The Small Beginnings of Great Things

0:44 Would you please turn in your Bibles this morning to the Gospel of Mark, Mark chapter 9. We have begun a wonderful study in the Gospel of Mark. This is week three. We have covered eight verses in chapter one, if that indicates the pace at which we are going to be looking at the life and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ over the next several months. Mark chapter one. All big things have small beginnings.

1:21 The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Little drops of water make a mighty ocean. Rome wasn't built in a day. Start small, grow big. those five statements are all saying the same truth and that is you can never let the smallness of a thing inform you of the future of a thing smallness does not indicate what it will become several examples of that in 1976 two men started a business in their garage in Los Altos California it wasn't going well they had a history of product failures they were on the brink of bankruptcy but these two young men Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started a company called Apple Computers that is now a multi-trillion dollar business.

2:36 It has changed the way we use computers. It has changed the way we use phones. It has changed the way we listen to music. Started small. Same year, two other guys started a microcomputer and software company in a seedy motel on Central Avenue in Albuquerque. Their names were Paul Allen and Bill Gates, started Microsoft Corporation, another multi-billion dollar corporation. In 1994, one man was selling books out of a hot, cramped garage in Bellevue, Washington. I don't know what it is about garages starting businesses. But he was starting there and he wanted to create the everything store. That's what he called it, the everything store.

3:30 It became known as Amazon. It was originally called Kadabra, as in Abra, Kadabra. But they decided against that name because they thought people would mishear it as Kadabra. And they didn't want that kind of death to their company, so they called it Amazon. Jeff Bezos started that company, small beginnings. the text that is the anchor text for small beginnings is found in the Old Testament. Don't even go there. You may be familiar with Zechariah chapter 4, verse 10, where the prophet says, do not despise these small beginnings. Do not despise these small beginnings, or as some translations say, the days of small things. Who was the prophet speaking to?

4:32 A guy named Zerubbabel, the governor of Jerusalem, who had come to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. They started, the people ran out of steam, they were opposed and oppressed by their enemies. and so the prophet comes along and says get started once again don't despise the days of small beginnings it's going to be finished and in that same chapter not by might not by power but by my spirit says the lord mark chapter one tells us the small beginning of the greatest thing ever, which is the gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's how Mark begins. The beginning, verse 1, of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Then he talks about John the Baptist. Here in our text today, beginning in verse 9, he pivots, he shifts. He shifts from the anticipation of the Messiah to the arrival of the Messiah. He now comes on the scene.

5:40 hold that thought. How would you expect, if you didn't know any better, how would you expect Almighty God, creator of the world, infinite in power, unrivaled in majesty, to bring his son into the world and spread the message? How would you expect Almighty God to do that? Well, you might expect that he'd hang a PA system from the moon, make one large grand announcement, or maybe align all the stars to read in one's own language, he's here.

6:24 Or how about dispatching angels to all the major population centers to give the announcement? Well, what Mark does is informs us that there are three events that are used to stage this coming. These three events happen within a six-month period of time. They are the baptism of Jesus, the temptation of Jesus, and the Galilean sermon that he first preached. So we have a baptism, temptation, and a sermon that introduce the Son of God.

7:05 All three of these events happen in obscure places to make it even more interesting. The Jordan River was obscure. It's in the middle of nowhere. People had to leave Jerusalem to get there. It was a very arduous journey to get there. Then the second event is in the wilderness of Judea somewhere, which is even more out of the way and obscure, where he is tempted. And then third is Galilee, where all the people in Jerusalem could care less about. And he begins there. Just like a giant oak tree grows from an acorn, just like a great pine tree grows from the seeds buried in a pine cone, just as a forest comes from a few small seedlings, so the gospel spreads around the world with these small beginnings, the small beginnings of great things. We're going to begin, as I said, in verse 9 and go down to verse 15. We're going to look at three different scenes, three introductory scenes. In those three scenes, I've uncovered four events, four separate events in those three scenes. First, the first event is identification.

8:25 I'll explain that as we go, but it's identification. Verse 9, it came to pass, writes Mark, it came to pass in those days, the days of John the Baptist at the Jordan River, it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.

8:52 John the Baptist has been preaching down at the Jordan River for quite some time, at least several months, some think even a year. Most places ministry between three months and 30 months. He was there long enough to garner interest so that people would flood to him from Jerusalem. Hundreds, thousands of them came. So he has been there for quite some time, doing his thing, baptizing people, making his proclamation, announcing the coming of Messiah.

9:26 But then one day, he shows up. One day, John looks out at the line that is formed coming toward him, and he sees a few heads back, him, the one. He didn't know he was coming. Nobody sent him a text or an email or a phone call. He just showed up, and he showed up in line to be baptized. Now, Mark, using the economy of words doesn't go into the details that the other gospel writers do because Mark has an agenda to show the servant is on the move very, very rapidly. It just says, it came to pass in those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Matthew, however, tells us when this happens that John the Baptist tried to stop him, to prevent him. John said, I need to be baptized by you. And you're coming to me to be baptized?

10:34 Now, why was John so shocked? Well, because remember what we read last week, John was baptizing, it says, for the remission of what? Sins, to prove that your sins have been forgiven. The people gathered to John at the Jordan River, confessing their sins. Jesus had no sins to confess. He didn't need to be converted, yet here he is to be baptized. He's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, John will say. So why is Jesus even there to be baptized? Here's the glorious truth. This is the Savior identifying with the sinners he has come to save. He's identifying with the sinners he has come to save. And so when John tries to stop Jesus, Matthew says, Jesus says back to John the Baptist, permitted to be so for now, for thus it is fitting to fulfill all righteousness. It's a key phrase, to fulfill all righteousness. You see, the baptism of Jesus prefigured his death, burial, and resurrection, the means by which he would make people righteous. You may remember that the Apostle Paul says when a person is baptized, it is a visual illustration of death, burial, and resurrection. You were baptized. Just as Christ died, you were baptized in water. And just as he rose from the dead, you get lifted out of the water. So we follow that. We'll take people out to the baptismal font this afternoon and we'll take them and place them all the way under the water.

12:24 And we'll keep them there for a while. No, we won't do that. We lift them right back up to speak of resurrected life. So Jesus' baptism was looking forward to the cross, just as our baptism looks back to the cross. Isaiah 53 said that he would be numbered with the transgressors, and yet he bore the sins of many. So this is Jesus' first public act. His first public act is to identify with sinners to fulfill all righteousness. this is the shepherd who gets dirty. This is the shepherd who crawls into our sheep pen with us. He gets down to our level.

13:18 He takes on a human body. He is born and gets laid in a feeding trough where animals feed in a manger. He gets physically exhausted. He will be tempted and he will suffer and die. This is Jesus in his identification with us. So that's the first event, identification. The second is confirmation. After identification comes confirmation. We've seen Jesus get baptized. Now the confirmation is when he comes out of the water. Verse 10, and immediately one of Mark's favorite words. And immediately coming up from the water, he saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove. And then a voice came from heaven.

14:14 You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Now, I want you just to notice how Mark writes this. He says, he saw the heavens parting. Now, the other gospel writers use different words. They just say the heavens were open. Mark says the heavens parted, and it's a very strong word. It literally means the heavens were torn apart, torn open, rent, like you take a garment and rip it. The heavens were torn open.

14:53 Do you remember in the book of Isaiah, the prophet looks up to heaven and says, oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down. This is God answering Isaiah's prayer. The Son of God has come down. The heavens are torn open. And the Spirit comes down in a form of a dove while the Father says, you are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. This is the Father and the Son making a confirmation of Jesus Christ and his mission. You should know that Isaiah also predicted the Holy Spirit would rest upon the Son. In Isaiah chapter 11, the prophecy says, There will come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse, and a branch, capital B, shall grow out of his roots.

15:48 The Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him. The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord. So this is a confirmation. It's not just a confirmation. It is a Trinitarian confirmation, a Trinitarian confirmation. All three persons of the Godhead are present. The son is being baptized. The spirit is descending as a dove, and the father is speaking. The Trinity shows up at the very beginning of Jesus' ministry. now i will admit to you the most difficult subject in all of christian theology is the triune nature of god it is the great mystery of our faith and because it is we must never try to trivialize the triune nature of god by reducing the trinity to a formula i know we try to do that to explain it to people especially to our kids it's sort of like an apple you got the flesh and the skin and the core. It's like an egg. You got the yolk and the shell and the white.

16:55 It's like air. It can be vapor. It can be frozen like ice. We have all these clever analogies, all of which fall hopelessly short because it sounds like God is divided up into little parts. When actually you have one God in three distinct co-equal, co-eternal persons. the Trinity. But it's tough to grasp. And all of these analogies are finite attempts to grasp something infinite. There's a great story about St. Augustine who was trying to grapple with the Trinity, trying to figure it out. How can I figure it out? How can I explain it? And he's walking on the beach, so the story goes, and he is just contemplating this, contemplating it, and he's just worked up by it. He sees a little boy on the beach playing. A little boy has a scoop in his hand, and he's digging a hole in the sand, and he runs to the ocean with some little vessel, puts water in it, and runs back to the hole and pours the water into the hole, goes back to the ocean, gets more water, pours water into the hole, goes back, goes back, goes back. When Augustine goes over to him and says, what are you doing? And the little boy, with great confidence, points to the ocean and says, I'm going to put that ocean into that hole.

18:17 Then it dawned on Augustine. That's exactly what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to put that ocean into that hole. I'm trying to figure out something infinite with a finite mind. Throughout history, several groups have tried to put the ocean of God into the whole of their own understanding. And so you have cults that develop who deny the Trinity. And they'll say, well, the Trinity is something that was developed in 325 AD at the Council of Nicaea. Up to that point, nobody believed in it. That's patently false. The Trinity was developed in the Bible and then later attacked by groups. And then councils were formed to rebut the attacks of those groups. But today you have Jehovah's Witnesses, you have Mormons, you have Christian Science, you have Unitarians, you have Oneness Pentecostals, all of whom deny the triune nature of God. And that last group is interesting, Oneness Pentecostalism. There was, let me tell how it started. I'm going to get into the theological weeds just a bit, if you don't mind.

19:40 Just a bit. I'll get you out of it really quickly. But back in about 215 AD, there was a teacher by the name of Sibelius who came along with this idea that because the Trinity is just impossible to figure out and explain, he said, there's actually only one person, and that is God. But this one person wears three different masks, depending on what time it is. Three modes. This became known as Sibelianism, after Sibelius. Later on, known as modalism. Three modes. Or modalistic monarchianism. Or patropatianism. It goes by a bunch of different names. Basically, it says that in the Old Testament, God wore the mask of the Father, but in the New Testament, he kind of morphed and put on the mask of the Son, and now in the church age, he wears the mask of the Holy Spirit. Same person, he's just wearing different outfits. Not three persons distinct, co-equal, co-eternal, one God, one person wearing different masks.

20:53 and they try to explain it like this. You know, I'm a man, and I'm a father because I have a son, so I have a very unique relationship with my son. I'm a father, but at the same time, I'm a son to my father, and at the same time, I'm a husband to my wife and a friend to my friend. I have different modes that I operate in, but same person. Well, if that's the case, you've got problems in a text like this, where you have Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all showing up. And you have problems when Jesus addresses the Father and speaks about the Holy Spirit.

21:38 There would be so much and is so much confusion. Well, some will say the word trinity isn't in the Bible, to which I respond, so what? There's a lot of words not in the Bible. The word rapture isn't in the Bible. The word second coming aren't in the Bible. The word millennium isn't in the Bible. The word incarnation is not in the Bible. The word omniscience is not in the Bible. The word omnipotence is not in the Bible. The words original sin aren't in the Bible. The word Bible isn't in the Bible. to say that you can't believe in something unless the exact verbal representation is found in the scripture is nuts the trinity is a biblical concept it expresses what the bible teaches going all the way back to the first book of the bible genesis chapter one in the beginning God. Elohim. Elohim. God created the heavens and the earth. That's a plural noun. Elohim. Plural noun, singular meaning. You keep reading in Genesis 1, it says, then Elohim, God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness. So God created man in his image.

23:05 who's God talking to when he says, let us make, he's not talking to the angels. They didn't help in creation. He's talking to, this is the inner Trinitarian communication. It's the Trinity conversing. So here is a confirmation of the father and the spirit upon the son. Identification followed by confirmation. The third event in this little scene structure is confrontation. Confrontation. After identification and after confirmation comes confrontation. We just saw heaven opened. Now we're about to see hell opened. Verse 12. Immediately, the Spirit drove him into the wilderness, and he was there in the wilderness 40 days tempted by Satan and was with the wild beasts and the angels ministered to him.

24:11 Remember back in school when you were taught Newton's third law of motion that says every action has an equal and opposite reaction? That's true in the natural world. It's true in the supernatural world as well. The action of God invites the reaction of Satan. The action of heaven invites the reaction of hell. the more you do business with God, the more you'll do business with the devil. Nothing promotes the activity of the devil more than your proximity to God. Now, I just say that as a warning, not to frighten you away from getting close to God,

24:58 because getting close to God, proximity to God, is your victory over the devil. Draw near unto God, God will draw near unto you. The Bible says resist the devil, he'll flee from you. But he does work against us. And let me just give you a word of advice when it comes to fighting the devil. I've discovered Jesus is really good at it. A whole lot better than I am at it. So I prefer not to engage the devil on a personal level. I know some people like to feel really strong and empowered and say, I rebuke you. And they're praying to the devil. They're talking to the devil.

25:42 Now, Jesus is really good at it. You can resist the devil. Just don't go to blows with him. Let Jesus do that. When Satan knocks at the door, let Jesus answer it. Martin Luther was asked how he conquered the devil. He said this. well, when he comes knocking at the door of my heart and he asks, who lives here? The dear Lord Jesus goes to the door. And he says, Martin Luther used to live here, but he's moved out. Now I live here. Now I live here.

26:20 Okay, now notice something back in our text. Notice when Jesus is tempted. right after his baptism, right after the glorious confirmation from the Father that this is my beloved son. You know, here's a thought. I think it's true. I think after every spiritual blessing, the enemy is there to steal that blessing away. He'll try to steal it away. You know, you might have an incredible blessing at church. At church, God might speak something. You might walk out of here just sort of your heart is enraptured in his love. And then you get out on the road. or you go to the grocery store, you have some encounter, and it's like the devil is there to steal away the blessing. Okay, now Mark is the shortest account of the temptation. There's only really two verses that talk about the temptation in the wilderness. The other gospel writers tell us much more. They go through the list of how Jesus was tempted and the words that were spoken.

27:29 and Mark does not. Again, Mark has an agenda. He is showing us that the servant of God is on the move. He is just giving us a snippet of these things. So this is the shortest account, but there are some vivid language. Again, he does have vivid language and some vivid details that the others leave out. First of all, it says the Spirit drove him. It's a very strong word. impelled him, impelled him. It's like literally threw him to the wilderness.

28:04 It's not to imply Jesus is unwilling to go. It's simply a word to speak of intensity, to say that Jesus is on a divine schedule. There's no time to waste. There's no time to bask in the glory of the Father and the Spirit that he so enjoyed. No time to linger. It's time to go out and face and conquer his strongest enemy. You see, if he is the Son of God, if this is the King that is coming to establish a kingdom, then he has to be able to stand up to his greatest enemy in a confrontation because this mission is a spiritual battle. And you may remember, got to tie this in at this point. Back in Genesis 3.15, Satan knew this promise. A promise was made that said, the seed of the woman is going to be born who will crush the head of Satan. So this is round one of that battle out in the wilderness that he goes out to.

29:11 Round one. Now, just a note, Jesus is in the wilderness. In the book of Genesis, Adam was tempted in what? A garden, a lush garden, a watered garden, green, beautiful, perfect. And he failed. He lost. Jesus, the last Adam, he is called, is tempted in a barren, hot desert, the exact antithesis of the Garden of Eden. And he won. now I'm just going to go briefly through what Mark leaves out he has glaring omissions he leaves out the temptations themselves Matthew and Luke tell us what the conversation was so let me just kind of give them to you real briefly Satan comes to Jesus in the wilderness during those 40 days and tempts him on three levels number one to doubt God's provision to doubt God's provision If you are the son of God, said Satan, command these stones be made bread.

30:22 Or literally, since you are the son of God, command these stones be made bread. That's questioning God's provision. How could your father let you starve? If you are his beloved son in whom he is well pleased, why are you out here in the middle of nowhere starving to death? He is suggesting that Jesus use his divine power to provide for himself what the Father has kept from him.

30:52 To which Jesus replies, man shall not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. He quotes scripture, Deuteronomy. The second temptation is Satan wants Jesus to doubt God's protection. Protection. saying. They go to the pinnacle of the temple overlooking Jerusalem, and Satan says, throw yourself down. Make a huge messianic display. Just toss yourself off, for it is written. Now, the devil's quoting scripture. Psalm 91, for it is written. He will give his angels charge over you to keep you in all of his ways, to bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. That's doubting God's protection. Jump. Do you think your father will protect you? Prove it. Prove it.

31:44 And then use your power to make a soft landing and dazzle everybody around you and they'll all follow you. Now, just a quick note on that, that the devil quotes scripture. You should be aware that Satan is a shrewd theologian. The devil was trained in the best seminary in the universe, heaven. He fell from heaven. And I think Satan does more harm as an angel of light than he does as a roaring lion. He loves to quote scripture, misquote scripture, take it out of context. And so Jesus responds back and he says, it is written, Deuteronomy again, you shall not tempt the Lord your God. The third line of temptation is to get Jesus to doubt God's plan, his provision, his protection, his plan. We're told in the Gospel of Luke that Satan showed Jesus, get this, all the kingdoms of the world in a moment. Showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and said, I will give you all their authority for it has been given to me. Really? Who gave it to you?

33:02 Adam. And I can give it to anyone I want to. Boy, that's a sermon series right there. If you worship me, all will be yours. Okay. This was the hardest temptation for Jesus. it was the hardest because this is why he came he came to redeem the world back to the father and he was going to do it by the way of the cross the temptation is i'll give it to you you don't have to go the hard way you don't have to go the way of the cross satan knew psalm 2 psalm 2 says the messiah would rule all nations the father will give the son the glory of all the nations He knew that. And Satan is basically saying you can have it. You can have what you came for. You don't even have to be crucified.

33:56 You don't have to be the suffering servant. You can be the shortcut savior. You can have a shortcut. Just indulge me. Bow down for a second. Worship me. I'll give it to you. Instant gratification. You can enjoy the Psalm 2 gain without the Isaiah 53 pain. and each time Jesus rebutted him with Scripture, Scripture, Scripture. That's why we need to know the Bible. If you don't know the Bible, you don't know the power of God. That's what Jesus said to the leaders. You err not knowing the Scripture nor the power of God. You have no power to resist temptation without knowing Scripture. So identification, confirmation, and confrontation. The fourth and final event is proclamation. Proclamation.

34:51 Verse 14. Now, after John was put in prison, John the Baptist was put in prison. We'll get more into that in chapter 6 as to why. Jesus came to Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. Remember, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, verse 1. Now he's in Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and saying, here's the beginning of his sermon, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. okay this is not the very beginning of the ministry of Jesus again Mark leaves a lot out and what he leaves out again because he has a purpose in writing an agenda to follow he leaves out the events in John chapter 1 chapter 2 chapter 3 and chapter 4 and what happens is in those chapters and before this is Jesus is down south in Jerusalem in Judea it's his Judean ministry and while he's in Judea he meets with a guy named Nicodemus at night he cleanses the temple he gets a cord of whips and drives people out of the temple he also has a Judean ministry for about six months he then goes up to Samaria to meet a woman at the well of Samaria she comes to believe in him the Samaritan population a large majority of them come to believe in Jesus and then John the Baptist gets arrested by Herod because John the Baptist is very vocal about Herod's sin Herod tosses him in jail that is a cue when Jesus hears that. That's a cue for him to head north and engage in Galilean

36:58 ministry to set up his headquarters in Capernaum, which he does. So the forerunner, John the Baptist, his job is done. It's complete. Remember John said, he must increase, I must decrease. The way he decreases, he gets arrested and put in prison. He's going to get beheaded later on. So Jesus is increasing. It's time for the king to appear publicly. And where does he show up? According to Mark, he shows up in Galilee now. Why Galilee? Galilee is an out-of-the-way place. Everybody in Jerusalem looked down on the Galileans. That was the hinterland. That was the backwater. That was Hickville. that's why he went there. He went there fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 9, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon them a great light has appeared, the Galilee of the Gentiles, it says there, the Galilee of the Gentiles. It was populated by Jew and Gentile because there was a lot of Gentiles, the Jews in Jerusalem and the spiritual center wanted nothing to do with it. Jesus did. He came to die for the sins of the world. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. So he shows up in Galilee and makes his headquarters in Galilee. And notice, please, Jesus' first recorded activity as he begins his ministry. In verse 14, he is preaching. He's preaching. He is proclaiming.

38:39 He's announcing Caruso to announce, to herald, to give a message, an imperial message from the king. Preaching. God's ordained method of reaching the world was and is preaching. God's ordained method of reaching the world was and is preaching. It's not YouTube. It's not the latest Christian album that was released. All of those can help the platform, but there must be the preaching, the proclamation. That is God's method. That is exactly what it says in 1 Corinthians 1 verse 21. It pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe. And there's a lot of people would say, yeah, I agree with that.

39:34 It is pretty foolish. Well, that is how God has chosen to reach the world. So Jesus comes as a preacher. Somebody once said, God had only one son, and he was a preacher. And he comes preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. Now notice his message, verse 15. There's three aspects to it. First aspect, the time is fulfilled. The time is fulfilled. That's how he begins. Ladies and gentlemen, the time is fulfilled. What does that mean? it means the moment has arrived, the moment everyone has anticipated. The word time here is the word kairos in Greek, which is not the typical word for time. The typical word is chronos, chronology, chronography. Chronos is clock time. Kairos, the word used here, is epical moment, fixed point in time, turning point in redemptive history. It's what Paul meant in Galatians 4.4. When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his son. This is the time the world has been waiting for. So the time is fulfilled. Second part of the message, the kingdom of God is at hand. What does that mean? That means he's going to start a political revolution and take over the political structures in Jerusalem and Rome?

41:11 Hardly. It simply means when he says the kingdom of God is at hand, I, the king, have arrived, and I will rule in the hearts of all who will receive me. That's simply what it means. Right now his kingdom is invisible. It is spiritual. He said my kingdom is not of this world.

41:35 One day that's going to change. one day his kingdom will be of this world. One day he'll come back and it will be a visible, political, worldwide, literal kingdom. But until then, his kingdom advances one soul at a time, one person at a time, one open heart at a time. The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Third aspect of the message, repent and believe the gospel. We spoke a little bit about that last week. Repent and believe the gospel. Repent does not mean regret. To be repentant does not just mean to feel sorry. It means that you feel sorry enough to quit what you're doing and turn around. That's what repentance is. Regret should lead to repentance. Repentance is what rids us of regret.

42:37 Paul said to the Corinthians, godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation. Great example, the prodigal son. Remember the story of the prodigal son? He wanted his inheritance now. He left home with his inheritance, partied, partied, had fun, had a blast, spent all the money his dad made, gave to him, moved in with the pigs. They were his new roommates.

43:00 One day he woke up, came to his senses. He just like woke up and said, this is stupid. My life is stupid. I had so much going on in my father's household. I'm going to go back to my father. I'm going to turn around, go back down the road, back home and say, I'm not even worthy to be called your son. And his son, his father received him. That's a good picture of repentance. A lot of people try to turn to Jesus without repenting of anything. They just want to add Jesus to their life. But my wife has a great story. Lenya, when she first was on her spiritual journey, now she was raised an atheist. She had no background at all. She didn't believe in God. She came to believe in God and prayed a little prayer that was in a booklet. But she was at church one Sunday in California and the message was being preached and she felt uneasy the whole time. So at the end of the service, she went back to the prayer room and she said to the pastor, who was this guy, a friend of mine named Malcolm from England. And she said, yeah, you know, I say this little prayer and I'm coming to church, but something is not right. And so he's listening to her and he asked her a very simple question in his British accent. Have you repented of your sins? She said, what? Have you repented of your sins? And she said, have I re what, what is that? I've never even heard that word repent. So he explained the word repentance. She said, I've never done that. I've never done that. He said, that's the problem. You need to turn from that and turn to him. You can't just do one or the other. You have to do both. Repent and believe the gospel. So these are the small beginnings of the greatest thing, the gospel. And from this, for the last 2,000 years, Christianity has spread throughout the world. Billions of people have said yes to Jesus.

45:06 Are you in that number? Are you among them? Have you repented and believed in the gospel? father thank you for the gospel it is good news it's good news that you love people the people you created who fell immediately in the garden and have suffered that fall for generations so that there is despair and division and hopelessness that is running rampant in every generation but you devised a way to rescue our hearts, to rescue our souls, one decision at a time. And I pray for those who have not yet made that decision.