The Word of the Lord

This morning we are going to be looking at Mark 1:1–11.

Would you please stand with me as we read from God’s Word?

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
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.”

This is the Word of the Lord, and we are grateful for it.

Please be seated.

A World Searching for Truth

Do you remember Jeff Foxworthy, the comedian famous for the phrase, “You might be a redneck if…”?

“You might be a redneck if you’ve ever financed a tattoo.”

“You might be a redneck if you’ve ever cut your grass and found a car.”

“You might be a redneck if you’ve ever been too drunk to fish.”

I was recently listening to him on YouTube. He was talking to a Christian think tank, and this is what he said:

“Over the last few months, seven or eight times from the stage, I’ve asked, ‘How many people here trust your government?’ I’ve yet to have one person raise their hand. I said, ‘How many people here trust your news?’ Nobody raised their hand. I say, ‘How many people trust social media?’ Nobody raises their hand.

“So this is the way we feel about the world. We don’t trust government, news, or social media. We are being lied to from these huge influences all day, every day of our life.

“So you would think, if you are so overwhelmed being lied to, the thing that you would crave the most is the truth. Everyone is lying to me—please, someone just tell me the truth.

“This is the world these kids are coming up in. They are being lied to from every side all day, every day.”

If this is true, it presents both an opportunity and a challenge.

The opportunity is that they should be hungry for truth.

And if that is true, then we give them Jesus because Jesus said:

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

The challenge, though, is that this way only comes through Scripture through you.

So how do you know that the disciples, the apostles, those early Christians who claimed to witness the truth, are, in fact, telling the truth?

The Testimony of the Apostles

Here we have the passage in Mark in which Jesus comes up out of the baptismal water and, “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.’”

How do we know this happened?

Last week we read from Peter’s epistle:

“For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,’ we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.”

Peter says, “We were there. We saw it. We heard it.”

But how do we know Mark and Peter and the rest of them can be trusted?

That is the question we have been working through over the last several weeks.

What Is the Bible?

We started with the Bible. What is it?

What we discovered is that the Bible is more than a single book, a rulebook, a science textbook, or a collection of moral stories.

It is a library of sixty-six inspired books, written by many human authors over centuries and in a variety of literary genres, yet united by one overarching story: God’s creation, redemption, and restoration of His creation through Jesus Christ.

The Old Testament establishes the story of God’s covenant relationship with His people and builds anticipation for the coming Messiah, while the New Testament reveals Jesus as that Messiah, records the birth and growth of the Church, teaches believers how to live faithfully, and points toward Christ’s ultimate victory and the renewal of creation.

Understanding what the Bible is should change how we approach the Bible.

Scripture is not merely a reference book we consult when we need an answer. It provides the framework through which Christians understand God, humanity, suffering, sin, redemption, and hope.

It gives us identity before instruction, meaning in the midst of suffering, and patterns for developing Christlike character.

Ultimately, the Bible invites us not merely to learn a story but to live inside it—to shape our relationships, decisions, suffering, purpose, and hope around the truth that God is creating, redeeming, and restoring all things through Christ.

The unfolding of God’s Word gives light and understanding.

How Was the Bible Preserved?

Then we looked at the Bible’s transmission.

We discovered that Christians can trust the New Testament because God faithfully preserved the apostolic testimony for future generations.

Peter, knowing that his death and the deaths of the other eyewitnesses were approaching, worked to ensure that believers would remember the truth about Jesus after the apostles were gone.

We learned how the New Testament was written relatively close to the events it records, preserved through thousands of manuscripts and the writings of the early Church Fathers, and recognized as Scripture through criteria such as apostolic origin, agreement with the apostolic faith, widespread church use, and spiritual authority.

In contrast, later writings such as the Gnostic gospels appeared after the apostolic generation and conflicted with the faith handed down by the apostles.

Ultimately, we learned that the apostles’ intent was to make them faithful disciples because Scripture is the trustworthy testimony of the apostles, preserved by God’s providence and the Holy Spirit.

Our conclusion was that Christians should read the Bible, trust the Bible, live the Bible, depend on it as a lamp in the darkness, and faithfully share it with the next generation.

But that brings us back to the question we started with today:

Can we trust the people who gave us the New Testament?

Were the New Testament Writers Lying?

Let’s look at some reasons the New Testament writers likely weren’t deliberately lying.

First, they had little obvious worldly incentive to invent the story.

The earliest Christian leaders generally faced rejection, persecution, imprisonment, and sometimes death rather than wealth, political power, or social status.

They maintained their testimony despite persecution.

Now, suffering doesn’t prove that someone’s belief is true. But it is evidence against the idea that they knowingly fabricated the story.

Someone may die for something false if they sincerely believe it. People generally don’t willingly suffer for something they know they invented.

The Resurrection Claim Appeared Very Early

The central resurrection claim appeared extremely early.

Christianity wasn’t built around a story that emerged generations after Jesus.

The resurrection proclamation appears in material Paul received very early, as reflected in 1 Corinthians 15:3–8:

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”

First Corinthians was written between 54 and 55 AD.

Mark records Jesus saying:

“And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.”

Mark was written between 64 and 69 AD.

Matthew records:

“From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

Matthew was written as early as 37 AD.

The point is that the resurrection was not a legend that slowly developed centuries later. It was at the heart of the Christian proclamation from the very beginning.

They Identified Eyewitnesses

They also identified specific eyewitnesses.

Paul names Peter, James, the apostles, and others as witnesses to the risen Jesus.

He even says that Jesus appeared to more than 500 people, “most of whom are still alive.”

That is an unusual way to present a story if you expect contemporaries to be able to challenge it.

If Paul is saying, in effect, “There were hundreds of people who saw this, and many of them are still alive,” he is making a claim that could be investigated.

They Preserved Embarrassing Information

The apostles also preserved embarrassing information about themselves.

The apostles are repeatedly portrayed as cowardly, confused, ambitious, and slow to understand Jesus.

Peter denies Jesus.

The disciples abandon him.

They argue over who is greatest.

If you’re inventing heroic propaganda, these aren’t particularly helpful details.

For the disciples, the truth was more important than their images.

They didn’t make themselves look like flawless witnesses.

Paul openly acknowledges that he persecuted Christians.

Peter’s failures are prominently preserved.

The disciples themselves are portrayed as initially skeptical of the resurrection.

And the resurrection witnesses weren’t chosen for maximum persuasive value.

In the Gospel accounts, women are among the first discoverers of the empty tomb and witnesses to the resurrection appearances.

Whatever we think about the historical details, this is not the obvious choice for inventing a story in a first-century Jewish cultural environment where women’s testimony could carry less social weight.

They Made Claims That Could Be Challenged

The writers also made claims that could be challenged by contemporaries.

The New Testament doesn’t present Jesus as an imaginary figure in an unspecified distant past.

It places him in recognizable locations, under recognizable rulers, during a specific historical period.

Acts likewise contains numerous geographical and political details.

The earliest Christian movement could have been disproved relatively easily if the body were available.

Christianity began in Jerusalem—the very place where Jesus had been executed.

If the apostles were simply inventing a resurrection, producing Jesus’ body would have been a devastating response.

The early Christian proclamation therefore occurred in an environment where the resurrection claim was potentially vulnerable to immediate historical challenge.

Something Changed in the Apostles

The apostles’ behavior changed dramatically after Jesus’ death.

Before the crucifixion, the disciples are portrayed as frightened and scattered.

Shortly afterward, they publicly proclaim that Jesus has risen.

Something happened that transformed their understanding of what had occurred.

Paul and James are especially difficult to explain as deliberate conspirators.

Paul was initially an opponent of Christianity.

James, Jesus’ brother, appears to have been skeptical during Jesus’ ministry.

Both eventually became prominent Christian witnesses.

Their conversions make deliberate collaboration in a preexisting conspiracy difficult to explain.

They Weren’t Simply Repeating a Story

The writers weren’t merely repeating something they heard from someone else.

At least some New Testament authors claim direct eyewitness knowledge, while others explicitly describe their effort to investigate earlier testimony.

Luke begins his Gospel by saying he investigated the events carefully and consulted those who were eyewitnesses.

These weren’t people simply saying, “Well, somebody told me this happened.”

They were presenting testimony about events they claimed had actually happened.

Their Message Made Their Lives Harder

Their message actually made their lives harder.

The earliest Christian proclamation didn’t merely say, “Be a better person.”

It announced that Jesus was Lord and that people needed to repent and follow him.

That brought Christians into conflict with both Jewish and Roman authorities.

The movement’s message wasn’t an obvious route to comfort or social acceptance.

And there is no obvious point at which the apostles’ supposed conspiracy falls apart.

If a group knowingly invented the resurrection, you’d expect competing stories, defections, or someone eventually admitting the deception.

Instead, the resurrection remains the central proclamation of the movement from its earliest surviving sources.

So What?

So what?

We have spent the last several weeks talking about the Bible.

We’ve talked about what it is.

We’ve talked about how it was transmitted and preserved.

And today we’ve asked a very important question:

Can we actually trust the people who gave us the New Testament?

And I think the evidence gives us good reason to say yes.

The apostles weren’t simply telling a story they invented.

They claimed to be eyewitnesses.

They identified other eyewitnesses.

Their message appeared very early.

They preserved embarrassing details about themselves.

They didn’t portray themselves as heroes.

Their message didn’t make their lives easier—it made their lives harder.

And yet they continued to proclaim the same message:

Jesus Christ died.
Jesus Christ was buried.
Jesus Christ rose again.
And Jesus Christ is Lord.

If It Is True, Then What?

So what?

If that is true, then Christianity isn’t simply something we put on our calendar on Sunday morning.

If the apostles really witnessed the risen Christ, and if their testimony has been faithfully preserved for us in Scripture, then the Bible isn’t merely a book we should admire.

It is a book we should believe.

And if we believe it, then we should live differently.

Think about it this way.

If you received a letter from someone you loved who had died, you wouldn’t read it and say, “That’s interesting,” and then put it in a drawer.

You would read it carefully.

You would think about what it meant.

You would probably read it more than once.

And you would take seriously what that person told you.

The Bible is God’s Word to us.

And through it, God tells us who He is, who we are, what has gone wrong with the world, what He has done about it through Jesus Christ, and where He is taking history.

So if we trust the Bible, we need to start treating it like we trust it.

The Challenge: Live the Word

Here’s my challenge for you this week:

Don’t just read the Bible. Obey one thing it tells you to do.

Maybe you need to forgive somebody.

Maybe you need to tell somebody the truth.

Maybe you need to stop holding onto bitterness.

Maybe you need to love someone who isn’t particularly easy to love.

Maybe you need to confess something you’ve been hiding.

Maybe you need to begin praying again.

Maybe you need to share the gospel with somebody who doesn’t know Jesus.

Whatever it is, find one thing Scripture tells you to do—and then do it.

Because the goal isn’t simply to become people who know more Bible verses.

The goal is to become people whose lives are shaped by the truth of God’s Word.

The Challenge: Share the Word

And there’s another part to this challenge.

Share it.

We began this sermon by talking about a world that is desperately searching for truth.

People are being told what to believe from every direction.

Government tells them one thing.

The news tells them another.

Social media tells them something else.

And increasingly, people don’t know whom they can trust.

That creates an incredible opportunity for the Church.

Because we have something better than another opinion.

We have the truth about Jesus Christ.

Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”

So this week, let’s do three things:

Read the Word.
Live the Word.
Share the Word.

Read it so that you know the truth.

Live it so that people can see the truth.

And share it so that other people can know the One who is the Truth.

Because if the testimony of the apostles is trustworthy, and if the Bible really is the trustworthy Word of God, then we don’t have the luxury of treating it as merely interesting information.

It demands a response.

The question isn’t simply, “Do I believe the Bible is true?”

The question is:

“If I believe it is true, what am I going to do about it?”

And my prayer is that when we leave here today, we won’t simply be people who believe the Bible.

We will be people who trust it enough to live it.

Let’s pray.