"The Spirit-filled Life!"
Falling in Love with Jesus…all over again! An epic journey through the Gospel of Mark (message #3)
Pastor Jerry Ingalls
January 30, 2011
For a message entitled "The Spirit-filled Life!", the Word of God from Mark 1:9-11, "In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Immediately coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens opening, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him; 11 and a voice came out of the heavens: 'You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.'"
Mark proclaimed that this is the Good News of Jesus of Nazareth who is the Messiah, the Son of God, as foretold by the Prophet Isaiah. He immediately introduced John the Baptist, who as we learned last week was part of the fulfillment of messianic prophecy as the one who was to come before the Messiah to prepare the way for Him. John the Baptist was sent by the Holy Spirit to call Israel to repentance in preparation for the coming of the Messiah. It was in the verses right before our Scripture lesson, in Mark 1:7-8, that John the Baptist proclaimed of Jesus Christ, "After me One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals. I baptized you with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." It is in the shadow of this declaration of faith that Mark first introduces Jesus of Nazareth!
It is important for us to realize that John the Baptist did more than call the nation of Israel to repentance; he was the prophet of God used by God to invite Jesus out of His hometown to fulfill His mission. The beginning of the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ began with an invitation from the Holy Spirit through the ministry of John the Baptist.
Today, directly from the life of Jesus Christ, we are going to learn what it means to live a Spirit-filled life.
Let's start with this first teaching point that was true for Jesus Christ and is true for every human: The Holy Spirit invites us to respond to God!
Let's look closely at Mark 1:9, "In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan."
Jesus left his hometown of Nazareth in Galilee where he spent approximately the first 30 years of his life. God's Spirit was on the move inviting all the people of Judea and Jerusalem out to the Jordan wilderness to be baptized for the repentance of sins. It was in the days of this great awakening of Israel, after over 400 years of prophetic silence, that God called Jesus Christ from His place of preparation to step into His mission. This was not the first time that the Son of God had to wait for the right time to enter His mission.
The Bible records in Galatians 4:4-5 of the first time, "But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons."
Jesus of Nazareth is the Eternal Son of God and before the Christmas Incarnation; the miracle of God coming to earth and taking on flesh, Jesus willingly and intentionally waited for the ordained time to enter time and become a human for the purpose of redeeming humanity. God entered at the right time and then waited in the little town of Nazareth.
Jesus had been a respected Jewish man undistinguished from any other faithful Jewish man for those first years—a carpenter, a son, a brother, a faithful Jew. Out of this place of upbringing and preparation, the Holy Spirit invited Jesus Christ to John the Baptist and Jesus responded! Listen to how John responded to the coming of Jesus from Nazareth to him in the Jordan River. The Gospel of Matthew 3:14-15 records, "But John tried to prevent Him, saying, 'I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?' But Jesus answering said to him, 'Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.' Then he permitted Him."
In the same way that the Holy Spirit invited Jesus Christ out of his everyday routine of life in Nazareth, so the Holy Spirit is inviting you today! God wants to be found by you! He's not hiding! Unlike so many people (unlike some of us who have hid throughout our lives and others of us who are still hiding today) God wants to be found! In fact, that is why God sent His Son Jesus Christ. To let the entire world know that there is a way back to God for eternity; the invitation came in the form of a person!
How long has it been since you have played Hide and Seek? Beorn, my 4 year old, and I play Hide and Seek. He is so cute because he will tell me where to count and then run and hide. Then, he yells out to me that he is ready to be found and to come get him. I like this version of Hide and Seek because I go straight to where He is and we laugh and tickle each other and wrestle around until it's time to hide again. I'm sure this game will get more difficult as he gets older and maybe doesn't want to be found by me quite as easily.
Hide and Seek is a game kids love to play. But you know something, they aren't the only ones! We teenagers and adults like to play Hide and Seek as well, except we try to hide from God, and we don't always call out to Him to come find us! Thank God that He is willing to seek after us!
We learn this from Jesus' teaching in the Gospel of Luke 15:4-5, "What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing."
God seeks after you, in the hiding places of your life! He pursues a relationship with you until you are found because He does not desire for even one of His children to perish. This is the very mission of God through Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, the Son of God. As Jesus demonstrated in His invitation to the chief tax collector Zaccheus and then proclaimed of His mission in the Gospel of Luke 19:10, "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."
Are you separated from God today? Are you still in hiding? This is the Good News that Jesus Christ came to proclaim: you have been found by God and you are invited to know His love forever! Will you respond?
The wasted life, the frustrated life, the discontented life, and often the tragic life is the unresponsive life. How are you responding to God's great efforts to reach you and invite you deeper into His love?
From the story of Jesus' baptism, our second teaching point: The Holy Spirit empowers us to fulfill God's purposes!
Mark continues the narrative of Jesus' baptism in Mark 1:10, "Immediately coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens opening, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him." At His baptism, Jesus saw the heavens open and the Spirit of God descend upon Him like a dove. This embodiment of the Holy Spirit symbolizes that the Kingdom of God is the rule of God that brings peace to all mankind—redemption through Jesus Christ!
Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus later proclaims God's purpose for His life to those in His hometown of Nazareth, to the people He grew up with as a man viewed only as the carpenter's son, the son of Mary with sisters and brothers. He now stands up and proclaims that He is more than they ever could see; He is the fulfillment of the messianic prophecies found in Isaiah.
From the Gospel of Luke 4:16-19, 21, "And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to [Jesus]. And He opened the book and found the place where it was written, 'THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED, TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.' …And He began to say to them, 'Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.'"
And Jesus' earthly ministry was filled with the anointing and power from the Holy Spirit. As the Apostles declared of Jesus in Acts 10:38, "You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him." Jesus walked in the power of the Holy Spirit to fulfill God's purposes for His life.
Earlier, we learned that Jesus Christ was baptized by John the Baptist "to fulfill all righteousness" (Mt 3:15).
Let's take a moment to visit this truth so that we can understand why Jesus submitted himself to baptism and in turn ensure we understand what Christian baptism is and is not.
Jesus goes out to John the Baptist, who is preaching about and performing a "baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (Mk 1:4-5). And Jesus of Nazareth is baptized (Mk 1:9). Jesus is baptized not because has sinned and needs to submit Himself to John's baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. No! On the contrary, the Bible teaches in 1 John 3:5, "You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin." Jesus was not baptized out of His need for repentance for the forgiveness of sins, but in order "to fulfill all righteousness" (Mt 3:15).
Let's go deeper to the heart of the human condition and every person's fundamental need for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We were designed for a relationship with God, but sin broke it! No one can stand in the presence of God with any sin. That means, without a means of reconciliation with God, any thought or action displeasing to God keeps us eternally separated from God.
In order to have right standing with God (what the Bible calls righteousness), we must have all of our sin removed from us. According to the Old Covenant with God this was attempted through the Law where priests performed sacrifices for the community's sin twice a day and other times as dictated by the Law of God. Every person's sin had to be paid for by a blood sacrifice for the wages of sin is death. Jesus Christ came as the fulfillment to the Law, and the establisher of the New Covenant with God, by providing the final blood payment for all of humanity's sin—"to fulfill all righteousness"—so that humanity can once again have an unbroken relationship with God through faith in Him as the final atoning sacrifice.
Jesus' ministry begins at His baptism when He willingly identified Himself with the human experience of sin.
Paul teaches in 2 Corinthians 5:21, "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." Right standing with God is only possible because Jesus Christ became sin and then took the penalty for sin, once and for all, on the Cross of Calvary so that anyone who puts their faith in Jesus Christ will be filled with the Holy Spirit of God, who is the seal of God's right standing. Listen to these powerful words from Ephesians 1:13-14, "In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation--having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory."
We are saved by putting our faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not by baptism nor any human action! We are filled with the Holy Spirit (God's seal of our righteousness!) not by a baptism of water, but by the promised baptism of the Holy Spirit. This is the teaching of John the Baptist in Mark 1:8 when he states, "I baptized you with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."
Immediately upon receiving Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit enters into you making you a new person and sealing you for eternity! To the glory of God, you are redeemed by grace because Jesus Christ fulfilled all righteousness! We are saved by faith, and not be works so that no one can boast of who they were baptized by or which denomination or church they are members. Please pull out the handout entitled, "What the Bible teaches about Baptism" found inside your bulletin.
It is important that every person reads through this so that we can all know what Christian baptism is and is not. You are not saved by your baptism, nor is baptism when you receive the Holy Spirit. Both of those eternal events happen when you first accept Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior with your whole heart. We follow the Lord in baptism out of obedience to His personal example and because He commands us to do it as His set apart people. Every single person who has accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior should get baptized.
Today is the day to make this decision and this is the year to follow the Lord whole heartedly.
There is no reason to delay this obedience as God has called us to do great things in this life! In the same way that Jesus Christ was empowered to fulfill God's purpose in His life, we too must be filled with God's power to fulfill God's purposes in our own lives.
Ephesians 2:10 declares, "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them."
God sent Jesus Christ into the world and has invited you to believe in and know Him so that you can find and fulfill the very purpose of your existence.
You receive the power of God through the Holy Spirit when you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. How are you fulfilling God's purposes for your life? What are the good works you were created to do in this life?
From the story of Jesus' baptism, our third and final teaching point: The Holy Spirit speaks over us our true identity!
The Gospel of Mark 1:11 records, "And a voice came out of the heavens: 'You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.'"
This is in fulfillment of the messianic prophecy found in Isaiah 42:1, "Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations."
God's affirmation of His Eternal Son as He begins His earthly ministry begins with words of identification; words that carry the weight of God's gospel to reach all humanity—the redemption of the nations—the fulfillment of the Promise to Abram in Genesis 12!
And when we become believers in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit calls out to us our new identity—our true identity—as children of God, ambassadors of Christ, ministers of reconciliation.
We are called out of our Nazareth (our everyday ordinary lives of preparation) to the place of our baptism experience in order to fulfill our purpose as God's beloved children; born again through the Holy Spirit; called to stand firm against the evil one and the kingdom of darkness for the cause of the King and His Kingdom in the epic war for humanity's collective heart.
We have our true identity spoken over us as the beloved child of God.
Friends, do not minimize this: there is power in identity! There is power in having a respected authority in our lives speak over us words of affirmation, identity, and power. Watch this movie clip from "Kingdom of Heaven".
Listen to the Holy Spirit speak words of identity and security over you in Romans 8:16-17, "The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him."
There is no greater security to be found on earth than to know you are a child of God who has received the eternal inheritance of God. When you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, no matter the circumstances or sufferings you must endure in this life, nothing can change the reality of your identity in God; you are secure in the hand of God as his beloved son or daughter. This is the love of God given to us freely through the Gospel of Jesus Christ that we are children of God (1 John 3:1-2a)! Do you know His love?
God speaks over you words of identity and security; you are one of His beloved children! How will you live your life differently knowing who you are in Jesus Christ?
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