So the point of this? I've been trying to work on my knowledge of the bible, and I don't know if anyone that reads these is trying to as well, but if you are, I would highly suggest subscribing to Breakaway ministries podcasts, they post both video and audio podcasts, and they're free, so you don't really have an excuse not to unless you just don't have iTunes. :) And to start, if you could take about 40 minutes from your day to listen to the one titled "A Gospel According to Mark" in the video podcasts. I promise you you wont regret it. I'm also going to copy and paste my notes under this, so if you just really don't have 40 minutes to spare you can read those, but they wont be nearly as influential.
(Aside: other podcast that could interest you that I subscribe to: Passion City Church (main speaker Louie Giglio) and Cornerstone Semi Video (main speaker Francis Chan))
Notes:
The Gospel according to Mark.
1. Who is He?
-Gospel
-What that meant to them in v. 1 was that a historical event has occurred that has brought a new situation to the world. Someone has just showed up, and it changes everything for you, cause he’s the King. Mark takes this and creates the gospel of Jesus.
- Gospel through prophet Isaiah (to the Hebrews)
- Written to people in exile, served idols. Yet, good new was being proclaimed. Good news turned into the gospel
- The Gospel to the Hebrews was: there’s a day coming where God’s gonna show up, and he will set you free, and bless you, and save you, and make you his people. A day is coming where its not just a King arriving that changes things, it is God coming, and he will change things!
-Isaiah 40
-Mark is saying, “Hey the voice has come, his name is John the Baptist, and God has come, and his name is Jesus! He says Jesus isn’t just the Messiah that coming to change everything, He’s God, and He is bringing a new kingdom.
-that statement, the Gospel of Jesus, is a bombshell, that is Mark messing with people. This changes the argument of philosophy: the ideal just became real. The unapproachable just became a dude you can hug. The impossible just because possible.
-It changes the inside and the out
- Inside: All of us have a prime motivation that drives us in this world. For most of us its fear, and religion exacerbates that (there’s a path you have to follow and if you don’t you miss God)
- What Mark is saying that we don’t have to do all these things to get to Him. He’s saying that God has come down to us. So we get joy, peace, and love. We don’t sing in order to placate God so he won’t hurt us. We sing because God came for us, and we celebrate a God who isn’t distant.
-Outside: The arrival if Jesus in the physical world is the most compelling argument for social justice. Because Jesus just didn’t come to rescue your spirit and whisk it away to Heaven, he came in a physical body healing disease and taking away injustice as part of the agenda. The hope is that not only would he heal your soul, but he would heal all creation.
2. How do I meet him?
-The world wilderness comes up in text. “The voice us crying out in the wilderness” and John appeared baptizing in the wilderness. All this text is happening in the wilderness. Everyone went to John. The words “wilderness” or sometimes “desert” are major themes used throughout the bible, and that’s significant because the wilderness is a place you come out to and you come into. (Explanation: Most popular example: in the Old Testament, Moses leads the people out of Egypt into the wilderness to meet God. Less popular example: Hundreds of years later, the people of God are disobedient, and they’re pursuing other idols and gods. The gods of sensuality, the gods of violence, and the gods of social advancement. God exiles them to Babylon, where they soon realize they don’t wanna live there, the gods they thought would satisfy them don’t, and they want out. The voice of Isaiah comes to them and says, a new exodus is coming, and a time where you will leave Babylon and walk into the wilderness, and journey back into a relationship with God again. ) Wilderness is written all over text near repentance, and to the Jews it’s the same thing. It says the gods I’ve been serving aren’t working for me, and I wanna leave them and I wanna walk out.
- in Isaiah 26: “Oh Lord, our God other Lords beside you have ruled us, but your name alone we remember. They are dead, they do not live. They are shades, they do not rise.”
-Money, dating, and beauty as a whole are not bad. Money, dating, and beauty as a god are bad.
-Wilderness does not mean a jungle. Back then, wilderness meant desert. It meant a place where there was no life. It meant thorns, thirst, loneliness, hard, a place that was isolated and in need.
-When people meet God, they always meet him in the “wilderness”
-Why does God love scary, lonely, isolated places? Its because out there you realized just how needy you are, and if your going to survive you need God to bring water from the rock and manna from Heaven.
-We don’t come trying to give him stuff, we come with hands empty. We don’t come telling him how awesome we are and listing out accomplishments. We come zeroed out and say “I need you.”
-That’s what baptism is about.
-Before the Jew would just come and wash his hands to cleanse himself of his sins, the Gentile would dump water all over himself because your dirty. But you always did it to yourself. John told them to come to him, you have to walk out here with hands wide open. Come empty, with nothing but needs.
3. Why would I want to?
-Spirit.
-In Hosea it says Israel is kinda like a whore, and your relationship with God, your like a prostitute. Your married to me, but you keep sleeping with other men, and as you do that you realize sex is not the answer, and these other men aren’t the answer. God says that’s what my people are like to me, they keep running to things that aren’t satisfying them. God doesn’t say to Isaiah, “I’m gonna kick you, I’m gonna divorce you, I’m gonna throw you out.” He says, “I’m going to allure her out into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her, and there I will give her vineyards, and I will make the valley of trouble a door of hope.”
-John says there’s a guy coming mightier than me, I’m not worthy to tie his sandals, He’ll bring the spirit with Him.
- Isaiah 32:14-15
-When you come to me, I put my spirit into you, and you burst into life.
-Jesus was baptized for us, to identify with his people.
-take a walk with him.
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