Looking out over the Evangelical churches today I’m concerned when I see that some of them tend to steer wide of clear gospel preaching in their churches. Instead of preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ they preach practical tips and helpful advice to have a successful life.

If we look at the Gospels we quickly find out that Jesus ministry was not typified by preaching of self improvement but rather by the preaching of the Gospel.

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Sermon notes

Mar 1:14-15

14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God,

15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

1. 1. Jesus preached (His ministry method)
      1. To preach/proclaim/herald: κηρύσσω
         1. Strongs: “to be a herald; to officiate as herald; to proclaim after the manner of a herald; always with a suggestion of formality, gravity, and an authority which must be listened to and obeyed;”
         2. This word indicates more than simply communicating facts, the preacher communicates truth with a tone of urgency and an emphasis upon application. This does not refer to one on one dialog but rather to more formal and public address.
         3. A very clear picture from the LXX that describes for us what this word means.
            • Pro 8:1-6 1 Does not wisdom call? Does not understanding raise her voice? 2 On the heights beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; 3 beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud: 4 “To you, O men, I call, and my cry is to the children of man. 5 O simple ones, learn prudence; O fools, learn sense. 6 Hear, for I will speak noble things, and from my lips will come what is right,
            • To preach is to publicly proclaim truth and call people to believe and take appropriate action that corresponds to the truth they heard.
      2. The main method of ministry was preaching
         1. He didn’t come to establish interfaith dialog
         2. He didn’t come to do lifestyle evangelism
         3. He didn’t come to build synagogues
         4. He didn’t come to be a moral influence in society
         5. He didn’t come to simply be an example
         6. He didn’t come just to heal people
         7. He came to preach!
      3. His ministry was saturated with preaching
         1. John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus by preaching
            • Mar 1:4 John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
            • Mar 1:7 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.
         2. Jesus purpose was to preach
            • Mar 1:38-39 And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” 39 And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.
         3. Jesus himself summed up his ministry task as primarily preaching
            • He pointed to prophecy from Isaiah 61:1-2
              1. Luk 4:18-21 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; he has anointed me to tell the good news to the poor. He has sent me to announce release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set oppressed people free, 19 and to announce the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. While the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him, 21 he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled, as you’ve heard it read aloud.”
         4. Jesus sent out the 12 to preach
            • Mar 3:14 And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach
         5. Jesus prophesied that the gospel would be preached to all nations
            • Mar 13:10 And the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations.
         6. Jesus commanded that the gospel be preached to all
            • Mar 16:15 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.
      4. The Puritans said, “God had only one son and he made a preacher of him.”
         1. Jesus could have come
            • To be a politician
            • To be a doctor
            • To be a rich and generous businessman
            • To be a military general
            • To be a philosopher
         2. The fact that God the Father made him a preacher tells us that God values preaching and God uses preaching to accomplish his will!
         3. It both strikes terror and awe in me to think that I am engaged in the same ministry method and approach as Jesus was. It is terrifying because I do not feel worthy or able to do what Jesus did, yet it is aweing and humbling because I know that this is God’s chosen medium and I am his chosen canvas.
         4. Ultimately I preach because I know that I’m unable to affect change, real and lasting change in your life, just as I am unable to affect that change in my own life. Biblical preaching is an acknowledgement of the fact that neither I nor you can make yourself better but only the Word through the power of the Spirit and the life of Christ can make any difference!
         5. Jesus preached because beyond dying on the cross there was no greater thing that he could do for people. In fact if he came and died on the cross without preaching his death would empty and pointless. The cross requires preaching and preaching requires the cross!
      5. John gives a spectacular picture of Jesus
         1. He was the Word from the beginning.
            • Joh 1:1-4 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
         2. The Word is intrinsically tied to the preaching of Christ!
            • God is Truth and God is the Word one does not exist without the other. That is to say the truth of God does not exist apart from the Word of God and visa versa. God is a speaking, communicating, God. He does not hide his truth but rather he preaches truth, he preaches himself.
            • From eternity past we see that God is a truth speaker. We might say that God literally preached the universe into existence.
            • John tells us that all things were made by this Word, he tells us that there is life is this Word.
            • 10x in Gen chapter 1 we read “God said” Moses begins his account of God and the creation by showing the Israelites the life giving creative power of God’s Word!
              1. Jesus preached because he has always been preaching
              2. Jesus preached because life comes only through the Word
              3. Jesus preached because this is the primary way man comes to know and understand God’s character and nature
              4. Jesus preached to expose the sinful heart of man
              5. Jesus preached show God’s attitude concerning money, marriage, anger, family, authority, anxiety, children, prayer, purpose, suffering, and much more
              6. Jesus preached about God the Father, about the Holy Spirit and about himself and in that way Jesus was a unique preacher.
              7. Jesus preached to bring people to repentance and faith in him.
   2. Jesus preached the gospel of God (His ministry content)
      1. There are many kinds of preaching today
         1. Psychological preaching
         2. Pop culture preaching
         3. Emotional preaching
         4. Historical preaching
         5. Academic preaching
         6. Traditional preaching
         7. Fashionable preaching
         8. “Let me pat you on the back, tell you how amazing you are and send you out the door to pursue your destiny” preaching
         9. But the only preaching we find Jesus and the apostles doing is gospel preaching.
      2. Here are six characteristics of gospel preaching
         1. Gospel preaching declares the character and nature of God
         2. Gospel preaching exposes the sinful condition of man
         3. Gospel preaching calls for a change in heart and mind
         4. Gospel preaching focuses on the need for sincere faith and absolute dependence upon the person and work of Christ
         5. Gospel preaching offers hope, forgiveness, reconciliation with God, eternal life, and the power of the Spirit in Christ and Christ alone.
         6. Gospel preaching proclaims Christ as
            • The solution to our problems,
            • The object of our faith,
            • The recipient of our praise
            • The center of our worship
            • The comforter of our souls
            • The hope of our heart
            • The purpose of our life
            • The joy of our existence
      3. Jesus preached himself
         1. I am the bread of life
         2. I am the light of the world
         3. I am the door
         4. I am the good shepherd
         5. I am the resurrection and the life
         6. I am the way the truth and the life
         7. I am the vine
         8. Before Abraham was I am
      4. The Peter preached Christ in his first sermon at Pentecost
         1. Act 2:36 “Therefore, let all the people of Israel understand beyond a doubt that God made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah!”
      5. Paul preached Christ
         1. 1Co 2:1-5 1 When I came to you, brothers, I didn’t come and tell you about God’s secret with rhetorical language or wisdom. 2 For while I was with you I resolved to know nothing except Jesus the Messiah, and him crucified. 3 It was in weakness, fear, and great trembling that I came to you. 4 My message and my preaching were not accompanied by clever, wise words, but by a display of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith would not be based on human wisdom but on God’s power

• There are two difficult groups of people to preach the gospel to:
  1. Those who have never heard the gospel and those who have ever heard the gospel.
     • To know nothing of the Bible, nothing of God’s character, nothing of the destructive nature of sin, nothing of the person of Christ and nothing of his death and resurrection is a terrible thing. To preach to this person we must begin with the most basic aspects of the gospel and patiently and slowly help them build Biblical gospel understanding of themselves, their world, and God.
     • To know most everything about the gospel, to have heard it a thousand times, to not be moved in your spirit when you hear it preached, to think that you need something deeper, something more practical, something more interesting, something new, something beyond the gospel is undoubtedly a more terrible thing. And this is the danger of many of us.
  2. The Gospel is God’s gospel, it is the gospel of sinners not of the righteous. (Mark 2:17) May we never think of ourselves as already so righteous, so holy, and so spiritual that we no longer see the need to submit ourselves to regularly to good gospel preaching.
     • Has your spirit has grown dull to the gospel? Do you not know the quickening of the soul when you hear Christ preached? Do you not see life from above in those precious words? Do you not have a desire to know Christ more, see more of the gospel, and live more of the gospel?
     • The soul who knows God and seeks God never grows tired of hearing the gospel preached. He may hear it a thousand times and it is not enough for him. Others may look at him in perplexed,
     • “Haven’t you heard these things before?” They ask, “Don’t you want something else, something new, something unique, something fashionable”
     • “No” he says, “the gospel is enough for me, it is more than enough for me. The gospel though it is the same is new and more glorious every time I hear it!”
     • The soul that believes the gospel with all his heart doesn’t need to be cajoled and coaxed and convinced to go to that place where the gospel is preached. He doesn’t look for excuses for why he can’t attend. He runs to the church or to the Bible study.

• Jesus preached the Kingdom God (His ministry context)
  1. We must remind ourselves that Jesus’ preaching on the Kingdom shocked and awed his listeners.
     1. Too often we read the Kingdom parables and even the Sermon on the Mount and other teachings of Jesus nice little children’s stories! They’re not!
  2. What sets Kingdom preaching apart from other preaching is that it is literally not of this world. (John 18:36)
  3. Six characteristics of Kingdom preaching
     1. Not temporary but eternal (Mat 6:19-21)
     2. Not external but internal (Mat Mat 23:25-27)
        • Whitewashed tombs, clean the inside of the cup first
     3. Not comfort but a cross (16:24)
     4. Not to be seen by people but to be known by God (Mat 23:5-10)
     5. Not glory seeking but glory giving (Mat 6:1-4, John 12:43)
     6. Not man’s rules but God’s reign (Mat 6:33)
     7. Not man but God
        • 2Co 4:5 For we do not preach ourselves, but rather Jesus the Messiah as Lord, and ourselves as merely your servants for Jesus’ sake.
• Jesus preached repentance and belief (His ministry goal)
  1. Then Jesus says:
     1. “Be entertained and stay positive”
     2. “Be your best self”
     3. “Be in the moment”
     4. “Reach your potential and accomplish your goals”
     5. “Try harder to follow the rules”
     6. Jesus doesn’t say any of these things, instead he says “repent and believe”
  2. The goal of gospel preaching isn’t behavior modification, it is belief, behavior modification is a side effect of
     1. Too often parents focus only on behavior modification and then they wonder why their children leave the faith when they leave the home.
     2. Preaching that focuses
  3. Repentance and belief are the goal of all true Biblical preaching. Anything beyond this is secondary at most because it will not have eternal consequences and it ignores the true power of God found only in the shards of a broken and humble heart!
  4. What did Jesus call people to repent of?
     1. Jesus called people to stop relying on their own righteousness
        • (Mat 5:20) Unless your righteousness exceeds that of that of the Scribes and the Pharisees you can not enter the Kingdom of Heaven
     2. Jesus called people to stop relying on their family heritage
        • (Joh 8:39) They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did,
     3. Jesus called people stop relying on their wealth
        • Mar 10:23 And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!”
  5. Repentance is not
     1. When I feel really bad about what I did.
        • “Sense of guilt is enough to breed terror. Infusion of grace breeds repentance. If pain and trouble were sufficient to repentance, then the damned in hell should be most penitent, for they are most in anguish. Repentance depends upon a change of heart. There may be terror, yet with no change of heart.” -Thomas Watson
     2. A means of self-atonement.
        • “The tears of repentance wash away no sins. It is bad theology to say that they do. That is the office, that the work of the blood of Christ alone.” J.C. Ryles
     3. A vow to change my life.
        • “Yet, again, it is possible for men to progress even further than this, and positively to humble themselves under the hand of God, and yet they may be total strangers to repentance. Their goodness is not like the morning cloud and the early dew that passeth away, but when the sermon is heard they go home and commence what they conceive to be the work of repentance, they renounce certain vices and follies, they clothe themselves in sackcloth, their tears flow very freely on account of what they have done; they weep before God; and yet with all that, their repentance is but a temporary repentance, and they go back to their sins again.” -C.H.Spurgeon
     4. Done only during the “altar call.”

1. Key ingredients to Biblical repentance
   1. A clear understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ
   2. A recognition of and sorrow for personal sinfulness in light of a holy God
   3. A faith that wholly relies upon Jesus and trusts in him for forgiveness and salvation, and life.
   4. A life that produces the fruit of repentance
2. Jesus called for a life of repentance

“When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance” -Martin Luther

1. “Repent and believe” Mark 1:15. These verbs are in the present imperative and could be translated, “Be repenting and be believing.”
2. It seems that most people understand that faith or belief isn’t something that you do once and then you stop. To believe in Jesus is to continually believe in Jesus for the whole of your life! That’s why we are called “believers” Repentance is similar. To repent isn’t something you do for a moment and then you’re done, we are called to be repentant, it should characterize our lives.

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