Well, if you have the Bible with you, let me invite you to turn to Philippians 4 and the Gospel of Mark. And in religion, you're bulletin, we have one verse and in the Gospel of Mark, we're going to expose it, one verse. In Philippians 4, verse 4, the Apostle Paul says this, Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, Rejoice.
And now over in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 1, verse 1, Mark gives us an explanation of who Jesus is. The Apostle Paul says, Rejoice in the Lord, and we want to consider what's good, what brings joy about Jesus. From Mark, chapter 1, verse 1, the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Amen, this is God's Word.
Let's look to him in prayer. Father in heaven, we bow before you tonight and pray that you would cause your word to fall like rain upon our hearts, and that our hearts would soak it up and bear much fruit that we would find great joy and peace and blessing in the knowledge of your Son through your words. So help us, we are lost without you. My words fall in deaf ears without you.
My heart is hard even to my own words apart from you. Speak, O Lord God, for your glory and exalt Jesus among us. For we ask in Jesus' name, amen. The Apostle Paul tells us to rejoice in the Lord.
I want us to consider just that phrase in the Lord. Why is there good news? Why is there a reason for joy in the Lord Jesus? I just picked this one verse from the opening verses of the Gospel of Mark because he tells us who Jesus is and a bit about what he has done for us.
I want to walk with you through this passage. Mark begins by saying the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Gospel is a word that means news that brings joy. It's designed by God for your joy when you hear it.
That is not however the impression that Christians often leave others about the Gospel. There is a reason for that because we get mixed up in the Christian life thinking that Christianity is about us, about our faith, about how we're doing, about what we're believing, how we're responding. But the Gospel is not about that. If that is what Christianity is for you, then there will be days when you are doing extremely well in your own eyes and you will become arrogant and proud and there will be days in your own eyes when you are doing very poorly and you will begin to despair.
There will be no joy in it for you, mainly because you have begun to look at you. But the Gospel is about Jesus and what he did and who he is. So Mark tells you, think about Jesus and if Jesus isn't at the heart of your joy and reason for joy and Christian experience, then you have misunderstood Christianity because without the person and work of Jesus, Christianity is nothing. It's just an empty shell.
It's just a meaningless few rituals we call baptism or the Lord's Supper. It's just a moral system that, let's be honest, none of us can keep because it says love God with all your heart, so straighten mind and none of us do that well at all. And it's just then a fanciful, imaginative, but ultimately irrelevant story about God becoming man to bring mankind back to God. If it didn't happen, our worship is a waste of time and we might as well all be playing golf and if Jesus isn't at the heart of it, you've missed what makes it good news.
Now I'm sure I've shared this story before you, but I grew up playing ice hockey in Ohio and we would get out on that ice. The big question the first time out was will the ice hold? Has it been cold enough long enough? It didn't matter whether you were the greatest hockey player ever or you were new to the sport.
You were not going to skate if the ice couldn't hold because the question is not how good of a skater are you, but it is what you are skating on strong. And the question in Christianity is not how well do you believe? How much do you believe? How consistently do you believe?
But the question is, is the object in which you believe strong? Is the thing in which you place your trust able to hold you, to keep you? And so the question is not, are we strong? We are not, we are weak.
Is Jesus strong? And can he do all that he's promised to us? Can he be for us? A cause to rejoice?
And so we want to think about him in three ways. We want to think about his mission. We want to think about his office. And we want to think about his ability.
If you get all that in Mark chapter 1 verse 1, as Mark tells you, this is the gospel of Jesus, that's his mission, the Christ, that's his office, and the Son of God that tells you about his ability. And so think about those three things with me this evening. In the first place, the gospel is good news because of Jesus and what his name means. Have you ever considered how vile it is that you understand the meaning of?
A name in many cultures today, and historically. People got their name not because the parents liked the sound of the words, but because of some family history and they wanted to honor somebody important, or because the word itself meant something. What does the name Jesus mean? It's a vital that you understand this.
Names give you an impression of a person. They carry great weight. There's a great scene in a movie I would not unreservedly recommend to anybody. It's a great Hollywood blockbuster.
It's a bit dated now called Gladiator. In that movie, there is an unforgettable scene in which the Gladiator has entered the arena. He's the warrior and friend of the former Caesar. And Caesar had been murdered by his own son, Marcus Aurelius.
And Marcus Aurelius and murder his own father had driven off his father's best friends, and so this Gladiator had been banished. And his family killed. But here at the end of the movie, the Gladiator has returned. And he's won the heart of the crowd.
They're all excited about this man in the math who's defeated all enemies. And so Caesar says to himself, the new Caesar, Marcus Aurelius. I look it down and I will meet this man in the arena. And so he approaches the Gladiator and he says to him, tell us your name.
You do have a name, don't you? And this scene for which Russell Crow got like $20 million. And then he's paying me to get that scene presented to you tonight. But he turns around and he whips off his mask and he says to the son of Marcus Aurelius.
He says to him, I am. I am, he says. My name is Maximus Decimus Moridius, commander of the armies of the north. General of the Felix Legion, loyal servant to the true emperor.
Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance in this life or the next. And at that point, Caesar takes a step back and goes pale. He begins to quiver like a baby at the lip and he falls on his fellow soldiers, saying, protect me and defend me from this man whose name means vengeance.
Now is that what the name of Jesus means? There are many people today who think that that's what Jesus means. That's who he is. That's what he's ultimately concerned for.
But you know, when God sent his son to this world, he gave him a name by which you should remember him and his name means something. What does it mean? It means the Lord saves. When you said his name, you were to think the Lord saves.
It's the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament name Joshua. It is the name that the angels spoke of when they said to the shepherds on the night of the birth of Jesus, fear not, for behold I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord. It's a cause for great joy that this Jesus has come and come to do what?
To save his people from their sins. That's what his name means. Just as the Joshua of the Old Testament Israelites led them into the temporary and earthly promised land. So this new Joshua, Jesus, leads God's people into the everlasting and heavenly promised land eternal life with God.
This is a cause for joy. This is gospel, good news because Jesus came to see and to save the lost. Now to believe in good news, you of course have to recognize the bad news about yourself that makes you need a rescuer, a deliverer. What do you need to be delivered from and how does he do it?
Well that's his mission. His name means savior, but how does he do his work? He's been appointed to an office, the office to carry out the work and that office is the office of Messiah. So his name is Jesus, the Messiah.
That's what Christ means. So this is the second reason why this is good news. How does he do his work? He carries out the functions of a Messiah.
And what does that word mean? The word Messiah is from a root verb meaning to smear or to anoint. That's kind of an odd thing. And so a Messiah is a smeared one or an anointed one.
It's a reference to the Old Testament practice of initiating into office certain men as prophets or priests or kings and smearing them with oil as an outward physical symbol of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon the man fitting them for office by the Holy Spirit. And so prophets and priests and kings were anointed in the Old Testament. That's what it means to be Messiah. Jesus is the true prophet, priest and king.
Now I don't want to give you an entire history lesson of the whole Bible tonight though it's helpful to see that prophet and priest and king is at the heart of God's dealings with his people throughout the entire Old Testament. And why does he do that? Well you and I, we need to wrestle with why does he do that? You and I need to wrestle with three big questions and why?
We've got to get answers to these three big questions. How can I know God in the first place? How can I hear from him and know who he is truly? And in the second place how can I enjoy him?
How can I be in a right relationship in which I can enjoy his presence? And thirdly how can I honor him? How can I be changed in such a way that I can bring honor to him? And those three big questions are answered by these three offices and I want to walk you through this just briefly here tonight.
Number one the office of prophet God gave his Old Testament people prophets to help them know God. The story is told true. I'm told of the missionary who went to the tribe. He lived among them.
And then one of the members of the tribe had a brother who died. And in his grief he went into the jungle and he dug a hole and he screamed into that hole. Where are you? And the missionary observing the grief of this brother thought to himself, I wonder who he's calling to.
And so he asked the man are you looking for your brother and said no. I'm looking for God. We've lost him and we don't know where to find him. Many people today feel that way.
That's a quaint missionary story of a far off place and there are a few in our day digging holes in America. But many people today in distress, in confusion, desire to know how can I know God truly? I had a college student years ago. Now our first meeting set up by his mom because he was an anthropology major and he had all these questions about the reliability of the Bible and the truthfulness of scripture.
And we met and at that first meeting he blasted me with every question he could think of that he heard in college undermining the truthfulness of the archeology and all the history. And he just laid it all out there. And I just my entire goal was to listen to him and just to try to love him and to hear all his questions, let him get it all out. And then we might begin to deal with those questions later.
So that was week one. That was it. He expressed disappointment to his mom that I hadn't tried to rebut him and engage him in a fight with every question. But then next week he's agitated completely flat.
He came up and he sat down at the table and laid his head flat on the table and he said I am so confused. On the first week it was all certainty. I know there's all these problems with Christianity and in the second week it was but I don't understand a thing about how life is supposed to work. I don't know why I'm here and what I'm here for and why anything matters.
This is the way people feel and God gave prophets to people in order to speak his word to us and see the whole history of Moses and Elijah and Isaiah bringing loud and clear God through so that we can know him because prophetic light scatters the ignorance and error of darkness. It brings light into darkness. When Jesus fulfills the office of prophet he is the climactic prophet of the Bible and he has come to reveal God to us. You can know God truly through what Jesus tells you about God.
He reveals God truly. He came to bring light into our darkness. Now there's a second office that is satisfied in the office of Messiah and that is priests. We have a big question today and that is how can I enjoy God and God gave priests to his people including Jesus so that we can enjoy him.
Have you ever considered how difficult it is to really enjoy anybody when you are in a right relationship with them or they aren't with you? This happens all the time in college. Rumors who have just gotten to know one another begin to borrow one another's things without asking and then somebody gets mad and suddenly they're not enjoying one another well. Parents and children quit enjoying one another in the moment there's conflict and disrespect or heavy handedness until there's some resolution and there's some rightness brought about to the relationship until some apology is made until some forgiveness is extended and asked for.
It's when you're in right relationship that you enjoy the person you're in relationship with and so God gave us priests to make us right so that we can enjoy him. And you remember the Old Testament priests of course are Aaron and the Levites and what do they do? They brought God's people before God and brought all their sin to God and did what God told them to do to deal with sin and so they brought offerings of sacrifice. Substitutionary sacrifices because the Bible says the wage of sin is death and so death must be brought as punishment for sin and those animal that whole history of animal sacrifices was designed by God to say to them there must be death but I am willing to take a substitute for you in death so we can deal with your sin and banish it and throw it into the sea so that it can be as far from you as the east is from the west.
I'm going to remove it from you. And so Jesus comes as the last and great final high priest to offer the last great final full sacrifice that really deals with sin. He is both preached and sacrificed saying my blood not their blood judgment here God on me not judgment there on them and so he frees us he releases us and the New Testament tells you this that the blood of bulls and goats sacrifice daily can never take away sin but Jesus has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself so that you could have a right standing with God. You could be at peace and he at peace with you so that you can enjoy it.
And then finally God gave us kings and he gave us kings in order to change us so that we can honor him. This may be a particularly Christian struggle. It's a particularly Christian struggle in a lot of ways this desire to be changed by God because you have begun to care how your life, otters or dis-onters the king whom you have begun to love and serve. And so God gave us kings and he gave us kings to change us.
If you know yourself, you know your nature, you know your vices, you know your weaknesses of character, your attitudes of selfishness, you know your disposition to go your own way. How can I change we ask when the world entices me, my flesh streams at me and the devil deceives me, luring me, tempting me and I stumble all the time and my life does not honor him. How can I be changed? Well God in the Old Testament gave us people kings and what do kings do?
What is a good loving, righteous benevolent king do? He wins the affections of his people. He gathers his people to himself so that they long to respond obediently to him. He subdues them as it were so that they willingly sign up to serve and he defends them and protects them from all enemies, from the outside.
That's what a good king does. Kings fight the tyranny of evil. And Jesus is the true good king, the king of the Jews, the king of kings, the Lord of lords of Jew and Gentile who has come to rule over all things for the good of his church. To win your heart to himself, to work in you to live a life that's well-pleasing to him so that you can begin to honor him in the way that you live.
So Jesus has come to deliver you from the ignorance of sin which keeps you from knowing God, to deliver you from the guilt of sin which keeps you from enjoying God and to deliver you from the tyranny of sin so that you can begin to honor God. This is what a Messiah does. Now we would ask the question, so what if he could do all this? What does it mean for me?
It means he does it for you and it also means he begins to do it in you. The story of the Bible is Jesus being prophet, priest and king so that you and I can be renewed after the image of God and become the true prophets and priests and kings we were designed to be so that we can know God rightly and we can speak truth about him so that we can offer our life in rightness with him out of love and affection for him because we can enjoy him and offer him not the sacrifice that brings pardon for sin but offering the sacrifice of praise that's pleased with him and so that we can begin to live as kings on earth exercising dominion on the earth under his rule to be co-heirs, to co-rain with Christ. This is not just the story of the Bible, the story of Jesus, this is your story. It's what God made you for that Jesus does for you and works in you.
The question is can he deliver on what he's promising? So he has the mission to say, so he's got the office, prophet, priest and king, does he have the ability, the authority or is there something bigger, someone stronger who can tear away these blessings he promises? Is Jesus another one like that kid in high school who sent to you, vote me and is president of the student council because I will guarantee you four days of school about five every week. I'll guarantee you two hours not a half hour at lunch.
Remember that kid made these wild promises he could never deliver on. Why? Because the grown-ups were in charge around here. Now Jesus, can he really accomplish this and that's what marks us to you finally at the end of verse one when it says Jesus is the Christ and he is the Son of God.
That is a reference to the fact that Jesus is the eternal and unique Son of God. He is truly God and he added to himself humanity without ceasing his divinity so that he is God and man in one person. He and the Father are one in essence, one in equal in power and glory and yet he humbled himself and became a man. So there is therefore nothing at all creation that can separate you from the benefits which are yours in him.
Think of all the things that Jesus could not have done had he been just a man and not also gone. He couldn't reveal God truly to you. He couldn't if he was not divine, he could not have lived a sinless life in your place. He couldn't have resisted temptation.
He couldn't have defeated your enemy. He couldn't have borne up under the weight of sin upon the cross nor could he have lasted under the weight of God's wrath upon the cross. But he would have been destroyed and crushed had he been only man but his divinity guarantees the infinite value of his sacrifice so that he can apply it to many. See, as Lewis is a wonderful statement here on the fact that Jesus is not just human but also the divine Son of God when he says I am trying, says Lewis to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Jesus which is this.
I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say, says Lewis. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would have to be a lunatic on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg or he would be the devil of hell.
You must make your choice either this man was and is the son of God or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Jesus up for a fool says Lewis. You can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being just a great human teacher.
He has not left that open to us and he did not intend to. So Mark tells you that he is the Savior who came to see and save the lost. He does it because he is the Messiah removing your ignorance and your guilt and bringing harmony in your life so you can honor God. And he is the divine son of God who can guarantee all this to you.
Now the Apostle Paul would say therefore rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord. And again I say rejoice because the gospel is news that brings joy. Let's pray.
Father in heaven I probably that you would help us to not look for joy in our experience, in our achievement, in our history, even in the circumstances that are good or even to struggle to find a ray of joy in the midst of difficult painful heart circumstances but help us to find our joy in your son and who he is for us in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Let me invite you to stand and respond to God's word singing by Jesus. I love you.