Sermon Tone Analysis
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*The First Fruit of Faith*
*Mark 1:14-15 October 17, 1999*
* *
*Introduction:*
We could say that John’s message of repentance was arresting.
The thought of a new beginning was attractive.
But it was also dangerous.
Not everyone was called to a new beginning.
They liked the old way better.
One of these was King Herod who had John arrested and beheaded because he dared to speak a pointed message of repentance to him.
It is this continuing message that Jesus takes up from John.
John’s arrest sets the stage for the proclamation of the Gospel.
John was said to be merely ‘preaching’ (v.
4) but Jesus is said to be ‘preaching the good news of God’ (v.
14).
It is the announcement of an event, the coming of God’s New World that even now breaks into the present.
The time of waiting for God’s intervention is over and it demands a response.
And a response is given.
John was destined for his servanthood of martyrdom and Jesus is destined for his.
Jesus too spoke this arresting message of repentance for which he would die.
But his message is the good news that repentance will find its fulfillment now (the time has come), in him (the kingdom of God is near), and by faith (repent and believe the good news).
Here are all the elements of the Gospel – the need to act through faith in Jesus.
It is a continuing message, it is an urgent message, it is a hopeful message.
And these two verses are a summary message of what follows about Jesus’ beginning ministry.
His ministry blazes abroad the divine rule of the Gospel.
Everywhere he goes and everything he says requires immediate human decision and commitment about repentance, submission of God’s reign, and trust that the incredible is taking place.
And many would indeed believe.
We take our lessons from Jesus about the preaching of the Gospel.
After all, it is his good news.
There* *are three dramas in preaching the Gospel.
*1.
It is a Proclamation of Truth - about God’s decisive victory in the struggle with the forces of chaos and death.*
Jesus’ clash with Satan in the desert clearly did not end in a tie because the preaching of the good news of God that immediately follows is the proclamation of victory.
Jesus proclaims that the transcendent God who speaks from heaven is now loosed on earth to give his Spirit, forgive sins, and set free from every evil bondage.
We see and hear this victory thoughout Mark’s Gospel where Jesus commands and announces; “Be quiet!” “Come out of him!” “Be clean!” “Your sins are forgiven!”
“Your faith has made you well!” “Be opened!” “He has risen!
He is not here.”
As Christians we are not to have defeatist attitudes but confidence in proclaiming that the victory is already won.
*2.
It is an Announcement of Testimony – about victory by a witness to the combat.*
The kingdom of God is assured.
Jesus will spend much time telling people what the kingdom is like.
This suggests that it is much different from the familiar one, so he must correct our understanding.
But for now he heralds its arrival.
Jesus is confident that God has prepared the end of the age.
He is about to foreclose on the bankrupt kingdoms of the world (the Light Party).
Jesus is a first-hand witness in this struggle with evil because of his recent hand-to-hand combat with it.
Our champion, Jesus, has bested their champion, Satan.
And Jesus speaks the testimony of victory.
It is the kingdom of God that will come, not the kingdom of Satan that will remain.
The coming of the kingdom of God is as near as the cross.
It is as near as Jesus.
He is the living Word of God, and he writes prophecy like it is history.
He cannot and does not lose.
His earthly ministry will end as well as it begins.
Just as he is a witness to the victory from the timeless expanse of eternity, so we are witnesses to what we have seen and heard (1Jn.
1:3).
We have many victorious experiences to proclaim that others might believe.
Pastor Chris Gouzoules shared things like this with us last Sunday night about his work in Mexico.
Your life in Christ is full of these things to share.
*3.
It is an Appropriate Response – by those who hear. *
We talked two Sundays ago about the primary importance of grace.
The kingdom of God is not built on our good works but upon Christ’s.
Our part in response to his work is not to lend our backs to add to his work, it is to lend our knees to seal our confession that we could not do his work.
We can never add to his finished work.
He is the One who bore the yoke.
That is why ours is light (Mt.
11:29-30).
It is light because it is no longer a yoke of slavery to sin (Gal.
5:1).
But we are now to bear the joyfully light yoke of labor with him in freedom from sin for the sake of the kingdom of which we are a part.
There are things we are to do, but made possible because he has already done them and made it possible for us to follow.
Basically, all we can do is decide to take our stand for or against God or Satan and to repent or not repent in response to God’s initiative toward us by grace.
The appropriate response, since we can’t do anything to save ourselves, is faith and repentance.
It is a response of acceptance to the grace he makes available to all who desire it.
The Christian community continues to live by repentance and faith since, as we see Mark’s Gospel unfold, it consists of people like us who are far from perfect.
The appeal of grace for a response of faith and repentance continues today both inside and outside the church – to the saved and the unsaved.
But we see at least four obstacles today.
* a.
We Turn Others Away from Repentance by Our Attitude*
People often react to the preaching of repentance with the preconceived opinion that it is abusive.
And it often has been abusively used to harangue others.
Christians want to defend a godly lifestyle, and rightly so.
But they can be misled into preaching their own, often one-sided, form of Christianity.
In effect they are saying, “In order to be saved, you must be just like us – or just like me.” (Now that is a scary thought.
I thought we were supposed to be like Christ.)
They must hold to our traditions, we say.
Is this because traditions are more important than truth?
No, I don’t think so.
This begins to sound a lot like the Pharisees that Jesus pronounced so many woes upon – and whom he said looked far and wide for converts only to make them twice as much the sons of hell that they were.
This is the legalism that we rail against.
This is the issue in Galatians where the Jewish Christians (Judaizers) wanted everyone, whether Jew or Gentile, to conform to Jewish custom.
It is the food laws that Paul spoke against.
It is the unreasonable Sabbath law that Jesus purposely violated.
It is these things that needlessly turn off those who would come to Christ.
We must not needlessly repel those who are coming by pronouncing them guilty as sin.
If they are coming they already know they have fallen short and need the acceptance of Christ’s grace and forgiveness in order to be set free.
They need the same grace from us as they have seen in Christ.
The reason he draws people successfully to himself is that he loves them.
Consider the parable of the lost son, the prodigal son.
What would have happened if the elder brother, who lived a faithful but bitter life in the fields, met his brother first as he was coming down the road?
The elder brother was probably bitter because he wasn’t the one who got to go and sin it up big time with daddy’s inheritance.
This is the kind of thing that produces legalists.
They are the ones who point their fingers at others in an attempt to lessen the burden of their own hearts.
But if the supposedly upright brother had met him first, rather than the forgiving father, he would have met him with a buzz saw of scolding from his self-righteousness.
The prodigal would have probably made a U-turn in the middle of the road and gone back to the far country.
He would have preferred the pigsty rather than to proceed any further.
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