Opening — Mark 1 Read at the Start

(The service opens with a reading of Mark 1:2–11.)

“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.’ 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.’”

Wrapping Up “Foretold” — The Last Sunday of 2024

The last Sunday of 2024 — we welcome all of you, thanks for coming, and we’re going to wrap up our “Foretold” series. The church has been going through this for a little over a month, I believe, but today we’re coming to the end of it — a prophecy that started clear back there in the Garden of Eden, Genesis 3:15, where it says the Messiah will come from the seed of the woman. There are many, many prophecies in the Word of God. You can take seventeen of the Old Testament writers, or Old Testament books — there’s over 325 of what we call Messianic, that’s Christ, prophecies about Jesus specifically. And the probability of just fifty of those 325 coming to pass — the probability of that is a one followed by 157 zeros. And all those prophecies that have come to pass have been fulfilled, and he still has a few more yet to come. And one of them is, he says, “I’m coming back.” So if he came the first time, he’s going to be coming back again.

And so we’re going to walk into a passage of the Word this morning that is thirty years from the time of his birth. The last few weeks we’ve been talking about the birth of Jesus Christ, born in a little manger there in Bethlehem. And this same Jesus was born in Bethlehem; he was raised in a little village called Nazareth; and then at twelve years old — the last time we really heard about him — and then all the way up to thirty, as he’s standing at the banks of the Jordan River getting ready to be baptized. This is the same Jesus that was born; the same Jesus is coming again.

(The passage is read again: Mark 1, beginning at verse 2.)

I love that: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” There’s three times that the Father spoke from heaven out loud, and this was one of them. The other time was at the Mount of Transfiguration, and the other time is when he was riding into Jerusalem at that triumphal entry. But here he says, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for the reading of the Word; we thank you, Father, for the power of the Word. We love you; we love your Son; we love to talk about Jesus. And we just pray today, Father, that you would guide our words and our thoughts as we reflect on your marvelous grace, and that we would focus on the things that would lift you up and glorify you. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

Why Was Jesus Baptized?

I just want to make a couple comments about some of these verses here. This is John the Baptist that’s in the water, and Jesus shows up on the banks, and he wants to get baptized. What’s that all about? Why would Jesus want to get baptized? He never sinned; he has nothing to confess. So what’s going on here? Well, the Bible says that John the Baptist is going around baptizing people, and John’s baptism was for the repentance of sins. It’s called a preparation baptism. The Messiah had never come and died yet; he’d never rose from the grave yet. So the baptism of John is about preparation — people coming, confessing their sins, and wanting them to be covered until the Messiah would come.

Then what’s Jesus getting baptized for? What’s this about? It’s about him loving us so much that he’s willing to identify with us. He’s saying, I came just as a human being as you; I want to be dipped in the same water as you; I have a body like you; I am not ashamed of you. And so right here in the river, where John takes him down into the water, he said, I want to be identified with you. And not only that, I want to submit to my Father in heaven in obedience to him, that I might fulfill all righteousness. It’s a ceremonial righteousness that the Lord is being baptized.

And then it is a perfect snapshot of the Trinity. You’ve got the Father in heaven, you’ve got the Son in the water, and you’ve got the dove coming down and landing on his head. And for us, baptism is an identification of the death and the burial and the resurrection of Christ. When we come to Jesus Christ by faith, we are being identified with him — Romans chapter 6.

So here he is that day, and he comes up out of the water. He’s been in obscurity till he’s thirty years old. He walks out of the water, and he begins a three-and-a-half-year ministry. And the whole purpose of his life was for two reasons: to reveal his Father and to redeem man. That’s what it says in Luke 19:10 — “I have come to seek and to save those which were lost.” And when he hung on the hill of Calvary on that old rugged cross, he said, “It’s finished.” And what was finished? He revealed his Father; he redeemed man. And he came out of the grave, and he’s seated at the right hand of the Father today. And he made a promise — it’s another foretelling: “I will be coming back.” In fact, just 24 hours before his death, he met with his disciples in a little huddle, and he says, “I have gone to prepare a place for you.” I know we use that at funerals a lot — our mansions and all of that — but really the application there: he says, “I have gone to prepare a place for you, and where I’m going, I’m coming back. I’m going to the cross; I’m going to rise again from the tomb; and you’re going to have new life again.” And the death of our Savior did not interrupt his ministry; it fulfilled it when he died on the cross. And he has been preparing a way for us, as he’s seated at the right hand of the Father. He is not only your intercessor today; he is our advocate, and we can go to him anytime we want. I love Jesus.

Two Words for 2025: Remember Him

So you’re a human being like I am, and there is something in each one of us that we desperately need all the time. We need a hope and we need an assurance that is way beyond our self. And we’re going to walk into 2025 together, Lord willing, if he doesn’t come in the next few days, and we’re going to have the same problem going in in our life. There’s so many times that we’re scared and worried about the future and all these things. So what can we do to prepare ourselves, to make the crooked paths straight as we walk into ’25? It’s two words. It’s very simple: remember him. Remember him. Remember him.

And the Lord knew that, as he created humanity — for the last six thousand years we’re all the same — and we need something besides ourselves to even make it through life. Remember him. And that is why he told all his prophets: the Lord says, okay, prophets, I want you to write about my Son; I want you to tell the people what he’s like; I want you to write about me and tell them what I’m like. And as we remember him, it’s going to be a powerful filling of the Spirit in our life, that we can live a life to bring him glory back. Remember him — he created this planet; he created you and I. I love that verse in Colossians 1:16, where it says he created all things. All things. Remember him. So let’s jump in here.

Remember: God Is Bigger

Remember: God is bigger. I love Isaiah chapter 40, verse 12: “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?” Who? Jesus did all this. God is bigger. He’s measured the waters in the hollow of his hand. You can take all the land mass of this planet and stick all the land mass into the Pacific Ocean, and you wouldn’t see any more land. That’s just the Pacific Ocean. Wow, that’s pretty big.

And then he says, “I marked off the heavens.” Anybody want to follow me on this one? On the count of three, I want you to snap your fingers twice. Are you ready? One, two, three — and that sounded really good. You know what happened between the two snaps? Between the two snaps of our fingers, the speed of light went around planet Earth fourteen times. Wow. And he says right here he marked off the heavens. Well, you can go the speed of light for a hundred million light years to the edge of the cosmic universe — wherever that’s at — and that’s just in the span of his hands. Pretty big God. And then it says he weighed the mountains and the hills on a scale, and smart scientists say that they guess that the world weighs about six septillion tons — that is a six followed by twenty-five zeros — and that’s just like a grain of sand to him. Is that amazing? God is bigger. Remember him.

Remember: God Is Greater Than All the Nations

And not only that, God is greater than all the nations. Look at verse 15: “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are counted as dust on the scales.” There’s 195 nations on planet Earth right now — if you count the Vatican, the Holy See, there’d be 196; they claim that’s a nation. Well, let’s just say there’s 195 nations on the planet. Scientists say that the combined wealth and worth of all those nations is $460 trillion. That’s just like dust to him. Is that amazing? It’s nothing. That’s our God.

Who’s the greatest person that you have ever met? Don’t look at the person sitting next to you and smile. Who’s the greatest person that you think you’ve ever met? We had the privilege, when I was a little boy, eight years old — we were down at a Billy Graham crusade in Los Angeles, and we went into a Denny’s. And back then Denny’s was a very nice restaurant. And I remember that we went in, we sat down, and back then we were kind of unique looking, I guess, our family, and so Billy Graham and George Beverly Shea and Cliff Barrows came over to our table and spoke to my dad and them, and we got to shake Billy Graham’s hand. And my dad and one of us went out to the car — we used to have these little songbooks, “Carols of Joy” — and we brought them in, and Billy Graham signed them. That was cool.

Billy Graham. Forty-four years ago, when I just started into the ministry, I heard that J. Vernon McGee was going to be at Twin Lakes Baptist Church, and so I ran over there; I jumped in a car; I got there too late — they were done with the service, people were coming out. So I went to one of the ushers and I said, “I came over here to hear J. Vernon McGee, and I guess I missed him; I would really like to see him.” He said, “Well, you follow me.” So I followed this man, the usher, and he took me into one of the rooms in the back of the church there, and there was J. Vernon McGee laying on a couch, on a sofa, resting. And he told me, “Young man, pull up a chair.” So I pulled up a chair next to J. Vernon McGee, and for twenty minutes I got to speak to J. Vernon McGee. He was a cute little guy, and he had a sense of humor that was incredible. And now to hear his voice on the radio — I know he’s passed away, but that’s J. Vernon, and I really have followed a lot of his teachings over the years.

I was climbing Half Dome one day, and I was following a guy — and every step he would take, I would take three steps — and he turned around; it was Bill Walton. Wow, that was cool. I stopped at Fig Garden Village in Fresno a few years ago, and I sat down at a restaurant called the Elbow Room, and two security guards came up and said, “You can’t leave the restaurant now, because the governor of California is coming in and he’s going to sit at the table next to you, so you can’t move.” So I had to order more dessert, I guess, whatever I did. But it was Arnold Schwarzenegger, or however you say his name, and I was stunned about him — he’s a short guy. I thought he was 6’2″ or something; he’s not. He’s — I don’t know what he is, but he’s not very big. But it was really fun to see him and all the guys, and they wouldn’t let me go for a couple hours. But anyway.

And then I remember one night — cold September night, 1972, 8:36 p.m. Pacific Standard time — I’m standing at church steps, and my eyes looked at a young lady: fifteen years old, blonde hair, had her brown dress on with gold buttons on it. And I was so stunned, I just kept looking and looking. Wow. That was my wife to be. And I’m glad she’s not in this room, but she’s pretty great. But folks, all of them — there’s nobody that compares to our Father. None. The greatest we’ll ever meet.

Remember: He Never Gets Tired

And another thing it says is that he never gets tired. Isaiah 40:28: “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.” Have you ever thought that the Lord is just too busy for you? He’s running everything; he’s running the universe; he’s got billions of people on the planet; there’s prayers going up everywhere. Surely God is never going to slow down — he has no time for me. That’s not what it says here. He never slumbers; he never sleeps — the Bible says in Psalm 121. And for everybody in this room that’s over seventy, God has never had a senior moment. Have you? I get them all the time. Never had a senior moment. All you teenagers and you that are younger — God has never asked for a Red Bull; he’s never needed a Monster drink. He doesn’t grow tired; he doesn’t grow weary; he doesn’t need it; he doesn’t need his batteries recharged. He’s always awake. And with all of that, he is never tired.

He loves us so much — he’s never exhausted from forgiving you and I of our sins. Never. He’s never exhausted from loving us so much. He’ll never take his eyes off any of us. He is never exhausted of taking care of our eternal inheritance and watching us day and night, and day and night, and day and night. He never worries of that. That is very comforting.

Remember: He Supplies All the Power

And not only that, God supplies all the power. Some of my favorite verses here in Isaiah, 40:29–31: “He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” What’s the key here? “But they that wait upon the LORD.” Not wait for him, but they that wait upon him. He’s saying here, in the times of our weariness — it doesn’t matter if it’s morning or night — we can wait upon him. It means that we actively trust in God’s timing, in God’s plan, looking for his presence to give us direction, and just put the matters of our life in his hands, because he’s got this power. It’s not sitting in your recliner with a passive waiting; it is actively seeking God’s presence. That’s waiting upon the Lord. And it doesn’t say your circumstances are going to change — but you’re waiting on him. Then he gives the right amount of power. He knows what you need, how much you need, why you need it, where you need it, when you need it. He’ll give it in his timing. He supplies it all.

And then it says here in Isaiah 53:6 — God is our Savior: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned — every one — to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Everybody in this room, you have committed a lot of sins. We all have. And there’s been billions of people that have been created over the years — billions — they’ve all sinned. The Bible says right here that he has laid the iniquity of all of our sins upon him, and he’s taken care of all of that. He’s our Savior. He’s our Savior.

Three Practical Ways to Remember Him

And I do believe that the Lord — when we think about how big he is and how great he is, and how he never gets tired and he’s all-powerful, he is our Savior — he’s just wanting us to do two simple things. We see it and we hear about it every time we come together for communion. It’s two words: remember him. Remember him. Remember him. We don’t know how busy we’re going to be; we don’t know what the future looks like for any of us. But we can make a choice to remember him in three simple ways.

A practical way to remember him is: notice him. Notice — we just gave you some passages of Scripture out of Isaiah. We would encourage you to put those into your memory banks; memorize Scripture for the year; feed the inner man with these Scriptures. And then notice — you notice what he’s done for you. Well, there’s Scriptures for that. You notice what he’s done for you in the physical realm: you go outside at night and you look at the heavens — they declare the glory of God. Do you notice them? Did you know that you have a “God channel” in your brain? What’s the God channel? You and I get to choose what we think about. That is a really incredible gift that God gave us. You are not forced to think or say or do anything; you get to choose what’s in your God channel. And the Bible says in Proverbs, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he going to be. So what are we noticing about the Lord?

Well, we remember him and we notice him when we take the Word of God and we internalize it. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. Did you know that you cannot flee from what you daily think in your mind? You can’t flee from it. You make the choice what you think about, but you can’t flee from that. And if you want to put negativity in there, you can do that, if you want. But he’s saying, I want you to notice me; I want you to remember me; I want you to notice all the things that I’ve given you. And I know Dean Martin is no theologian, but when he sang the song — the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees and the moon up above and all that — yeah. Notice them. There’s a lot of incredible things that God has placed around us to notice. But notice: number one is the Word of God — it is the most precious.

And then: ask him. What have you been asking your Father in heaven for lately? The Bible says in Psalm 40:17, “As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God!” What is he saying here? David is asking. The Bible says in James that you don’t have because you do not ask. When was the last time that you’ve asked for wisdom? When’s the last time you asked for direction? The Lord says, I want you — I’m your heavenly daddy; I’m your heavenly parent. If it means something as simple as a child: “Help, help, help” — and do it. He loves it when his children ask him. Do you like it when your children ask for things? Sure you do. Do you like it when they come to you? Absolutely.

And then: act on them. Jesus acted in complete obedience to his Father — everything he did. And as you look at your own life, where are you and I being obedient to him? It says in Romans 12:1, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” And Deuteronomy 31:8 — love this: “It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” Those are two good verses to memorize for this year.

“Immediately the Spirit Drove Him” — He Wants to Show You Off

I want you to notice something that happened. We read in Mark chapter one, and we stopped, I think, about verse 11. But in verse 12 in Mark 1, the Bible says: “And immediately — immediately — the Spirit drove Jesus Christ into the wilderness.” Immediately. Eight times in the first chapter he says “immediately”; forty-two times in the whole book of Mark he says “immediately.” It is an action-packed gospel. But here, Jesus, in submission to the Father, he is baptized; he comes out of the water; and the Bible says, “And immediately the Spirit drove him into the wilderness,” where Satan, the devil, was at. Why did he do that? Why would the Father in heaven allow the Spirit to drive his Son into the desert, the wilderness, for forty days? Why?

I’m going to suggest something. I think he allowed Jesus to be driven into the desert, into the wilderness, not to do him in, but to show him off. He loved his Son so much. He knew what Jesus was exactly like. He watched him for thirty years — in the Word of God he never committed a sin. He had the willingness to die for you and I. And he could not wait for his Son to be tempted, because he wanted to show him off — not do him in; show him off.

Now, what does that have to do with you and I? I’m going to make a suggestion: that in the year 2025, there’s going to be some of you — maybe me — that all of a sudden we’re walking, and all of a sudden there’s a path, or something happens. It could be a circumstance; it could be something so tragic; it could be a relationship that breaks down; it could be tragedies — and all of a sudden the devil’s there to tempt you, and try me, and we don’t know what to do. Did you know that God is allowing these things to happen in our life, in our walk — not to do you in. He wants to show you off. He really does. And that’s why he says in Ephesians, you and I are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works. And when we do things to lift him up and glorify him, we stop the mouth of Satan. And as tough as a trial is — whatever we’re going through — he’s doing it to show you off. He knows that he’ll supply the power; he’ll not tempt you and I above what we’re able to bear.

And I’ve watched some of your lives this last year. I cannot imagine what you’ve gone through. And every step of the way, you don’t cave in; you just keep living for him. Wow. You are a walking benediction of his grace, because you know that God is bigger and God is supplying all the need. And as hard as it is, you’ve yielded to him in the right way. Keep it up. We would all like to have a smooth walk, wouldn’t we? But isn’t it interesting — I’ve never seen a bald, smooth mountain. You don’t climb a smooth mountain. We have things, and God knows what we need to go through to hone us and to conform us to the image of his dear Son. And my friend today, as tough as it may be, just remember him. Remember him. He’s going to give everything you need. And as you go through that and you stop the mouth of Satan, God is glorified.

You and I are to live for him and do good, right? But the beauty of your ministry and my ministry is not what we do. It is not what we do. The beauty of your ministry and my ministry is our reactions to life. And when you watch somebody that’s going through something and they react and respond in a godly way, that just glorifies the Lord. We can all be a play-actor and do the right things. You could take Paul Newman and you’d think he’s the best Christian you’ve ever seen — the guy’s good-looking, he smiles all the time — that don’t mean anything. And yeah, we’re to do good and we’re to do right, but your ministry and my ministry will be found in the areas of how do we respond and how do we react to the things that God is allowing us to go through. That brings him glory.

“I Will Return” — He Is Coming Soon

And then Jesus made a promise. He says — huddled with his disciples one day — he says, “I’m going to come back. It’s going to be soon.” It says in Revelation 22:20, “Surely I am coming soon.” Well, he said that two thousand years ago — but to him, that’s soon. And it’s far later than we think, though.

Douglas MacArthur was the supreme commander of the Southwest Pacific in World War II. On leave for one week, he went home, and his wife said, “I’d like you to go get me a loaf of bread down at the grocery store.” And he smiled; he says, “Absolutely, I will.” So as he went out the door, he said three words: “I will return.” And he went out the door. Nine months later, Douglas MacArthur was told to withdraw from the Philippines by President Franklin Roosevelt, on March 11th, 1942. And he looked at the dock as the boat was getting ready to sail away, and he watched all the Philippines, all the people there in the Philippines that he was leaving behind and the tragedy of that, and he yelled out through a megaphone: “I will return.” Two years later, on October 20th, 1944, Douglas MacArthur returned to the Philippines and he liberated the island.

Now what’s the difference between the two “I shall returns”? One is going for a loaf of bread, with two people involved, and the other with a huge audience. What’s the difference? Well, it’s the occasion and the audience. Jesus came the first time — we’ve been hearing about it for three or four weeks — a little baby in a manger. No fanfare; no one hardly ever recognized what happened. The second time Jesus comes, there’s going to be a fanfare. Every eye shall see him; every tongue will confess him; every knee will bow to him.

And that brings it very serious to us today. If you’re in Christ Jesus — hallelujah, and thank you. If you’re not in the Lord, and you’ve never settled eternity in your heart, this is pretty serious, what he said. If you know he came the first time and he said he’s coming again the second time, then I would suggest: if you do not bow in time, you will bow sometime, and it’s going to be the wrong time. The Bible says today is the day of salvation. And if you’ve never settled eternity in your heart by confessing with your mouth and believing in your heart that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, you can settle that today. But again we say: if you don’t bow in time, you will bow sometime, and it’s going to be the wrong time, and you’ll be separated from him throughout eternity. And he loves you; he created you.

It’s Never Been This Late Before

And I know it’s not very profound to say this, but folks, it’s a lot later than it’s ever been. It really is. I thought he was going to come before Y2K — that’s twenty-five years ago. But it’s getting close. We see the signs around us everywhere. We see a world where everybody’s looking for answers — the only answer is when he comes back. It’s later than it’s ever been.

And I love the story: the little boy — the way he learned to count was at his grandfather’s house. They had a big grandfather’s clock, and he loved to stand next to it and the thing go bong — one bong, two bong, three bong, four bong — and he counted; he learned how to count all the way up to twelve. One day he came over to stay the night at grandpa’s house, and the clock started bonging, and he thought, I want to go over and count again. So he stood next to the grandfather’s clock: bong nine, bong ten, bong eleven, bong twelve, bong thirteen, bong fourteen, bong fifteen, bong sixteen — it just kept bonging. So he runs into his grandpa; he said, “Grandpa, grandpa — it’s never been this late before!” My friend today, it’s never been this late before. Never been this late before.

And I know one thing: there comes a time in your life — some of you today — that you’re tired of running. Tired of running. The oldest game in the world is hide-and-seek; it started back in the Garden of Eden. If you’re tired of hiding, come out; quit running. And we would love to meet you. We’re going to have some leadership over here in the altar room; there’ll be men and women there who’d love to pray for you. The call is going out again; it comes from this pulpit all the time: the Lord loves you, and he wants you to be with him throughout eternity. Pastor Rick, do you mind coming up here? By the way, you’re one of my favorite preachers. As we think about it, I want to have him close out, have a prayer for us; he’s got maybe some announcements to make. But thank you.