Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome

Good morning everyone,

It’s so wonderful to finally be here with you all.

It felt like we would never get here, but now we’re here!

And my family and I are so excited to come be part of your church family, and we can’t wait to see how God is going to use this family to exalt Christ in the area and transform people’s lives!

First, I just want you all to know that we’ve really felt your love:

Unloading the U-Haul

Stocking our fridge with food

Washing our van

Filling our van up with gas

Picking us up from the airport

Getting the Shiner house ready for us

Your love has made a difference in the move for my family and I thank you for that: it means a lot!

I've only met a handful of you so far, so I don’t know if anyone here is a visitor this morning or not, but, if you are, welcome!

We’re both new here!

So make sure you come up after service and say hi: newbies stick together :D

I also want to invite everyone to our "Go Deeper” Bible class Sunday mornings at 10 AM:

We’ll cover the same text that I preach through during worship

But we’ll look at textual difficulties, theological applications, apologetics, & historical settings

We’ll also have discussion time where you can share your insights, raise questions you might have, and discuss the things the Lord lays on your heart as you are reading the text throughout the week.

My purpose for the morning class is to really challenge and equip everyone to go deeper in our understanding of God’s word so that we can make a difference in this world for the Kingdom of God.

Assignment

Some of y’alls eyes just got big: “oh know, he’s assigning homework!”

Don’t worry, this isn’t homework.

Every week I’m going to assign the text we’ll journey through next week.

My reason for this is to help us immerse ourselves into Jesus’ story.

Throughout the week you can read, meditate on, and pray through the text and really put yourselves into Jesus’ story.

I want us to really seek the Lord for what he wants to do in our midst when we assemble.

Remember, first and foremost we are the people of God - a Kingdom of the Redeemed - and we serve the living God Almighty!

Expect him to move!

So to prepare yourselves this week, please read, meditate on, and pray through Mark 1:1-8.

A Portrait of Jesus

Pause and reset > > >

As I was working through Mark’s gospel, I was struck by the powerful story he tells about how God himself becomes the savior of the world: he tells this story with a breathless, eager sense, having things happen "at once", with one dramatic incident following another, leaving us with a sense that something big is coming!

So today’s lesson is going to frame the portrait of Jesus that Mark paints for us in his gospel.

And the purpose of beginning this series with Jesus’ portrait like this is equal parts to whet our appetites for Mark’s good news, and to make sure we're all looking at the same picture.

We need to whet our appetites because when this good news really takes hold of us, it will inspire us to search for the One this news is all about like a hidden treasure!

And I want this news to captivate our dreams, to inspire our hopes, and to provoke a hunger for the Son of Man that changes the way we see and live life.

And we need to all be looking at the same picture of Jesus because no other thought is more important than what one thinks about God; what we believe about him determines how we live our life, how we worship, and the identity of our church.

We need the powerful revelation of God that Jesus gives us, which has been in so many cases lost to the more malleable version of Jesus that we can make into whatever we want.

I think more than anything else, our generation needs to see his power and feel the weight of his authority again.

We need to look into the eyes that are ablaze with eternity so that by his vision we can know how to live as Kingdom-bringers in this world!

So, we’re going to paint Mark’s portrait of Jesus.

And I want us to meet - some perhaps for the first time, others to meet afresh again - the One who has the power to cast out our demons (so to speak) and to calm our storms.

I want us to meet the One who has the authority to forgive our sins and the will to transform our lives by the indomitable power of the resurrection!

And I want us all to be hungry to meet him afresh!

Mark’s Portrait of Jesus

I want you to imagine a mother sitting down to an easel and beginning to paint:

Pause and reset > > >

Tears cloud her vision as she begins to pour out her sorrow and love onto the canvas in front of her.

One of her beloved daughters has moved abroad to an unsafe country.

And she knows she will not see her or her granddaughter again for a long time.

She won’t get to scoop them up into her arms for Christmas.

She won’t get to hear their laughter at the Thanksgiving table.

She pours all this longing into a simple pastel portrait.

She knows it’s not a great likeness, but, sitting there, each stroke became almost like having a conversation with her likeness that filled her heart with the warmth of her love.

After finishing her portrait, the mother sits back.

Though the sorrow and longing is not gone, her heart is settled and able to wait for her daughter’s long return home.

The sum of her little portrait is far greater than its individual strokes.

Mary’s mother shared this story with me about how she felt when we went to China.

And this is the picture she painted from a photo I sent her of Naomi when she was 3 or 4.

You can see her heart’s longing to hold Naomi in this picture.

In very similar fashion, Mark paints his portrait of Jesus with stark, vivid foreground colors, often leaving the background, like this pastel, "blurry" or "out of focus", choosing instead to emphasize the broad, defining strokes of Jesus' life.

Mark doesn't "paint the rocks on the road", as it were, but rather “paints Jesus' feet walking on the road".

Mark doesn't seem to care at all about any details except what are absolutely necessary to see Jesus.

And we get the sense that Mark is painting someone who was not only important to him, but also to the whole world.

He’s painting someone he wants to see; he’s painting someone he wants us to see.

And sitting here with this portrait of Jesus, one’s heart really is settled by his likeness.

Mark’s portrait of Jesus begins with the rugged “voice of one crying out in the wilderness”:

Don’t read: summarize > > >

The prophet John is a rugged character.

He stands out in this portrait as one who commands the respect and admiration of the crowds.

He’s holds the attention and fear of Herod.

And he’s portrayed as the one whose testimony about Jesus, and popularity with the crowds frustrated the religious leader’s opposition to Jesus.

But most importantly, John is painted as a herald announcing the coming of an important figure.

His bold character highlights another.

And, whose coming is he announcing?

The coming of another messenger?

Or maybe the arrival of some wise man?

Or a mighty rebel general, perhaps?

No.

Mark begins his portrait of Jesus with John’s wilderness character because he frames the most important perspective in Mark’s gospel about Jesus: “the voice crying out in the wilderness” announces the coming of the LORD himself.

Israel’s Messiah is Yahweh himself, “prepare the way of the LORD!”

And this is what Mark most wants us to understand about the Messiah.

All of this is crucial because it gives us Mark’s primary storyline: he’s telling us how God himself becomes the savior of the world: he’s telling the story of Kingdom, Cross, and God.

And this is as Isaiah the prophet wrote:

Isaiah 49:26 (CSB)

26 ...Then all humanity will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

So this storyline about the Messiah’s identity is the center of Mark’s gospel:

Mark really wants his readers to read themselves into Jesus’ story: he wants us to answer the question “who do you say that I am?” But, even more than this, he wants us to ask “what's it mean that Jesus is ‘the Messiah’?”

Shortly after asking this question, Jesus is transfigured in glory before their very eyes:

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Jesus stood before Peter, James, and John, revealed to them in his radiant glory.

Peter, who only days earlier got Jesus so right, now endearingly, if not awkwardly, blurts out some nonsense about building something for Jesus.

He doesn’t quite know what to do with this little glimpse of Jesus’ true glory.

And I think we can be a lot like this too.

We don’t quite know what to do with Jesus’ glory.

Mark’s story about what it means that Jesus is the Messiah isn’t really answered until the end:

Read > > >

You see?