First Presbyterian
Church of Inglewood
100 North Hillcrest Ave
Inglewood, California
90301
Telephone numbers: (310) 677-5133 Fax (310) 330-8342
Electronic mail: PRESBYTS@SBCGLOBAL.NET
Sunday, December 13,
2009
Rev. Dr. Harold E. Kidd
Mark 1: 1 - 8
GOOD NEWS FOR TROUBLED
TIMES
“The beginning of the gospel about Jesus
Christ, the Son of God.” Mark 1:1
When we read the opening verse of
Mark’s gospel, in just a few words, it is filled with meaning and value for the
living of our days. Unlike Luke, Mark seems to skip over the first thirty years
of our Lord’s life. He merely opens his gospel with the simple words, “The
beginning … “.
One would imagine that the first 30
years of our Lord’s life were filled with experiences all designed to nurture
and prepare him for his ministry. Home training under the parenting of his
father Joseph and his mother Mary. As a carpenter’s son, learning the virtues
of patience, of seeing that which in the beginning is only a vision in his
mind’s eye, in its rawest form as a piece of wood take on shape and purpose.
The thirty years of silence wherein we know very little about the Lord’s life
were all needful for his human preparation of his life’s divine work.
The beginning of the gospel about
Jesus Christ. Preparation takes time. In reading the first thirteen verses of
Mark’s gospel it is all about the preparation of the Lord for his ministry. The
Gospel of Mark begins with John the Baptist making ready for the coming of
Jesus. “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” Preparation.
Jesus was baptized by John in
Jordan’s river in preparation for His ministry. And straightway coming up out
of the water, He saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending
upon him. And a voice came from heaven saying, “You are my Son, whom I love;
with you I am well pleased.” And immediately, writes Mark, Jesus is driven into
the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted by the Devil.
In these few short introductory
verses of chapter one, The beginning,
we read of preparation by John the Baptist. Preparation by Baptism, preparation
by receiving the Holy Spirit, preparation by a Divine Call, and preparation by
testing. Life is a series of
preparations. Every experience preparing us for something that lies ahead. And
God uses time in preparing us for what may lie ahead of us in our future. So
our times are in His hands. When the timing is right, it shall come to pass.
Jesus came into this world in fact
when the timing was right by God’s appointment time. Galatians 4:4 says it this
way, “But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a
woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive
the full rights of sons (daughters).” For centuries the Jews had been wondering
and waiting for the Messiah. When will He come? But God’s timing in our lives
is always perfect. Amen.
Longer we live, pray be the wiser we
become, to the reality that our timing is very seldom God’s timing. We work to
build a career, while God is working to build our character. We work to build
financial wealth, while God is working to build our Godly contentment. That in
whatsoever state we are in we are content.
We labor for the blessing, while God
is laboring for our preparation to receive the blessing. We labor to reach the
finish line, the crown, the prize, while God is working to increase our
endurance. We focus on the signs and symbols of our progress, while God is focused
on the development of our patience. We focus on the healing, while God is
focused on the development of our faith
And we do at sometimes wonder and ask
the Lord why He hasn’t showed up, why the prayer has not yet been answered, why
the breakthrough has not yet come, why we have not been able to complete the
project, why reconciliation had not yet occurred, why a loved one as yet
remains unsaved, but God is always on time.
The birth of Jesus encourages us to
trust the timing of God. The birth of Jesus encourages us that no matter what
our days may be filled with, God’s timing is always perfect. The birth of Jesus
encourages us that God always has our best interests at heart in His plan of
salvation.
The beginning of the gospel about
Jesus Christ. Two things we’ve just discovered in this verse. Firstly, that God is always preparing us to
receive what He is getting ready to give. Life becomes a series of
preparations, because the blessings are always coming.
Secondly, when the timing is right,
when all has been made ready, the manifestation of God’s blessing will appear.
O, it would be an awful thing for the blessing to come and we have made no
preparation to receive it. What a shame that when the blessing did come we
couldn’t handle it because we were not ready for it. That is why Paul writes
concerning the birth of Jesus, “In the fullness of time, when has been made
ready … then and only then, God sent us Jesus.”
Ruth Hiersemann and I attended a
Community meeting last Thursday evening, and one of the things we discovered is
that The Church of God - Center of Hope Church has purchased Daniel Freeman
Hospital. Their long-range vision is to transform it into a community resource
center with all kinds of services for the Inglewood community. Praise God!
Now that just didn’t happen
overnight. From what councilman Tabor shared with us, God had to get them ready
to handle that blessing. They had to go through a season of preparations. Do we
have the right people in place who can rightly administer such a massive
undertaking? Do we have the financing? Do we have the business plan? Have we
truly discerned what God’s will is for this property? Because to whom much is
given, much is required. It doesn’t have
to be on such a grand scale, but whatever our vision is, have we prepared ourselves
to fulfill God’s plan in the midst of our dreams?
When God sent us Jesus, the world was
ready for a savior. When God sent Jesus, sin was at its worst so that salvation
could be at its best. When God sent Jesus, people had exhausted every option
for a better life, except turning to God through Jesus Christ.
Mark 12 tells the story of the woman
who had suffered for 12 long years with the constant hemorrhaging. The
scripture says she spent all that she had seeing one doctor after another, and she
suffered from some of the treatments given her by some of these doctors, yet
was no better but rather grew worse. God allowed her to exhaust every hope, exhaust
every resource, God allowed her to suffer in her body, so that when Jesus come,
she would be ready in her faith, for the blessing.
But in the fullness of time, when Jesus did
come, she said, “If I may touch his clothes, I may be made well, and
immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up and she felt in her body
that she was healed of the affliction.” The
waiting was a blessing in the development of her in her patience and her
perseverance. God spent twelve years in this hemorrhaging, preparing her to
meet Jesus.
When God sent Jesus, because of the rise
of the Roman Empire, travel was easy because of the countless number of roads that
had been built as Rome expanded her vast empire. There was a common saying that
all roads lead to Rome. Making it easier
to carry the gospel of Jesus throughout the known world of that day. When God
sent Jesus, Greek was the common language of the people, making it easier to
spread the good news about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
God is always preparing us for the
blessing He is getting ready to give. When the timing is right the blessing
will come. A third truth coming out of this verse is that God sees the end in
the beginning. Notice how Mark opens his
gospel. The beginning of the gospel about
Jesus Christ, the Son of God. In other words there is so much concerning
the work of salvation in Christ that cannot be contained in any gospel. There
are a multitude who have been saved by Jesus.
The purpose of the Gospel is to show
us where, when, how, and why it began. The purpose of the gospels is to reveal
to us the love of God for all humanity made manifest in the birth, life, death,
and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The good news is that God has offered us
salvation, through the gift of His Son Jesus Christ. That no one has to die and
go to a burning hell. But as many as receive Jesus, to them He gives the right
to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.
But the gospels, in and of themselves,
cannot record every soul saved by Jesus. Gospel comes from the Greek, meaning
evangeleon, good news. Good news because we cannot save ourselves, but God
offers us the gift of salvation in and through His Son. Good News because God
already knows who will receive Him and who will reject Him, but the gift is
given to anyone and everyone.
“For those God foreknew he also
predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the
firstborn among many brothers (sisters).
And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also
justified; those He justified, He also glorified.” And all Paul is saying here in these verses is
that our salvation was not an afterthought in the mind of God, but it was
settled before the foundations of this world. And that’s good news!
We do worry at times about our loved ones
and their relationship with Jesus. Some of us have loved ones who are in the
faith, but their faith is lukewarm. Some of us have loved ones who are in the
faith, but they have lost their way, and become like the prodigal Son. Some of
us have loved ones who are disbelievers, and have not yet given their lives to
Christ. But we can be comforted in the fact that as we continue to pray for
them, and give witness in our own lives to our faith in Jesus, in the fullness
of time God will change their hearts.