Mark 1:2-11 - John the Baptist

Muhammad Ali died in 2016. His self-proclaimed title was “the greatest.” He certainly was a great boxer, maybe even the greatest boxer ever, but Muhammad Ali thought he was bigger than boxing. He just thought he was “the greatest” and would tell anyone who would listen.

My favorite Muhammad Ali story (which probably isn’t true) is that one time he was traveling on an airplane, and the stewardess scolded him for not wearing his seatbelt. Muhammad Ali said, “Superman don’t need no seatbelt,” and the stewardess, quick on her feet, said back to him, “Yes, but Superman don’t need no airplane either.”

Who actually was “the greatest”? It wasn’t Muhammad Ali. As a Christian, I believe the greatest was Jesus Christ. Actually, I don’t think it’s even close. There isn’t even a close second. It’s Jesus up here, and then way, way down here someone is number two. But besides Jesus, who was the greatest, and how do we be great?

The passage I’m going to preach from this morning in the book of Mark is about a man that Jesus said was the greatest. In Matthew 11:11, Jesus said this:

”Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

Jesus said that the greatest up until that time was John the Baptist.

Let’s read Mark 1:1-11:

”Mark 1:1-11 (KJV) 1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; 2 As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. 3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 4 John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. 5 And there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 And John was clothed with camel's hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey; 7 And preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. 8 I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. 9 And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan. 10 And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: 11 And there came a voice from heaven, [saying], Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

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Remember, Mark is the “Cliff Notes gospel.” It’s short, sweet, and to the point. It starts the story of Jesus where most of the people who were alive at the time would: When Jesus broke onto the public scene and started his ministry.

Jesus’ ministry didn’t just come out of nowhere. Most of Jesus’ disciples and much of the crowd that came to hear Jesus speak were devotees of Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist. So Mark starts by telling us about John the Baptist.

Survey of the text

What I want to do this morning is to take a few minutes and just walk through these verses and see what they teach us about John the Baptist. Then I’m going to make some points of application about how they apply to us.

Let’s start with seven things this passage teaches us about John the Baptist:

The first thing we see about John is...

1. John the Baptist’s prophetic foretelling

Verse 2 says ”As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.”

This is a quote from Malachi 3:1, where the prophet foretold a messenger that would prepare the way for the Messiah. He was supposed to come in ”the spirit of Elijah” and be a voice and a messenger.

Which brings us to the second thing this passage teaches us about John the Baptist...

2. John the Baptist’s purpose

Verse 3 says:

”The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”

John’s purpose was to prepare people for Jesus. He was just a voice—a voice whose main job was to say, “Get ready! Get ready! Get ready! Messiah is coming! You’d better get ready! You’d better get your life in order! You’d better get your heart right! Messiah is coming!”

And that’s just what John did. Look at:

3. John the Baptist’s preaching and practice

Verse 4 says:

”John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.”

Now this is interesting, and I want to stop and explain this for a second. John was baptizing.

Baptize is just a Greek word that means “dunk.” It means “to immerse in water.”

John didn’t invent baptism. The Jews baptized. Gentiles could actually become Jews. They called them proselytes. In order for a Gentile to become a proselyte, they had to do two things: They had to be circumcised, and they had to be baptized. The baptism was a ceremonial cleansing of their sins.

So why was John baptizing Jews? I think what he was doing was preaching to them that there was more to being a Jew than just being a Jew. I think he was preaching that there was a spiritual Israel and a carnal, fleshly Israel. If they wanted to be a part of the God’s people in the true spiritual sense, then they had to believe God and the Messiah, and take care of their sins. Baptism was just a picture of that.

The fourth thing we see in this passage about John the Baptist is...

4. John the Baptist’s popularity

Verse 5 says,

”And there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan.”

John the Baptist was amazingly popular. Huge crowds of people came to hear him preach, and vast groups of people responded to his message and were baptized.

He was so popular that later on, Herod the king was afraid to do anything to John the Baptist because he thought it might start a revolution. John the Baptist was the first mass evangelist. Long before John Wesley, George Whitfield, D. L. Moody, Billy Sunday, and Billy Graham, people were making a special trip to hear John the Baptist preach.

Why?

Well, maybe part of it was the fifth thing this passage teaches us about John...

5. John’s peculiar lifestyle

Look at verse 6:

”And John was clothed with camel’s hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey;”

There are actually three weird things about John.

The first is the place he lived. He lived in the wilderness, way out in the desert where nobody wanted to visit, never mind live. I mean, this was a scary place with cracked, parched ground. Sometimes, smoke would even come out of the ground. So when John preached about hell, people didn’t have to think too hard to imagine it. It was desolate. There was no Walmart out there.

The second weird thing about John was what he wore. He wore a coat of camel’s hair and a leather girdle. Now, the significant things about this outfit were that no one else dressed this way, and that it was the way that Elijah used to dress. So by dressing this way, John the Baptist was identifying with Elijah of old. It would be like if I stood up and preached this morning in a robe like they wore in Bible times. It was weird.

The third weird thing about John was what he ate. He ate locusts and wild honey. The idea behind his food is that he ate as simply as possible; nothing fancy. He just ate what was available to him.

So this guy isn’t like everyone else. His entire life is set up so that he’s different. He eats differently, lives differently, dresses differently, and people had to go and see him. He was a powerful preacher, but he also was a curiosity. He was a freak.

So we’ve seen John’s prophetic foretelling, his purpose, his preaching, his popularity, his peculiar lifestyle. Look at the sixth thing:

6. John’s pervasive humility

Verse 7 says:

”And preached saying, there cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. I indeed baptize you with water, but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.”

I think this is really where we see what made John the Baptist so special. John the Baptist realized that his role in life was just to point the way to the Messiah. Even as popular as John the Baptist was, it wasn’t ever about John the Baptist; it was about Jesus.

In John 3:30, John the Baptist said, ”He must increase, but I must decrease.” That seems to be his motto. Just point people to Jesus. He deflected all attention off of him to Jesus.

And that brings us to...

7. John’s pinnacle

The greatest moment of John’s life is found here in verses 9-11, where Jesus comes to John in the wilderness to be baptized.

Mark doesn’t tell us this, but we see it in other gospels. John immediately recognized Jesus and said, “You should be baptizing me,” but Jesus insisted and John baptized Jesus in the Jordan River.

Then God spoke out of heaven and said, “Thou art my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.”

From this point in the story, John fades away, and it is all about Jesus. Jesus’ ministry starts with a bang.

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So that’s John the Baptist. That’s a summary of the man that Jesus called the greatest who had ever lived at that point. That makes John the Baptist greater than Abraham, greater than Moses, greater than Joshua, greater than Elijah.

What I want to do for my last few minutes this morning is to talk about how we can be great like John in the eyes of God. In God’s eyes, what makes a great life? I think we can see four things about John’s life in these verses that answer that question and tell us what God thinks is great.

What it means to be great...

The first thing is...

1. If you want to be great in the eyes of God, live in the will of God.

John’s entire life, from his birth to his dress to his choice of a home to his choice of profession—all of it—it was all dedicated to God’s will for Him. You see, God told John’s father and mother that he was going to be a prophet that prepared people for the Messiah. Before John was even born, God had a will and a plan for him—to prepare people for Jesus—but John still had to submit to that will and plan.

And let me tell you: If you are a Christian, God has a will and a plan for your life. God wants to do something in you and through you. He wants to use you for His purpose, but you have to submit to Him. You have to trust Him.

His will for you may be to be a preacher like John the Baptist or to be a missionary like Paul, or His will may be for you to be a faithful church member who is active in the ministry of the church and is a faithful witness to your friends and family. But God wants to do something with your life. You can write that down. You have to submit to Him and live for Him.

Great lives aren’t common. Most people, even most church members, aren’t living lives submitted to God’s will. Most people are doing their own thing. They want God to be their co-pilot. He wants the steering wheel.

So do you want to be great in God’s eyes? You have to submit to His will. If He’s leading you, you need to follow. You need to trust Him. You need to obey.

The second thing I think we can learn from the life of John about what it means to be great in God’s eyes is...

2. If you want to be great in the eyes of God, be different.

John was a living curiosity. He was straight up weird. Where he lived was weird. What he ate was weird. How he dressed was weird. How he talked was weird. His entire personality seemed strange to the world. That’s why people went to hear him, because he was different.

If you want to be great in God’s eyes, then you are going to have to be willing to be different. You are going to have to be willing to be a little bit weird; a little bit peculiar.

The Bible says that Christians are supposed to be ”a peculiar people.” We are supposed to be salt and light while the world around us is decay and darkness. We are supposed to stand out!

One of my favorite quotes is,

If you want to make a difference you have to be different. Nothing is made better by adding more of the same.

We have too much normal. We have too much average. Normal is being $10,000 in debt. Normal is being overweight and obese. Normal is walking around like a lemming with your brain controlled by an iPhone, tweeting pictures of your lunch.

Normal is never reading your Bible. Normal is attending church sporadically. Normal is never sharing your faith. Normal is being critical and having a “What’s in it for me?” attitude.

Normal is pathetic!

This world desperately needs some people who will be John the Baptists, who will be peculiar people and who will rise above normal and stand out!

Listen, it doesn’t take much to stand out:

• Make a decision that you’re going to be in church every Sunday as a priority, and you will stand out.
• Make a decision that your kids will dress modestly and that you won’t watch filth, and you’ll stand out.
• Make a decision that you won’t cuss and tell dirty jokes with the guys at lunch, and you’ll stand out.
• Make a decision that you are going to be faithful to your wife or your husband, and you’ll stand out.

We aren’t talking about wearing a burlap sack on your head and putting on a sandwich sign here. We are just talking about basic, baseline, holy Christian living. If you do it, you are going to be different, and you might make a difference.

Be great like John the Baptist and live in the will of God. Be great like John the Baptist and be willing to be different.

A third way John was great was...

3. If you want to be great in the eyes of God, live a life of humility.

Truly great Christians aren’t great; they are little. They are humble. They don’t draw attention to themselves. They don’t try to be on the top of everything. They aren’t after the recognition. They just follow Jesus’ example and they serve.

Matthew 23:12 says:

”And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.”

Jesus said in Matthew 20:26, that he who would be greatest among you would be your minister. He would be your servant.

If you want to be great in the world’s eyes, ride the ego train. Put your name on as much as you possibly can. But if you want to be great in God’s eyes, take yourself out of the picture and just walk with Jesus.

Live in the will of God. Be willing to be different. Live humbly, and one more thing we can learn about what it means to be great from John the Baptist...

4. If you want to be great in the eyes of God, point people to Jesus.

John the Baptist preached a lot of things, but the greatest message he ever preached was what he said when he first saw Jesus:

”Behold the lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world.” (John 1:29)

John was a living arrow sign pointing people to Jesus. John didn’t have the answers, but he knew where to send people to find them.

Listen: If you want to be great in God’s eyes, there is no greater work here on this earth than the work of pointing people to Jesus. You and I can’t do much to help people. We can’t change people; we can’t wash their sins away; we can’t give them an eternal home in heaven, but Jesus can.

Jesus’ last command was to go and make disciples, to be witnesses, and to share the gospel with people all around the world. If you want to be great in God’s eyes, do everything you can to be a part of His work on this earth. God’s work on this earth is saving sinners.

Live in the will of God - Are you doing it? Live differently - Are you standing out? Live humbly - Are you? Point people to Jesus.

Let’s stand for invitation and prayer.