The King, His Kingdom, and His Call

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."  Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men."  And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him. - Mark 1:14‭-‬20 ESV

Rev. Dwight Yoo

We started the book of Mark with the ministry of John the Baptist. He's seen as a strange figure... Wearing camel hair, living in the wilderness. But John wasn't looking for attention, he was trying to highlight Jesus.

The kingdom of God

Often when we hear of the kingdom, we think of the future. Perfect fellowship with God, a perfect world, perfect peace among all people. The fully restored world of the future. Jesus says in this passage that the kingdom is here. The kingdom of God came with Jesus. So which one are we to think of? Biblically, we believe it's both. The kingdom of God is both already and not yet. Here, the world is being restored. Healing is happening. Dead people resurrected. But not completely. Not all was restored. The kingdom is in the works.

This should bring us to work towards change. Sin has been defeated. The hope for change is real, even though it will not be fully accomplished till Jesus returns. We fight injustice knowing that Jesus will bring justice.

Knowing the kingdom is not yet, it should make us approach change in our lives with hopeful realism. We are free from sin. We know that sin is not part of who we are. Change happens very slowly. We are not slaves to sin, but it's presence is definitely felt in our lives. 

So what does hopeful realism look like? We should think of it as a person walking up stairs with a yo-yo. The rollercoaster of conviction and failures/setbacks are real. We definitely have highs and lows, but the trajectory is progress.

The call is the King

To enter the kingdom of God is repent and believe the good news. Acknowledge our sin, believe Jesus' life,  death, and resurrection, and accept. More than just mental acceptance, we are following a person. It is more than just lip service. It is a relationship with the person of Jesus.

Three attitudes of Jesus followers

1) They followed when He called. This is total submission and true recognition of Jesus as King.

2) They followed no matter the cost. These people were fishermen by trade. They had a solid job. They were not poor.

3) They followed wherever He would lead. No plan, no details. He called, they came. Jesus doesn't give a game plan. So then, why? Because they trusted in Jesus.

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

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 open 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 into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him. - Mark 1:9‭-‬13 ESV

Rev. Travis Drake

The announcing of the Son

God is announcing the son. This seems like a very private event. Jesus hears the voice. We don't know if others heard it. Jesus saw the heavens torn. We don't know if anyone else heard it. But Mark is proclaiming it to us. It started as a private event, but was meant to be spread. This is the fulfillment of God's promises 700 years ago. This was a coming of the promises from the mouth of Isiah. The coming salvation and redeemer. 

"There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord . And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord . He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." - Isaiah 11:1‭-‬9 ESV

This coming Savior will come from the family line of Jesse, the father of David. The kingdom of Israel did become a stump; the family of David was cut off. But why should we be concerned about this random royalty? Why is this any more interesting than the current news of prince Harry and princess Meghan? Because of what this King is. This King will blow away the wicked with merely any effort...a breath. He will upend the entire natural order of animals as we know it. He will bring justice for those who have no one to defend & fight for them. But not just justice for a season, not just for a decade or two, but justice forever.

The equiping of the Son

How does this translate from an announcement to reality? 

I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! - Luke 12:50 ESV

Jesus speaks of a second baptism. This is after John had already baptised Him. The only earth shaking event after Jesus' baptism that we can point to is Jesus' death and resurrection. Sin is not washed away in a river, but rather by Jesus death on a cross. It is washed away by His blood. It is done. There is nothing to be added to it. Our redeeming has been accomplished already. We are already accepted by God the Father. We are to obey not because we need to earn it, but we obey because we are already accepted. Only the children of God will fight the temptation of sin. The affirmation and love of God is already ours in Christ before the temptations come. 

The sending of the Son

The King of Kings is sent out to meet the King of this world and the wild beasts. Immediately after Christ is affirmed by God, He is immediately dragged out to fight with the enemy. Jesus does not delay. There's another story of Lazarus. Lazarus was dying and Jesus delayed in that case because it was better. It was better for Jesus to resurrect Lazarus after he'd already died. God does not delay to deliver unless it is better. Jesus is presented immediately; His life and ministry on earth is a foretaste of what is to come. What is to come us nothing like what we have here and now...

Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. - Isaiah 40:4 ESV

Receive

Accept Jesus and the good news of the Gospel.

God will do all these good things because Jesus was given.

Rely

These promises are for you, Christian.

Yes, it is forgiveness, it is beautiful. 

The Christian Life is not about needing God less, but learning to lean on God more.

Look

God is ready to act when the time is right. Don't hope in what you see, but look at what God promises.

The Beginning Gospel

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, "Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,'" John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and 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."- Mark 1:1‭-‬8 ESV

Rev. Dan Whang

Mark is the shortest of the gospels. It is an active and concise narrative. He was mainly targeting gentiles and getting the message out.

Fresh beginnings

There is anticipation and excitement with beginnings. Mark is writing about a life changing beginning. The gospel, good news, was being proclaimed. Jesus, the Christ, was Messiah and King. He had come to save us from our sins. Through Him, we could be right with God, no matter what we had done. 

With the arrival of Jesus and His earthly ministry, we have a new beginning. This is our reboot, reformatting, restart of our lives. Many of us may be looking back on the past year, 22 days into the new year. We may carry regrets, disappointment, and remorse for the past. This is the effect that sin has on us. It separates us from God and others. Jesus takes these and gives us a fresh start.

Repentance in the wilderness

John the Baptist is declaring Jesus as the Messiah. Why wilderness? There wilderness in those times was most likely a desert. It was a place of thirst and survival was impossible. Wilderness was where people met God. People in the desert needed God to survive. Wilderness is where we find the end of our self reliance and abilities.

Repentance is when we come to our senses in our sins and turn to God. We turn from our evil deeds, intentions, and motivations... Towards God. We need to do this daily. To fight against the sin in our lives. Have we become complacent with sin? Perhaps this is why God has brought us into the wilderness. God wants to show us our hearts/brokenness and meet us there to set us free.

Magnifying Christ

After God sets us free, he does not leave us there. It is not about a better you. It is not about being better people. John knew his place in history. He was pointing to the Messiah. He was the opening act for the main show. He was the groomsman for the bride and groom. He wasn't there for the spotlight and self glorification. John knew the humanity and divinity of Jesus. The sandals of whom he was not worthy to untie was the humanity. The baptism by the Spirit was pointing to Jesus' divine nature.

So the question for us is this... Can we serve to be forgotten? Can we live to be forgotten? Only those who have the gospel at work in their lives. They can serve without recognition, without human gratitude, without gathering power, pride, or glory. God sees and will reward us, even if there is nothing for us from following God in this life.

The Incarnation: The Wonder of Christ's Glory

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.'") For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.

John 1:1‭-‬18 ESV

Rev. Charles Han

What's the best present that a child could receive for Christmas?

Their dad, in the flesh, present with them. That is what we celebrate at Christmas. In Christ, God came in the flesh and was present with us.

Grace, truth, and glory came. The son of God became flesh so that these things would not be just abstractions. They would be real, substantive, touchable and knowable in Christ.

John refers to Jesus as "the word." Out of all the things Jesus could've been called, John chooses this. Words reveal our character, dreams, personality. Jesus is God's intimate outreaching to us. God's ways are higher than ours. But God stooped down and spoke in human terms. Not only that, but he came down in human form. 

Jesus came to his people and was rejected. God, the father, who holds us up and sustains us... gets slapped in the face. The only reason that sinners can slap God is because he gets close enough for them to do so. Jesus is grace. Not some abstract thing, but He himself is grace.

In Jesus we see the full glory of God

Moses asked to see God's face. God turned him down, because that would've liked Moses. So instead Moses saw the back of God's glory... his face shown from that and long after he came back down from the mountain. Jesus is God's grace manifest. He is what Moses longed to see. We see it in full with eyes of faith.

We are innate glory seekers. But we fall short and play with little glories rather than the incomparable glory of Jesus. But what makes Jesus above all the others? Jesus is a combination of holiness & love, truth & grace, transcendent & immenent. He is a paradoxical meeting of seeming absolutes. God's glory is seen most in the shame and humility of the cross. Jesus is the truth that sets us free. Jesus is the grace who bought us life. 

The incarnation : The wonder of Christ's compassion

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. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 2:14‭-‬18, 4:14‭-‬16 ESV

Rev. Dwight Yoo

Jesus took on flesh to save

He came to save. Through death he came to deliver us from death and slavery to sin. Jesus saves us from the fear of death. Before the industrial revolution, death was immediate and direct. Now we can keep death at arm's length. We have modern medicine and vitamins. We have even outsourced to some extent with funeral homes and hospice care. Not only that, but we distract ourselves with entertainment. Inevitably, death awaits every one of us. The pursuit of legacy and achievements is trying to make our name outlast our lives. The vast majority of us will be forgotten in one or two generations. There is nothing that lasts without God. All our deeds will be forgotten. Death and sickness awaits us all.

But God sent his son. Man sinned and rejected God. Our punishment is deserved. But instead, Jesus came in the form of man to accept the punishment of men. But he was, in substance, God, so that he could take the full wreath of God and survive. So that we have grace for now and for the life to come. We can intellectually agree. But how about the here and now? Often we find life as a believer difficult and tough. 

Jesus took on flesh to fully sympathize with us

Jesus knows us. He had walked in our shoes. The priests of old offered up animal sacrifice. But Jesus came and offered his very life. He knew sickness. He knew the burden of serving others. He knew of slander, shame, betrayal, pain, sickness... He knew of sorrow and to weep over the death of a loved one. He knew what it was to be forsaken. He knew temptation and the pull of revenge, sexual temptation, and immediate gratification. He was sinless, but he knew temptation better than any one of us. Whatever hardship, struggle, or temptation, Jesus fully sympathize with us.

Jesus strengthens us

Jesus comes in compassion and gentleness. We find sympathy in Him. But more than that, He saves and delivers. Jesus saves. He invites us to come to Him. We can find strength and salvation in Jesus.

The incarnation: The wonder of Christ's Obedience

Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Galatians 3:23‭- 4:‬7 ESV

What is this law that Christ came to obey?

This law is referred to as a guardian. Kind of like a governess or supervisor of the children of the household. In the time of the text, these guardians were often slaves. They kept the minors in check with the household code. This is different from the workplace or the courts. This was in the context of families. The law was not how one entered the household. It was because one is part of the household.

When the minors come of age, the supervisor is no longer over us. But we don't ignore the law, it is that we have become mature that we desire to follow the law. We not longer needed the guardrails. All those rules and things we were compelled to do should, now that we have matured, make sense and have value for us.

Why does His obedience matter?

Is there something significant to this? Jesus living the perfect life is insufficient. How do we know? Because of the cross. The law cannot give us life. Righteousness does not come from the law, it comes from faith. Being obedient to the law will not make God love you. God's love is unconditional. Jesus did not earn the Father's love. He just received God's love. 

God loves, even though we bring nothing to the deal. That is saving faith. Nothing to be earned in our salvation. The cross was necessary and sufficient for us. We are now heirs in the family of God. Christ's daily experience of obedience was the proving ground for the cross. His daily submission to God was pointing to His final submission to death on the cross. 

Small obedience leads to big Obedience. Jesus submitted to his parents. He knew more than his parents, but still obeyed. It's like a parent listening to their five year old. That is the radical humility of Jesus.

Are we practicing the small acts of obedience and submission to God? It begins today. The inverse is also true. Small rebellions will lead to greater sin. Great unfaithfulness comes from little disobedience day by day. We are called to daily die to ourselves and pick up our cross. This is not just some pithy saying. This is how we are changed, day by day.

Those who are in the family of God are concerned with what He is concerned about. Believers grieve when they sin because they know it hurts God. They cry for mercy, not as an employee to their boss, but a child crying to their parent. Repenting over sin is more than just not doing it again. It is seeing the life & goodness of the right way. Guilt should lead you somewhere, not hold you down. Self loathing will not save you. Jesus saves. God loves and no sin can separate us from Him. 

The law cannot bring us life. It cannot be used to please God. It can only reveal our relationship with God. We cannot come to God through the law. Our obedience does not bring us to God; it only reveals what is true about our relationship with God.

We need to put our faith in God.

We need to rest in God's provision for us. We need to let God love us. Stop earning and striving. We cannot argue our case because we are guilty. We cannot make God love us. We are not a slave in the house of God; we are heirs. There is nothing we can do to make salvation happen. God is good and loving. We can only take it by faith and come to Him.

The incarnation: the wonder of Christ's humility

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. - Philippians 2:5‭-‬11 ESV

Rev. Dan Whang

The wonder of Christ's humility

Jesus became one of us. This should impress us. But we live in a first world country, we live comfortable lives. But we need to consider the life of an Israelites under the rule of the Romans. It was not a pleasant life. 

Jesus' life is summarized in 3 parts. First Jesus was in the form of God. He was a separate person, but he was in the nature of God. He was in perfect communion with the Holy Trinity. Then, He became nothing. God is so far above us and so different from us in so many ways. But he became restrained by human limits. It is unfathomable to us. It is the greatest downgrade in lifestyle and everything else. He was born into obscurity, a blue collar family, no good looks to recommend him. Not only that, but he would die in the most painful and shameful way. We might be able to humble ourselves in some extent, but Jesus humbled himself beyond what we could by ourselves bare. He knew the awkwardness of teenage years. He knew betrayal, loneliness, frustration, ... All these things He experienced. He knew the pain of family infighting, lack of money, and all the human troubles large and small. Finally, he was exalted to the right hand of God, the Father. He came back to life after defeating the grave and death. He went from the humble King to the risen King. At his name, every knee would bow. 

Walking in Christ's humility

Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit and he wrote this passage for a reason. He was asking the church to be of one mind. There had been pride, quarreling, and infighting amount members of the church. Salvation does not mean all conflict will disappear. If our hearts are not filled with the love of Christ, we will seek to fill it with other things. Respect, pleasure, power, praise of men, a sense of control... If you are full, then other things will not have the same pull or temptation.