The Beginning of the Gospel

In this part of the sermon: Martin reviews previous introductory lessons on Mark's Gospel and then delves into the precise intention of Mark 1:1. He presents two main interpretations: a general summary of…

The New Testament is likened to a row of 27 houses on 'New Testament Avenue,' with the Gospels as the first four, and Mark's Gospel as the second house, which they are now entering. This illustrates the structured approach to studying the New Testament.

And I hope the analogy of New Testament Avenue will help you as you try to hold together what we have done in recent weeks. In preparation for studying the actual text of Mark's Gospel, we have likened the New Testament to a row of houses, New Testament Avenue, with twenty-seven homes. We paused for a while to look at the first four and to consider some of the things that make them distinctive houses in relationship to the rest of the houses on New Testament Avenue. And then we went up to the second of those houses, the Gospel of Mark, and we examined something about its huge, human builder, M...

4:41 - 6:03 Read in full sermon

The point: Know and feel yourself to be a guilty, needy sinner, for the gospel is good news only to such.

Telling a healthy person about a remedy for a deadly disease is meaningless, but to a community afflicted by it, it's 'good news.' This illustrates that the gospel is only 'good news' to those who recognize themselves as needy, guilty sinners.

and you see because all that follows is good news to needy sinners the gospel of Mark will mean little to you unless you know and feel yourself to be a guilty needy sinner it's not good news to a person walking down Bloomfield Avenue in the middle of the day to be told that there is a wonderful remedy for a certain disease that is killing people by the thousands if the person is healthy and feels no malady working in his own system for you to run up and down Bloomfield Avenue saying I have good news for you sir good news for you sir I have such and such a remedy for such and such a disease he'...

21:53 - 23:22 Read in full sermon

Driving home: thou shalt call his name Jesus, the word which means Jehovah saves or Jehovah is salvation for he shall save others may bear the name, multitudes may have it as a personal designation but he and he alone will be the one …

The difficulty modern parents face in choosing unique baby names is contrasted with God's clear designation of the name 'Jesus' for His Son. This highlights the divine intentionality behind Jesus' personal name.

Jesus, his official title, Christ and his unique identity God's Son, that's what the text says and that's where I plan to take you in your thinking, first of all his personal name now we have a lot of births around here at Trinity Church and it looks like we've got a lot about to happen in the next few weeks as well and we always delight when God is pleased to give us little ones to our families and we seek to surround them with love and concern and care and our prayers and our testimony and witness, but it's interesting, the larger the church family grows and the more certain names get used u...

24:49 - 26:17 Read in full sermon