Trinity Baptist Church

The Book of Mark

Jesus’ Strategy for Effective Ministry

Mark 1:12–20

 

Mark 1:12-20

 

One of the things that is noteworthy about the gospel of Mark is his omissions.  For instance, he mentions the temptation, but gives no details.  Now just reading that, you have to understand that there are some very sweeping omissions.

 

The temptation of Christ is then followed by the ministry of Christ beginning in Galilee and in order to get to that, Mark just skips the initial ministry in the south in Judea and Jerusalem.  That leaves out, for instance, the cleansing of the temple, turning the water into wine and some of the other miracles.

 

He also omits when Jesus left Judea and went north through Samaria which was where he met the woman at the well and talks to her about Him being the Messiah.  He jumps in at the point where Jesus begins Him ministry in Galilee and a lot of time has past and a lot of events already occurred before Mark begins his account.

 

And then seemingly without a connection to what has just been said in verse 16, Mark records Jesus' calling of the first four disciples, or Apostles. And the question comes, why does Mark pull these things together the way He does? Why these brief little snippets of information that almost appear to be random?

 

I think the answer is found in Mark’s objective for his writing.  We know Jesus is the promised King and Mark is telling us His story and what Mark wants to accomplish first and foremost is to lay the ground work. His reader just needs some basic information to verify that claim.

 

The first important thing that happens to Christ is His baptism. This is His coronation as the new King from heaven. The Father says, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” The Holy spirit descends, settles upon Him, empowers Him, fills Him for the rest of His life.   What comes out of that is His authority.

 

 Mark then immediately wants to demonstrate that authority. And in the three paragraphs that I read you, He demonstrates the authority of Christ over three realms the first one being Satan and his realm, the second is sin and its dominion and the third is sinners.

 

It is important to know that if the new King is going to take His throne and reign and unseat the temporary king, Satan, then He better have the power to get the job done.  So that’s what Mark tells us about.

 

First in His temptation, His authority over Satan becomes clear. And then in His preaching, His authority over sin becomes clear.  He preaches the good news that if you repent and believe, you will be forgiven and enter His Kingdom.

 

 

 

And thirdly, He can and will overpower the souls of sinners, and that is illustrated in the fact that out of nowhere He approaches four men and lays a command on them which they immediately and instantly obey at immense cost and sacrifice to them. So this is what is established in these three little paragraphs.

 

But beyond that, there are some practical lessons that we can draw from His ministry that help us see how effective ministry is to be done.  There is an amazing amount of information available today on how to be successful in ministry and how to build a successful church.

 

But here in three brief paragraphs, Mark records for us the greatest example of how ministry is to be done. If we want to do ministry effectively, here's the pattern.  So while on the one hand we're seeing the authority of Christ demonstrated, on the other hand, we're looking at Christ's own strategy for ministry.

 

So we’ll begin tonight to look at these three necessities for effective ministry.  Before we do that, just a little bit of introductory material regarding the temptation itself is in order.  Now keep in mind, the baptism of Jesus has just occurred and since the heavens ripped open and the voice of God is heard and the Spirit of God is seen in bodily form, you would expect something heavenly is about to happen like angels singing or the Old Testament prophets showing up or something like that.

 

Or you might expect some kind of celebration with heavenly choirs singing the glories of Christ.  But that’s not what happens at all.

Without a chance to even catch your breath, Mark transports us from the coronation of the king to His temptation. Immediately after His baptism, He is led into conflict with Satan and that is the word the Holy Spirit chooses to use in verse 12.

 

And notice it is under compulsion of the Holy Spirit that He goes.  He is driven.  The Holy Spirit “drives” Him into the wilderness. Mark doesn't give us the reason why, Matthew does.  “The Holy Spirit did this so that Jesus would be tempted by the devil” according to Matthew 4:1.

 

The temptation then is not by chance, it is not by whim, it is not by the will of Satan. It is not what Satan planned. It is by the plan of God carried out by Holy Spirit. And notice it takes place “in the wilderness”.  Why in the wilderness?

 

It is because Jesus is here away from everyone and everything. He has gone from the exalted highest moment of His coronation at His baptism, among the massive crowds that were surrounding John the Baptist in His baptizing in the river Jordan to absolute and total isolation in the desert.

 

Can you imagine the joy and excitement He must have felt as He approached His baptism? After waiting for 30 years, He is about to launch His ministry and just at that highest moment, the Holy Spirit literally throws Him into the desert into a conflict with Satan.

 

And there in the wilderness, in the first test of His authority, He's going to have to handle Satan on His own with nobody around Him to help or support Him.  He is absolutely alone. He must demonstrate the power over Satan with no help.  The area scholars believe to be the place of the temptation is an uninhabited area of about 35 miles by 15 miles with wild terrain and severe conditions.  Mark describes is a place where he was with “wild beasts”.  That may describe the danger, but even more describes the isolation because people and wild beasts avoid each other if at all possible.

 

And remember, even though Mark doesn’t mention it, Matthew and Luke both tell us that Jesus went without food for the forty days He was there.  So you have no support system, no one to help Him, no one to comfort Him, no one to instruct Him, no one to encourage Him and He is at His lowest possible physical condition. His strength would be gone long before the sixth week. It would begin to diminish seriously the second week. But if He is the King, He must be able alone at His weakest to conquer the enemy. And so the Holy Spirit throws Him into that conflict.

 

It is my conviction that He is tempted for the entirety of the 40 days.  Some believe that He was only tempted at the end of the 40 days. While the temptations that came at the end of the 40 days are given in Matthew 4 and Luke 4, but Mark seems to indicate He was tempted the whole time.

 

We will save an in-depth look at the temptation particulars for another time.  But notice the end of verse 13 where Mark references the angels ministering to Him.  The word “minister” is a word that means to serve food. How did the angels minister to Him? They gave Him something to eat. But I think they ministered in another way as well.

I think they brought by their very presence and the food a confirmation of the Father. This was God's way of saying “I am still well pleased.” His holiness is still intact.  Satan threw everything he had at Him and Jesus came out of it with God’s approval.  And that is where we discover the first characteristic of effective ministry.

 

Effective ministry is done by those who

 

 

In order to be effective in ministry, we must be able to withstand temptation and have victory over Satan.  Now obviously it is not in the same sense as Jesus had victory over Satan, but ours follows His example.

 

God blesses and empowers a pure servant. Effective ministry is done by those who enter into the triumph of Christ  and walk in obedience and holiness before Him.

 

Second, effective ministry not only involves living a clean life, it requires

 

 

Verses 14-15

 

He is saying, “I am offering you a place in the Kingdom of God but the only way you can receive it is if you repent of your sin and believe. The gospel is the good news that God forgives sinners and takes them into His everlasting Kingdom when they repent of their sin and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

Notice how clear and simple and straightforward is His message.  What did Paul say to the Corinthians?  “The preaching of the cross was to them that perish foolishness, but to those who believe it is the power of God.”

 

Preaching is the means that God ordained to declare the good news of Salvation and when Jesus initiates His public ministry, the first thing we find Him doing is preaching a clear, undeniable message of salvation through repentance and forgiveness.

 

And any effective ministry today will have at its core a simple message that is in agreement with what Jesus preached.  If we’re going to do ministry, what we is just repeat the message that came from God. This is not about analyzing the culture. This is not about finding people's psychological hot buttons. This is not about seeking people's interest. This is not about devising a message that somehow meets with what they want.

 

We come as messengers from God announcing a message from God. That's what we do. And, this is the message. It is the good news.  It’s not only good news, it’s the best news the world could ever hear!

 

And what is it?

 

The “time” is fulfilled.  He’s not talking about a time on the sundial or calendar.  He’s talking about a fixed point in time for an event to happen.  This is God’s moment to invade history.  This is the time the world has awaited, the most significant event in the world's history.

 

This is the time of the arrival of the Savior who will pay the penalty for sin and thus provide salvation for all who have believed from the beginning of history to the end.  Jesus is on the scene and through Him men can be saved!

 

That was His message and that ought to be our message as well!   To put it in modern advertising language!  It’s not complicated!  Jesus came preaching the gospel of God, the good news from heaven which is now revealed in Scripture and any ministry that is effective and scriptural comes right out of the Word of God and proclaims salvation through faith in Christ alone.

 

So from the ministry of Jesus we see that effective ministry lives a clean life, it declares a clear message and

 

 

Verses 16-20

 

Now watch what we see in these three paragraphs.  In the temptation, as far as the ministry is concerned, we see the necessity of living a clean life.  But from the experience of Jesus, we see His power over Satan.

 

With His preaching, in regard to the ministry, we see the need for a simple, clear message of salvation.  But from the message Jesus shared, we see His power over sin.  Only Jesus has the authority to forgive men their sins. Then from His selection of these first followers, we discover He uses common, ordinary men in ministry.

But notice what else we see.  Not only does He have power over Satan and sin, but He has power over sinners.  He's going to work His plan through sinners by calling them to Himself, transforming them and empowering and using them. That's His plan.

 

He could have used angels or anything else He desired, but He has chosen to work through common, ordinary people like you and me.

 

These are ordinary fishermen who are going about their routine jobs, casting a net in the sea. And Jesus comes along and says, “Follow Me and I'll make you become fishers of men.” By the way, that is not a suggestion; it is a command and that was highly unusual because rabbis did not typically command followers.

 

In fact, there is no record in any Jewish writings of a rabbi commanding people to follow him. Like the prophets, they told people to follow God, obey God, follow the Law, but there's no record they told their hearers to follow them. So Jesus does something that's absolutely unique by calling people to follow Him.

 

And not only was it a call to follow Him, but it was a call to abandon everything else in order to follow Him.  In fact, that is what we will hear Him saying when we get to chapter 8, verse 34.  He said, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, follow Me.” It's the end of your life, drop everything, follow Me, I'll make you fishers of men.

 

He is saying to them, “Drop your family business. Drop your way of life and join Me.

Let Me train you to be a preacher of the gospel rather than a fisherman in a boat.”  And verse 18 records this remarkable response.   “Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.” Wow! They dropped everything and Jesus has His first two in Simon and Andrew.

 

Verse 19

 

Here we are introduced to the Sons of Thunder, James and John.  Apparently they are in partnership with their dad along with Simon and Andrew according to Luke 5:10. And when Jesus calls, according to verse 20, they too, immediately respond by dropping what they are doing and following Christ.

 

Can you imagine that? I think dear old dad could be a little upset by now.  They just jumped out of the boat and said, “We're out of here, Dad, and we won't be back.” And with that the family business is lieft to dad and the hired hands.

 

And there is where we discover these two-pronged teaching of the way Kingdom work would be done and the amazing power Jesus had.  He had power over Satan, He had power over sin, and He had power over sinners to call them to Himself.

 

And what we learn about ministry is that what matters is a clean life, a clear message and common men and women who have been called to the work.  And if that is the way the Lord did it, it would probably be well for us to do it that way also.

 

Let’s pray.