Sermon Cloud

Mark 1:1 – 11

Matthew 1:1 – 17

Luke 3:23 – 38

John 1:1 - 5[1][1]

Ephesians 1:4

            I want us to think together about the beginnings of our faith.  I am not referring to the historical start of Christianity two-thousand years ago.  Rather, I am thinking of a more personal beginning, of the start of our own walk of faith, our own belief in Jesus Christ. 

            Permit me to share with you some of my own personal details of my coming to faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.  I am one of those people who can point to a specific moment of conversion.  On November 5^th, 1971, when I was a junior in high school, I was present at a worship service in the chapel of St. John’s United Methodist church.  As I listened to the other young people talk about their faith in Jesus Christ I found my heart changed and I began to believe in Christ, personally, deeply, and emotionally.  For many years I would tell people that I ‘became’ a Christian on that date and I would celebrate each November 5^th as my ‘spiritual birthday.’ 

            Clearly that night was a significant event in my life.  My life changed dramatically.  But is it accurate to say that my faith ‘began’ that night?  I know that not everyone who believes in Christ has had a comparable dramatic conversion experience.  Not everyone can point to a moment of conversion.  Indeed, the ideal, for Christian families, is to raise our children as covenant children: always knowing the grace and goodness of God and the power of Christ in their lives. 

            As I thought about it, I began to realize that the threads of my faith in Christ could be traced earlier in my life.  St. John’s Methodist Church was my family’s church.  My mom and dad and sister were all active in its life and worship.  A few years earlier, when I was thirteen, I had been a part of a Confirmation class in which the pastor had taught us the basics of the Christian faith.  In those church traditions that baptize infants, Confirmation is an important part of the process of growing in Christ.  When a child is baptized, the faith confessed is the faith of the parents, not the child, for the child, obviously, is too young to make a knowledgeable confession.  But in baptism the child is recognized as being a part of the covenant of faith.  He or she is raised as one who is part of the community of faith, part of the church.  Confirmation is the time of teaching and preparation to enable a baptized young person to then stand before the church and confess for themselves their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.  I had completed the sequence of Confirmation.  I had stood before the church and affirmed faith in Jesus Christ.  Did the story of my faith begin then?  Certainly part of the reason why I could respond to the witness of the young people that evening on November 5^th was because I had already been taught the basics of Christian belief in Confirmation. 

            Later, I realized that the roots of my faith began even earlier.  I remembered as a child attending a Billy Graham evangelistic film.  At the end of the film I prayed with a counselor to ‘receive Jesus into my heart.’  The counselor, John, had written me personal follow up letters.  Did the story of my faith begin with that simple child’s prayer? 

            Then I thought about how my parents had been so faithful in bringing us to church each and every Sunday.  Did the story of my faith begin there? 

            When I began the process to be ordained in the Presbyterian Church I had to fill out a form that included a question asking where and when I had been baptized.  The only church I knew was the Methodist Church of my childhood, but I knew I had not been baptized there, so I picked up the phone and called my mom.  She told me I had been baptized at Paris Presbyterian Church in Western Pennsylvania.  Who says infant baptism doesn’t work?  I had been baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and now I was returning to the Presbyterian covenant of faith.  That day marked the beginning of my life of activities, worship and involvement with the Christian church.  Did the story of my faith begin then? 

            Finally, after I had been trained in theology, I realized that the roots go even further back.  When parents present a child for baptism they confess ‘We believe….”  In other words, they are confessing the historic faith of the church.  They stand in the tide and sweep of history.  They confess their faith, to be sure, but it is the same historic faith of the church, passed from generation to generation through the centuries. 

            Where does the story begin?  Does it begin at conversion; at Confirmation; in the habit of regular and faithful worship participation; at baptism; or even earlier?  Pondering this question it occurred to me that the four gospel writers had considered the same question for each begins the story of Jesus’ life and ministry at a different point. 

            The four gospels were written at different times.  Virtually all scholars agree that Mark’s gospel was the first to be written and John’s was the last.  I do not believe that we can determine with any certainty the chronology of the production of Matthew and Luke, however, for reasons that will shortly become clear, I will assume that Matthew’s gospel was the second to be written and Luke’s the third.  With this order then – Mark, Matthew, Luke and John – let us look at the respective beginning points of the story each gospel tells. 

            Tradition says that Mark was the personal scribe and assistant to St. Peter.  After Peter’s death, Mark compiled the stories he had heard Peter tell of Jesus into his gospel narrative.  Mark begins his story of Jesus with the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.  The only prelude in Mark’s gospel is the mention of the work of John the Baptist as the herald of Christ.  It all takes place in five verses.  Verse 1 reads, The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. ^a   From Mark’s perspective, the story begins when Jesus starts preaching and teaching.

            Matthew’s beginning is quite different.  Matthew’s gospel is the most Jewish of the four.  In addition to telling the story of Jesus, Matthew’s purpose is to clearly show that he is the fulfillment of the promised Messiah.  For this reason, Matthew begins his gospel with a genealogy.  Matthew is showing that Jesus has the necessary pedigree to be the Messiah.  His gospel begins, ‘[a] record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham.’   In the next seventeen verses, Matthew traces Jesus’ lineage: from Abraham, through King David, to the Lord Jesus himself.  He begins with the ancient Israelite Patriarch Abraham for this establishes Jesus’ lineage as a Jew.   Equally important, Matthew traces Jesus’ lineage through the ancestors of the great King David, for it had been prophesied that the Messiah would be born from among his descendants.  Thus v. 1 of chapter one sums it all up, Jesus is the son of David and the son of Abraham.  He possesses the necessary lineage to be the promised Messiah.  Matthew’s audience is the Jewish people. Matthew is making the case that the roots of the story of Jesus will be found the purposes of God for the Jewish people.  Because he is the promised Messiah, Matthew begins his story not with the teaching ministry of Jesus, (as Mark’s gospel did) but instead seeks to root his message in legacy of God’s covenant people, the Jews.

Mark begins with the teaching ministry.  Matthew, writing for the Jews, begins with the ancient roots of the Jewish people.   Luke, on the other hand, writing for the Gentile world, seeks to present the Lord Jesus as the Savior not only for the Jews, but also of the Gentiles.  He is savior of the world. 

Luke’s name is Greek.  His is probably the only book in our Bible that was written by a non-Jew.  Luke’s gospel takes the longest of the four to get going.   Luke’s style is to write in the manner in which ancient Greeks wrote history.   Luke has done his homework.  He has done the research needed of a historian.  He takes the time to familiarize his reader with the background and setting of the story he is telling, with the family of Jesus as well as the cultural, political and social background of the story.  Mark took eight verses to arrive at Jesus’ teaching ministry.   Matthew took sixty.  Luke takes one hundred and seventy! 

Further, there is a surprise near the end of these one hundred and seventy verses.  In the opening chapters Luke tells us the narratives of the births of John the Baptist and of Jesus, of the shepherds, as well as the presentation of Jesus in the temple.  He outlines the ministry of John the Baptist and describes in detail how John baptizes Jesus at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.  He has set the stage and then, he seems to be drawing this long preamble to a close.  In 3:23 writes, ‘now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry.’  What would you expect after a sentence like this one?  I would expect Luke to begin to write about the specifics of Jesus’ preaching and teaching ministry.  Yet he does not.  Instead, like Matthew, he gives to us a genealogy. 

Luke’s genealogy is different from Matthew’s.  Matthew began his genealogy with Abraham and worked his way forward showing that Jesus, on Mary’s side, was a descendent of both David and Abraham.  Luke, on the other hand, traces Joseph’s side of the family, working his way backwards.  How far back does he go?  He pushes it past David and Abraham, all the way to Enoch, Seth and, finally, Adam himself.  Why?  Why does he push the genealogy all the way to Adam, son of God?  Matthew wrote for the Jews.  Luke is writing for Gentiles.   He wants his readers to know that the story he is telling is important not only to Jews, but to all the people of the world, important to all who are sons of Adam or daughters of Eve. 

Where does the story begin?  For Mark it begins with the teaching ministry.  For Matthew the beginning is found in the roots of the Jewish people.  For Luke, the story begins at the dawn of time, at the beginning of the world, for Jesus is the savior of mankind. 

The beginning of time is a rather early start date for the story of Jesus Christ.  We might be tempted to conclude that the story could not start any earlier, but we would be wrong.  John’s gospel manages to push the beginning back even further into the hidden reaches of eternity.  John’s gospel begins, [i]n the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  ² He was with God in the beginning.  ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  John seeks to tell us that the beginning of the story of Jesus reaches back to a time before the world was created, into the very mind and sovereign purpose of God.  John was not satisfied with Mark, Matthew, or Luke’s beginning.  From John’s perspective, the story does not begin with the teaching ministry of Christ, or the Jewish pedigree of the Messiah, or the shared humanity of the Son of God.  The story begins before time began. 

The story does not begin with Christ’s ministry.  It does not begin with his nativity.  It does not begin with Abraham.  It does not begin even with Adam himself.   The story begins in the deep purposes of the mind of God.  In his sovereign will he conceived in a past eternity a plan.  It will be completed one day in a future eternity.  At its center, at the fulcrum point of that plan and purpose is Jesus of Nazareth, God’s only begotten Son, born into our world. 

            This tells us that the incarnation of Jesus Christ was not a theological after sight in the mind of God. It was not a back up plan in response to human sin.  God was not surprised when Adam disobeyed.  He did not say to himself, Oh my, what will I do now?  Before the beginning, God knew.  He knew the needs we would face, the sins that would corrupt.  He knew how his children would sin and self-destruct. 

            Knowing this, he conceived a plan.  It is a plan whereby human disobedience and sin would not be the last word, a plan where he would purchase the redemption of his people through the sacrifice of the life of his only begotten Son upon the cross.  As the Apostle Paul puts it in his letter to the church at Ephesus,  ^4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love ^5 he ^a predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—

            Note, the plan conceived, implemented and fulfilled in Jesus Christ was done so at great cost to himself.  God conceived the plan that would involve Christ’s coming and death before the world was founded.  That he would do so reveals to us two important things.  It reveals the scope of his love for us, that he would knowingly and voluntarily bear such a cost.  And, it reveals the perfection of his plan.  This is not a halfhearted effort.  It is not a contingency plan.  It is not a back up plan.  Rather, it is the very wisdom of God at work. 

            John understood these truths more clearly than the other three gospel writers.  Matthew wrote to the Jews.  Luke wrote to the Gentiles.  John writes to the elect.  I think it is for this reason that he addresses the audience for his gospel to whosoever. 

Where does the story begin for you?

            Given these insights from the gospel writers, let us now personalize the question regarding the beginning of the story of our faith in Jesus Christ.  Where does the story of our salvation begin?   Such reflection will have quite concrete impact upon our own self-understanding.

             There was a time in which I would have said, without any hesitancy or caveat that the story of my salvation began the evening of my conversion.  It was a dramatic and life changing moment.  I am grateful to God that he became so real to me that evening.  At the same time, as I have thought about my life, I realize that God was active within it before that evening in November of 1971.  I was not always aware of his presence.  I was often dull to his activity.  But he was there.  Perhaps the starting point was my Confirmation.  I remember many of the Bible insights I learned from that time.  I remember standing before the church, affirming publicly for the first time my faith in the Lord.  Or maybe it was earlier still, when in elementary school, after watching that Billy Graham film, I prayed with child-like sincerity to receive Jesus Christ. 

            Or maybe it didn’t begin with me at all. Perhaps it was due to my parents’ faithfulness in bringing me every Sunday to worship.  Or perhaps it arose out of the promises they made when they presented me for baptism while I was still and infant. 

            Each of these events (and others not mentioned) represents important mile markers of my faith.  Each describes a growing reality of the activity of God in my life.  Each was a step in how the Lord has led me.  Yes, I had to play a part in each step, but my role varies dramatically.  When being baptized I was simply present.  I did nothing.  It was mom and dad who confessed faith in Christ.  By the time I was a teenager, it was no longer their confession, but mine.  I went forward.  I acknowledged his Lordship. 

            Ultimately, the story does not begin with me at all.  It begins with God.  It begins with his purpose and will.  Where does the story begin?  It begins in the mind of God.  It begins before time.  It begins in the purpose of Christ.  It begins when God, in his absolute sovereign will and purpose, predestined that Mark Atkinson would be called to be one of his servants, one of the elect, in this time and place. 

Where does the story begin for you?

            God has a plan and purpose for you.  You would not be reading this if that were not the case. Young people reading this are still experiencing God’s plan and purpose under their parent’s guidance and direction.  They may not as yet have made their own confession of faith, they may not yet feel convinced in heart or mind.  But that does not mean that God is not at work.  For those whom he is calling, he is patiently laying the necessary insights and events to draw out the new life he gives.  The story has begun, though you may not as yet know it.

            God has a plan and purpose.  You may not feel it.  You may puzzle about it.  You may feel befuddled and lost.  You may even feel quite far from God at present.  Nonetheless, God has a plan and purpose for you. 

            I am not a prophet.   I cannot tell you what specifically God’s plan and purpose is for you.  But I can tell you a few things about his plan for you.  I can tell you that it was conceived in a past eternity and one day will be consummated in a future eternity, and that right here, in the middle, God has carved out for you a unique and essential place in that plan.  I can tell you that your place in God’s plan is intimately tied to the person and work of Jesus Christ.  He is at the center and all meaning and fulfillment in life comes as a result of placing him in the center of our lives. 

            I can tell you that whatever challenges you face today.  Whatever confusion you face; whatever emotions rage within you; your awareness of God’s activity in your life may have only begun recently, when you, for the first time confessed your faith in God through his Son Jesus Christ.  However, while that may be the beginning of your awareness of the reality of God in your life it is not the beginning of God’s activity in your life.  God’s purposes for you, his activity in your life, did not begin when you first affirmed your faith in Jesus Christ.  It did not begin when you first began attending church.  It did not begin in Sunday school or as a child or when you were baptized.  It began in the very heart and purpose of God, before the world was founded.

© Rev. Mark D. Atkinson

 [1] Grasp of the message of this sermon will be greatly enhanced by taking the time to read the scripture passages prior to reading the sermon itself.