
• Application: We can & should come to him for help when we face temptation.
• Another thing is going on here: God was preparing Jesus for his work.
• (12): The Spirit compelled him to go into the wilderness → it was God’s idea
• Because Jesus was fully human, he veiled & limited the use of his divine attributes 
• Phil 2:6-7 (NLT) Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
• Illustration: kenosis (Phil 2) = a Roman officer taking off his badge/insignia of rank before going into battle

TRANS: We can respond to a God who gets us. 

Our Response

• Mark 1:14-15 Later on, after John was arrested, Jesus went into Galilee, where he preached God’s Good News. “The time promised by God has come at last!” he announced. “The Kingdom of God is near! Repent of your sins and believe the Good News!”
• Jesus’ message was “God’s good news”.
• We didn’t see it coming, but he can be our Savior now. He became one of us. 
• Who doesn’t need good news?
• Hebrews 2:14 (ESV) Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
• “The time promised by God has come at last”
• God had been preparing the way → that’s what John was about
• And God keeps his promises
• “Time” here is not chronological time
• But refers to a season of opportunity that opens up
• We might say: “This is your moment.” Or “Seize the moment”
• IOW: people do not have to wait any longer for salvation 
• Now is the time to make a decision
• The Good News is that God’s kingdom is near
• We’ll talk about this more next week = what the kingdom is
• For now look at the response
• Repent 
• Believe / trust
• Application: We have reason for hope!
• Application: Don’t wait any longer to respond to Jesus. You don’t have to. Your season of opportunity is now.

Speaker 2 00:01:01 One day, Jesus came from Na, Nazareth and Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River. As Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens splitting apart, and the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice from heaven said, you are my dearly love son, and you bring me great joy. The spirit then compelled Jesus to go to the wilderness where he was tempted by Satan for 40 days. He was out among the wild animals and angels took care of him. Later on, after John was arrested, Jesus went into Galilee where he preached God's good news. The time promised by God as come at last, he announced the kingdom of God is near repent of your sins and believe the good news.

Speaker 3 00:02:24 So, no, Jesus did not need to repent. He was sinless. The Bible tells us. And so there's a number of reasons why he was baptized. First of all, this is Jesus going public. This is his first appearance on the public scene starting his, his public ministry. And so, um, you know, and actually you read about how these heavenly signs, uh, the Father speaks from heaven and gives him his approval. And the Holy Spirit descends in the form of a dove all ways to show all these crowds that were coming out to, to see John the Baptist. Jesus is there publicly. And, and God affirms him and says, okay, this is the one. It's kind of like he's saying, this is the one that John was telling you was gonna come and now boom, you see him here. And so the baptism is, is kind of a way for Jesus to raise the curtain on his public ministry. That's, that's one thing that's going on.

Speaker 2 00:03:51 Yeah. I wonder, the other wonderful things that we see in this is, is, uh, a story that, that people don't quite understand if they don't understand the trinity. Because you see the triune nature of God all at Jesus' baptism. You see the Father speaking the spirit in the form of a dove coming on the son, Jesus Christ. And so there are a lot of different ideas about who God is or how he exists. And I've heard a lot of, you know, questions. Well, if, if Jesus is God, then how is God from heaven talking down to him? And, and so they don't really understand that. Well, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinct, unique persons, but they all together are God. They're all fully God. But there are three personhoods in the Trinity, and they have relationship with one another. And we see that intimate relationship playing out where the Father actually affirms, the son, says, I'm, I'm pleased with him. And then the, the spirit descending on him and coming on him also marks out, this is, this is the one whom is going to be the Messiah, the one who's going to fulfill my ministry. And he's gonna do it in the power of the Holy Spirit, because he's a man.

Speaker 2 00:06:37 This. Yeah. And thinking about what Jesus is, is about to do this, this mission, he's embarking upon this journey that he's about to, he's gonna spend three years of the hardest time of his human life. And it, it reminds me as you're saying that, you know, thinking about a Father God, the Father saying, you got this, you're empowered. I I love you. You, you can do this. You, you make me proud. You know? Mm-hmm. , that's kinda like a Yeah. A father telling a son, you know, as he drops him off at bootcamp. Right. Or he takes him to a sporting event or to, you know, college or whatever. I I love you, son. Yeah.

Speaker 2 00:07:26 Was little. I was about to cry. And then you really just

Speaker 3 00:08:03 But, and what's so amazing though, uh, to, to build on that, is that Jesus is not just coming like waving his God flag and for everybody to, to notice that, you know, he's God. But he's also in this baptism. We asked the question originally, so why did Jesus get baptized if he didn't have it? He said to, to repent of, well, there's another thing here that's in pretty important that he's actually identifying with us as human beings. So there's a relationship between Jesus and the Father in the Trinity, but there's also this relationship of Jesus with us in what we call the incarnation. And he has become flesh and lives among us. So baptism reveals that he's really human. He didn't just appear to be human. He wasn't just like a hologram or, you know, or, or some kind of a, um, just a fake human being. But he fully entered into our reality. So Hebrews four, uh, chapter two, verse 14 says, because God's children are human beings made of flesh and blood, the sun also became flesh and blood. Now, the rest of the verse will look at that later cuz it shows us the significance of that. But he was willing to identify with us to become flesh and blood, even to the point of being baptized. Even though he didn't, he didn't have anything to confess.

Speaker 1 00:10:11 Yeah, really we've gotten, we've, we've covered already, we've covered a lot of theology here in the ba in these few verses that Mark gives us on this baptism. That, that, that it re reveals something of the trinity to us. Again, we've got more resources. We'll link those below. If you wanna learn more about the Trinity, cuz we just brushed over it here. But that God is three persons. God exists as three persons, but he's one, one in being. And so this story here of the baptism supports the biblical understanding of the trinity. It doesn't, it doesn't actually throw it under the bus. Like this is, this is the beauty of the Trinity when you really understand the trinity. This is, this is part of what we use to prove, how we understand the nature of God. It's different than how any of us exists, but that's baptism of Jesus is really about identification.

Speaker 3 00:11:51 Yeah. And so, and, and Jesus did this publicly, um mm-hmm. . And so I think for us too, baptism, um, when we identify with him, he had publicly identify with us. When we identify with him in faith, there's a public dimension to that too. And you know, so I I've never seen like the Holy Spirit appear in the form of a dove or God speak from heaven. Yeah. But, uh, I'm sure that what we know scripturally about the God the Father, that he's pleased, when we take that step of obedience to him,

Speaker 1 00:13:46 Baptized. Okay. So a couple questions for the people who are out there listening who are feeling just a little bit of conviction or maybe even a little confusion around this. Couple quick questions before we move on, Ross, should a person get baptized if they were already baptized in another church?

Speaker 1 00:14:29 Yeah. So for example, if you were, if you were a part of a cult, right? If you are part of a church that was, that's not a Christian, this is what you're talking about, not a Christian Church, that's a cult, then you should, you should get rebaptized. You know, I, I think maybe another question is what if I was baptized as an infant? Right? I was actually baptized as an infant. Um, my parents were Catholic when I was, was baptized. And, and I think there are probably a couple of different answers to this. For me personally, I'll give my personal answer, as I did get baptized as a, as a teenager. Because for me, being baptized as an infant wasn't a personal decision that I made. Now, again, if you wanna learn more about infant baptism, there's different perspectives on it. I'm not saying infant baptism is necessarily always wrong.

Speaker 2 00:16:00 Well, no, nobody can baptize themselves. There's no instance in the Bible where someone baptized themselves. Okay. Now, there are instances where it seems like, I think it's the, the Ethiopian unit gets baptized just with, uh, who is it? Phillip. Phillip, right? Yeah. So they're together, he explains the gospel, there's water on the side of the road. They said, what, what prevents him from being baptized? So he does get baptized there,

Speaker 2 00:16:30 Bit in private. Yeah. But the, but the majority of the Bible, the New Testament, really shows that it is a public thing. Like we're seeing Jesus does it in public because as we talked about last week, you are kind of drawing the line in the sand. You're professing what you believe publicly and, you know, part of our salvation anyway, um, Paul tells us in Romans 10, nine, confess with your mouth, believe in your heart. Well, well, how, how, how can people see that you've, that you have faith or you've trusted in Jesus without this first symbolic act being basically publicly professed? Because when we put someone down in the water, we asked them, have you placed your faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins? Um, by, by his grace alone, you know? And then they say, yes, publicly, we usually have a microphone up to 'em, right? Yeah. Yep. When they say yes, they are confessing publicly. And so I think Jesus is worthy and deserves our maybe even risky public profession through baptism. I would say that's the most biblical should

Speaker 3 00:18:39 No, not at all. The, the baptism is an outward symbol of an internal reality, but it doesn't make, define the reality doesn't make it happen. And so a person, so for example, biblically the thief on the cross never had a chance to get baptized. And yet Jesus said, today you'll be with me in paradise. And so we like to use the illustration of a wedding ring. My, I put on a, I put on a wedding ring the day I was married, but that ring didn't make me married. I would be married if I had never worn the ring. But I wanna wear the ring in order to demonstrate to everybody that I'm spoken for, that I belong to this person and we're in a relationship

Speaker 1 00:20:03 Yeah. Okay. So, so, so he gets us, Jesus gets us Jesus. The part of the incarnation, the baptism is part of the incarnation in a sense, right? That Jesus, if Jesus never took on flesh, he would've never gotten baptized. So he gets us in baptism. But the cool thing is, is then Mark quickly moves on to the next couple verses, verses 12 and 13, I'll read him again. It says, the Spirit then compelled Jesus to go into the wilderness where he was tempted by Satan for 40 days. He was out among the wild animals and the angels took care of him. Now we can learn more about this wilderness experience than some of the other gospels. But right here, this is all Mark tells us about this. And really, I think the reason he does this, and he connects it right to this short account of the baptism, is cuz again, he's trying to show us that Jesus gets us.

Speaker 2 00:21:35 And this is huge because if, if Jesus didn't pass this test, we wouldn't have our salvation. And so it's a victory where hum humanity failed. You know, Israel represents, the church represents humanity where they have failed and fallen short, Christ has victory, victory over Satan. And it's interesting, um, this happens right after the baptism, by the way. I, I, um, I tell people often, if you're gonna make a public profession of faith, you probably should expect a little bit of attack, maybe from family members, maybe from friends or maybe from, you know, Satan himself. You've put a target on your back because you've jumped ship and you've changed teams. You were on his team and now you've iden you put on God's jersey. Now when you do that, and now, now Satan wants to try to tempt you and me, and that's really Satan's job. We see this in the, this wilderness is that Satan's job is to use sin to entice people to fall and to go away from God. And Jesus really models for us, along with identifying with us. But yet as the victor, he models for us how to defeat Satan in the wilderness.

Speaker 3 00:23:41 . Yeah. Well the, the biblical worldview, um, presumes that there's a spiritual reality that's beyond just the material world we live in. And that, so, and that includes the existence of God, an infinite God, but also includes the existence of lesser beings that God has allowed, God uses, for example, beings that we call angels spiritual beings to use as his messengers. And as you know, he uses them to get his work done. But then, then there's evil forces out there too, Satan and other demonic powers that, uh, rebel against God. And so they're out there trying to oppose God. So we have this, this worldview that is born out in scripture, but it's also born out in reality in every, in so many experiences around the world, um, where, you know, these, these powers, these spiritual powers that become manifest in different ways. And so we, we, we've got this, uh, clear sense that yeah, there, there is, um, more than just what we can see with our own two eyes. And that includes this adversary, this accuser mm-hmm. , um, who, who's trying to tempt us to go against God's ways. And he's always trying to undermine God's plans in our lives and in the world.

Speaker 2 00:25:33 No, I've never physically seen Satan. Um, although a vision in my mind comes from old movies, probably of a red guy with horns, but I'm not Jesus. The difference between me and Jesus in this, this situation is that he is also, God, I am just a man. It is assumed that in other stories that we can go look at, you know, that Satan and Jesus are actually able to talk to one another. Mm-hmm. There's talking, Jesus rebukes him. I've never heard Satan talk to me either. Mm-hmm. , you know, but it is a, it is probably a thing that Satan can come into our thoughts, twist our thoughts. He may have that power. I mean, it's alluded to mm-hmm. , but no, I, he, he tempts me, um, in other ways. He uses the world. He uses, um, you know, shiny things, prosperity sin, all kinds of different stuff to, to get me off track.

Speaker 1 00:27:51 Well, more than that, even in verse 12, Ross, it says that the spirit compelled Jesus. Exactly right. Yeah. To go into the wilderness. It sounds to me, Ross help us with this as, as listeners are trying to understand maybe how Satan's gonna tempt them. Mm-hmm. , right? Because it, it's, it sounds at first like it's not a part of God's Satan's temptation in my life is not a part of God's plan. God wouldn't want that. But yet, I don't know if the, if you look at this passage, this was God's, at least in Jesus' life, this was God's idea.

Speaker 1 00:28:58 Okay. But, but someone might be listening saying, well, Jesus could, but Jesus is God. Mm-hmm. , I, how do I, like, I read this and I say, I just failed this morning or last night, or yesterday or last week, or all my life, I've failed Satan. You know, I'm listening to this and I'm realizing that Satan's been throwing these arrows at me. He's been tempting me, and I fail most of the time. And so someone might say, how do you get that? Jesus identifies with us in this because Jesus is God. Right. Could, could he have even failed in this?

Speaker 3 00:30:23 Yeah. There's a, in the New Testament, and Paul writes about this in first Corinthians 10, where he says that, you know, you're not, you're not paraphrasing here, he says, you're never gonna face a temptation that's not just common to humanity. Mm-hmm. . So, but he says, but when you do, you can trust God to provide a way through or a way out of the temptation. Not, not necessarily that God will make it disappear. So I, I don't have to grapple with it, but God will provide a way to get to the other side and to be victorious. But you know, we are not, um, always fully walking in the spirit or connected with the Holy Spirit in our life. We get distracted, we are frail, we are weak. And that's where I think one of the great things about the story of Jesus temptation is so helpful to us.

Speaker 1 00:32:27 Yeah. And, and the, you know, the question that someone might have is, well, wait a second, but did, did Jesus have, because Jesus was God, he was fully human and fully God. And I think a question a lot of people ask is in the wilderness, and even throughout his life, did Jesus have some extra special power that we don't have? I mean, that's the question people have when we think about him relating to us. When we think about this verse in Hebrews four, did Jesus have something, something different that we don't have? And I think the biblical answer to this is no, that Jesus was fully human. That means he veiled and he limited the use of his divine attributes. And we see, we see this in Philippians chapter two, verse six through seven. It says, though he was God, he didn't think of equality with God as something to clinging to, but instead he gave up his divine privileges. He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. And so this to me, when I first learned, this was so encouraging to me when I think about the temptation of Jesus, and, and that verse, Hebrews four,

Speaker 2 00:34:04 Fail. Yeah. I do think we have to be careful about this theological idea. Again, more theology coming out of this, this, uh, this, this week's scripture, um, it's called Kenosis. Um, the idea that he put off his divine privileges, um, there. So, but we we're not quite fully sure exactly all that that meant, because there are times when Jesus does have supernatural power, like, you know, he knows what's going on. He, he can read people's minds. Sometimes it's veiled and sometimes it's not. Obviously we know from, um, the birth of Christ that he came by the Holy Spirit through a virgin, and that that theological point is that he didn't actually take on the sinful nature of humanity. So that's the one thing Jesus doesn't have that we have is the sinful nature that we have that is at war with our spiritual nature. Um, also tempting us along with Satan, or Satan uses to tempt us. And so Jesus is perfectly, uh, God, but also fully man. He just didn't have the sin nature. So we do have to be careful about that doctrine. But yet do understand that the Bible also says the same power that rose Jesus from the dead is also in you and me. And so I don't think we fully grasp the power of the Holy Spirit, but he is there to empower us to con con, to convict us of our sin, obviously, but to help us to do things that we could not do in our humanity.

Speaker 1 00:36:52 Yeah. And that's really, I think when I, when I read the tempt, this story of the temptation I see, I see Jesus intentionally exercising only what we can exercise. Like you said, it's in another gospel where he shares, he, he quotes the, he quotes scripture back to Satan. That's part of, we have scri, we have scripture also available to us mm-hmm. that we can use in our battle. He's, he's, uh, empowered by the Holy Spirit to resist the temptation. We too are empowered by the Holy Spirit to resist the temptation. So it's true that we need to be careful not to equate ourselves with Jesus. And when we say that Jesus identified with us, I think it's important to note, we're not saying that we can become a God someday, like some religions teach. That's not at all biblical. But what it does say is that God became one of us that ge that Jesus came, and this was a kind of a surprising tactic of God's to save humanity. That Jesus came, that he, he was baptized to identify with us. He was tempted to identify with us. And so really, I guess maybe for us, it just leaves us with this question, how do we respond to a God like

Speaker 2 00:39:11 The love of God is here in human flesh. Why wouldn't we respond with, man, I need to take this opportunity. Right? Yeah. I need to seize the moment now. And you know, that's what, as we as preachers, you know, when we're our pastors, as we're mentoring people or counseling or, or even preaching on a Sunday, it's like, won't you just take this opportunity Now? The glory of God has been revealed to you through Jesus Christ. We're going through this gospel of Mark, and we're looking at Jesus and all of his glory. Would you just respond to the good news that he left heaven to come be like one of us so that he could be the sacrifice? He, he defeated Satan in the wilderness so that there wouldn't be a hindrance to his mission. Yeah. He's going to fulfill it, is what he's saying. And, and as we now know, he has fulfilled his mission and his promise. And the good news, Jesus came, he grew up, he defeated Satan. He, he resisted temptation. Um, and he ultimately died on the cross for our sins. He took our place, the sacrifice for us. And that is how we can be made right with God and, and join the family of God. And, and so why not take the opportunity now, just look at Him, all that. He's just in the very first two sections of Mark, all that he's doing. He's doing it for us.

Speaker 2 00:41:28 Yeah. In that verse, you know, you're talking about Hubers two 14. It says, sat, yeah. Satan holds the power of death and keeps people in slavery, uh, to the fear of dying. You know, we don't know. We don't know how long our lives are going to last here on this earth. Something could happen at any moment. God forbid it happens before we respond to Jesus Christ before we respond to this good news. That is what he is saying. The time is here. The time is now. Repent and belief have your sins forgiven. Trust that I am the Savior, savior who has come to fulfill all righteousness and to save you from the wrath of God. And it's just so beautiful. And he defeats Satan. We don't have to fear death. Now, if we trust in Jesus, no matter what happens to us, we know we're gonna be with him in eternity, in in heaven. We're gonna be with him. We don't have to worry about death or dying anymore. We can live this life with boldness and courage and on mission. We can fight against our temptations. We can fight against the sin, the things that, that lead us astray and get us off track. And we can follow God's way and not our own.