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Jesus: The Model Preacher
Being a preacher, I like to hear other preachers, especially those who seem to have a more appealing style of delivery. I try to hear how they talk. Do they talk fast or slow? What about voice inflection, use of illustrations, or personal experiences? How much scripture do they use? The reason is that I would like to figure out what it is about what that person is doing that makes him so effective. I don’t want to be a crowd pleaser so far as doctrine is concerned, that’s not what I’m saying, but if I stand before a group of people for 30 minutes trying to deliver a message and at the end of that time period, I have not done it in such a way that the listeners have understood the intended lesson, then I have not accomplished what I hoped to. The whole point is for me to communicate something that will be of some spiritual value to those who are listening to me. If I don’t speak in such a way that I can be understood, then I have not helped anyone.
When I’m worshiping and someone else is preaching, I’m listening to the message. Many times when I’m listening to a recorded sermon off of the Internet or something, I’m also listening for the content and not paying attention to the performance of the speaker. But, if I’m flipping through the stations on the TV or radio and I hear a good speaker, I’m very likely going to stop and listen just to see if I can figure out what he’s doing right that I may not be doing. In that case, the message isn’t important so much, because I’m not really listening for that.
When I was in preaching school, a different student usually preached a short sermon during chapel each day, and while many of the messages that I heard were good, that wasn’t really the main purpose. The main purpose of that was so that when the student sat down, the instructor, who had been taking notes, would then go to the front and tell everyone what was wrong and what was right with the person’s lesson and delivery so that we could all learn from it. That was a way for us to learn what to do and what not to do while speaking publicly.
Well, this past Sunday evening I was sitting on the couch looking through an outline book when I turned a page and saw the title, “Jesus A Model Preacher” and I thought, “Wow, what a great idea!” If there were ever a preacher to use as an example, I can think of no one better than Jesus! If Jesus is our Lord and King, and if He once walked upon this earth preaching and making disciples of men, and if we can look back and see what type of preacher He was, we can find out what type of preachers we need to have in the Lord’s church today. Why did Jesus preach? What was He trying to accomplish with His preaching? What characterized His preaching? To whom was His preaching directed? Did what He preach offend anyone? Who did His preaching help? If preachers today would just ask these questions, and others like them about Jesus, and make Him their paradigm in preaching, whom they serve and to whom the church belongs to, the effects of that upon the church today would be extraordinary and far-reaching. Everyone would notice that something big had happened in the church. It would be for the better.
You may be thinking to yourself, “so what does this have to do with me, I’m not a preacher and I don’t plan on ever preaching?” But, this isn’t something that only matters to preachers, it should really matter to all of us, because of how significant preaching is to the New Testament church. Romans 10:13-17: “…Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach, except they be sent? even as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of good things! But they did not all hearken to the glad tidings. For Isaiah saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” If we must hear the gospel before we can believe it as this passage says, then the gospel must be preached. If the gospel isn’t preached, then the gospel isn’t going to be heard; and if the gospel isn’t heard, then no one is going to believe. “Faith commeth by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” If people don’t hear it, they can’t believe it; and “And without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing unto him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him.” (Heb. 11:6). So it is necessary that the gospel be preached so that the lost might hear it and be saved by it. “For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe” (1 Cor. 1:21).
Jesus said, “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned” (Mk. 16:15-16). Now that’s pretty plain language. We must be preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone who has yet to obey it, and there is necessarily a sense of urgency about it because we have something the world desperately needs and without it they will be forever cut off from God. If we saw a young child playing on a set of railroad tracks as a train bore down on him, whistles blaring, we would make every effort to get to that child in time and pull him to safety, wouldn’t we? There are literally billions of people in the world today who are in that very same type of predicament spiritually. Death is bearing down on them like a runaway freight train, and according to the Bible, unless we do all that we can to bring them to Christ, the result will be disastrous!! In Acts 4:19 and 20, Peter and John said to the Sanhedrin, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to hearken unto you rather than unto God, judge ye: for we cannot but speak the things which we saw and heard.” Paul said, “…woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel.”
The preaching of the gospel is a very urgent and dire need that exists today, and with so much weighing upon it, it must be done in a worthy manner. So we are looking to the example set by our Lord in this lesson.
I. First, we can see that whenever Jesus preached to others he spoke with the proper authority. There is a big difference between one who speaks without authority and one who speaks with authority. If our neighbor comes over and tells us that he has decided to order all of the troops in Iraq to come home we might think he’s a little nutty, but at the very least, we would probably just shrug it off and forget about it. He has no authority to do such a thing. However, if president Bush were to speak to the nation over the television and he told us the same thing that would be a whole lot different. Why? One has authority and the other does not. When someone goes out and starts to preach something, he needs to make sure that he does so according to the proper authority, because without it, he becomes a lot like that neighbor. When Jesus preached, He had the proper authority.
He spoke as He was commanded to speak by God. John 12:49-50 says, “For I spake not from myself; but the Father that sent me, he hath given me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life eternal: the things therefore which I speak, even as the Father hath said unto me, so I speak.” Jesus was not just preaching because He thought to Himself one day, “well, I think I’d like to go preaching, and I’ll just preach as I see fit.” No, He preached and did and said as God commanded him. It was necessary even for the Son of God that He obeyed the commandments of His heavenly Father and preached as He was told. Why should those people have listened to Jesus? Because He was sent by the Father and He preached what the Father told Him to preach.
We go out and we preach the gospel because we have been commanded to do so by God. People need to listen, not because we are preaching it, but because it was God that told us to go and preach it. That is the authority behind our going out and preaching. Our authority is derived from God, and nowhere else. So anyone who is going out and preaching anything other than the gospel is doing so without the proper authority because it is something that God did not command to be preached. The one who goes out here and preaches Islam is doing so without the proper authority. God didn’t say to preach the things of Islam, but His word. Those who go out and preach various beliefs of cult groups are doing so without any authority because God never said to go out here and preach cult doctrine. Those who go out here and preach Christian Science or Mormonism are doing so without divine authority. Anyone who is preaching anything other than what the Bible says is doing so without the authority of God who said to preach the gospel and nothing else. We must be sure that we are preaching what God commanded us to preach or else we are preaching without authority.
Jesus spoke according to what was written in the Scriptures. How do we know if we are preaching as God commanded? When we preach according to the Scriptures. In Matthew chapter four, Jesus was led out into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil. After He had fasted for forty days, the devil came to Him and tempted Him three times, and each time Jesus said, “it is written…” “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (v. 4). “Jesus said unto him, Again it is written, Thou shalt not make trial of the Lord thy God” (v. 7). “Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (v. 10). When we teach only what is written in the Bible, it has the authority of all mighty God behind it; there is no greater authority than that. When we preach from God’s word, and His word only, it means something! But when we teach something, anything other than what we find in the Bible, it only has as much authority as the person who said it. And when it comes to matters of our faith in God, if it is not in the Bible, then it is without authority.
It is so important that when a person gets up to preach the gospel that he preaches only what is found in the Bible and nothing else. We are both commanded to preach and told what to preach through it. Only then will we be able to do so with the proper authority.
II. A second thing that we can see with Jesus is that He spoke with conviction. Jesus knew what was right and that is exactly what He preached. He told it like it was and could not be persuaded through any means to do anything other than that.
Jesus knew that there was only one way and that was exactly what He taught. Many seem to suggest today that there are many ways to the Father. There is the ideal way, but then there are other ways that may not be as good but will still accomplish the same thing. That’s not what Jesus taught. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one cometh unto the Father but by me.” There is only one way. I once sat at the dinner table in a restaurant with where there was an elder of a local congregation talking about the Bible. And he said that he thought that the Bible said different things to different people; whatever you personally believe the Bible to be saying, the way that it reads to you, is the way that you should believe! I was in utter disbelief! Jesus made it clear that there was only one way, which was Him. Well, if “the way” means that there is only one way, then “the truth” also means that there is only one truth: “the way, the truth, and the life.” The Bible only teaches one truth. Any time that two or more people disagree on any particular thing clearly taught by the Scriptures, one or both of them are wrong because they both cannot be right at the same time. Either the sky is blue or it is not blue. The sky cannot be both blue and not blue at the same time and in the same way. One or the other is true; it cannot be both. The same thing is true with the Bible and Jesus knew and taught that and did not bend on it.
“This people honoreth me with their lips; But their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, Teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men” (Mt. 15:8-9). Vain worship is empty and useless; it serves no real purpose. Well, why was their worship vain? They worshiped in vain because they taught precepts of man instead of the truth of God. We must be preaching the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out demons, and by thy name do many mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. (Mt. 7:21-23)
In order for us to be able to get through that straight gate we are going to need conviction.
We cannot preach or practice a split doctrine. “No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Mt. 6:24). Jesus interests were not divided; He taught the gospel and nothing else! Jesus taught with conviction. He knew that there was only one way and he didn’t blur His message with compromise, but He made it very clear, this is the way that man needs to go and this is what he must do.
III. A third thing that we can see with Jesus is that He upheld and sanctioned all that was good. Jesus didn’t care what was popular; He didn’t let others pressure Him into ignoring what was right and good. If something was good and right, no matter what others said or thought about Him, He did right, and He upheld and defended what was right.
In Luke 18, verses 9f, the Bible says this,
And he spake also this parable unto certain who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and set all others at nought: Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I get. But the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote his breast, saying, God, be thou merciful to me a sinner. I say unto you, This man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled; but he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”
The problem here was that the Pharisee trusted in his own performance rather than God. He said, “look how good I am; just look at my performance; I’m so good and I’m so holy; I’m so this and I’m so that. All those who are not as good as I am are beneath me.” What was right with the publican was that rather than elevating himself, he humbled himself. He didn’t tell God how good he was, but he confessed his wrong and pleaded for God’s mercy. His confidence was not in his own performance, but in the goodness and mercy of God. This would not have been a popular lesson for Jesus to teach in that place and time, but it was right.
In Luke 7:36-50, we read about Jesus eating in the house of a Pharisee named Simon. As they were sitting at meat, a woman who was in the city, someone who was looked upon as a sinner came in weeping. She washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and dried them with the hair of her head. She kissed His feet and anointed them with ointment. Seeing what was going on, Simon thought to himself that if Jesus knew who that woman was, then we would not have let her do what she did. Now, Jesus could have just let that pass without saying anything. After all, he was a guest in this person’s house, but we see here that Jesus gave more importance to upholding what was right, then worrying about what Simon was going to think. Even though it was not the popular thing to do, Jesus defended that woman and upheld her actions. And not only that, but he compared her actions to the lack of the same from Simon and showed that in this situation, this woman that Simon thought was so defiled and unworthy was actually his spiritual superior and that he should have been more like her. That must have cut that man very deeply, but Jesus stood by and defended the actions of those that were doing what was right.
In John chapter eight, we read about the woman who was caught in adultery: And the scribes and the Pharisees bring a woman taken in adultery; and having set her in the midst, they say unto him, Teacher, this woman hath been taken in adultery, in the very act. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such: what then sayest thou of her? And this they said, trying him, that they might have whereof to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground. But when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground. And they, when they heard it, went out one by one, beginning from the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the midst. And Jesus lifted up himself, and said unto her, Woman, where are they? did no man condemn thee? And she said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said, Neither do I condemn thee: go thy way; from henceforth sin no more. (Jn. 8:3-11)
There is evidently, a temptation for some to preach not what it good and right, but what is popular. Jesus did not do that. And, as we saw with Jesus, what is right, is often not what is popular, but if we are going to preach and to teach as Jesus did, then what is popular isn’t going to determine what is preached. We will defend and uphold what is good and right, as well as those who are in the right, no matter what others may think or say about us.
IV. The last thing that we are going to point out about Jesus, as a preacher is that He suggested a remedy for sin. Just as it doesn’t do anyone any good to ignore the fact that we need a remedy for sin, it doesn’t do anyone any good to tell folks that they need one without telling them what it is.
Were it not for sin, we would not need a savior, but because all sin, all need a savior. It is sin that separates us from God and drives a wedge between us. So, what is the solution? The solution is Christ, but how do we get into Christ? It is His blood that washes away all our sin, but how do we get into contact with the blood of Christ? We must hear the gospel, “So belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Ro. 10:17). We must believe it, “And without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing unto him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him” (Heb. 11:6). Repent, “The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked; but now he commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent” (Acts 17:30). Confess our faith in Christ, “for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Ro. 10:10). Be baptized, “And Peter said unto them, Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). And remain faithful, “Fear not the things which thou art about to suffer: behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life” (Rev. 2:10). Jesus said, “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned” (Mk. 16:15-16). If we are going to preach like Jesus then we must give man a solution for sin between he and God, and that solution is the gospel plan of salvation.
Jesus also offered solutions for sin between brethren and neighbors:
And if thy brother sin against thee, go, show him his fault between thee and him alone: if he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he hear thee not, take with thee one or two more, that at the mouth of two witnesses or three every word may be established. And if he refuse to hear them, tell it unto the church: and if he refuse to hear the church also, let him be unto thee as the Gentile and the publican. (Mt. 18:15-17)
But I say unto you, resist not him that is evil: but whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man would go to law with thee, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go with him two. (Mt. 5:39-41)
Are we preaching and practicing biblical solutions for sin as Jesus did?
What kind of preacher was Jesus? He was one that spoke with the proper authority; He was one that had conviction; He was on that upheld and sanctioned all good; and He suggested a solution, or remedy, for sin. When the preaching done in the church today is characterized with the same things that characterized the preaching of Jesus, then and only then will the church grow and prosper as it did in the first century. Can it though? Sure, it is God that gives the increase, not us. If it could grow that way then, it can grow that way today. But not until we preach and stand behind those who will preach as Jesus did. |
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