What should a Christian preach as it's core message?

According to Mark’s Gospel, Jesus begins his public work with a proclamation. After his baptism by John and his temptation in the wilderness, Jesus “came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is near: repent, and believe the gospel’” (Mar k 1:14-15, my translation). Matthew and Luke present basically the same message.

Let’s look closely at what Mark’s narrator and Jesus say here. The Gospel describes Jesus’ message as the gospel. Jesus challenges people to “repent, and believe the gospel.” In between, Jesus proclaims “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is near.” That core announcement — “It’s time, and God is breaking into the world” — that is the core of Jesus’ own gospel.

 gospel of Jesus Christ.

There is one who is worthy of the glory of heaven and his name is Jesus. God himself came to earth in the person of Jesus. Referred to as the Son of God, or Messiah (in Hebrew), or Christ (in Greek), and long propheciedthroughout the Old Testament to come, Jesus first and foremost lived a life that was finally worthy of good in return. To Jesus alone did God say, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased (Matthew 3:17). Jesus alone perfectly obeyed God's laws. Jesus alone loved with a perfect love. Jesus alone committed no sin.

More than just coming to teach us and serve as our example for living, Jesus also came to die. When Jesus died upon the cross, he took upon himself sin's penalty of death on behalf of all who will believe and follow him. Only Jesus was capable of dying for another's sin because only he was withoutsin; he had no personal sin-debt to pay.

Jesus' death on the cross was the single forthcoming act of mankind's salvation which the Old Testament sacrificial system was designed to teach all along. (That was the expression of the gospel to those whom had preceded Christ.) As only God would and could do, Jesus, out of love for his people, became their sacrificial lamb.

"How could Jesus transact this?"

While God's holiness keeps us at a distance from him, and God's justice requires that sin and sinners be dealt with, it is God's love and mercy that we have to thank for providing the way we can become holy and enter his presence. That way was for God himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, to bear his own legal consequence of our sins for us. Jesus could transact this because:

• Jesus' characteristic of holiness enabled him to live a life free of sin, perfectly obeying all his laws, which qualified him to serve as our guiltless substitute (foreshadowed by the Old Testament's sacrificial use of spotless lambs),
  
• Jesus' characteristics of being both just and eternal permitted his substitutionary death on the behalf of others, which fully satisfied his law, and enabled him to survive the grave; plus...
  
• Jesus' characteristic of love led him to endure that ultimate penalty on our behalf so that all who believe in him will be imputed with his own holy righteousness and FOR THAT REASON ONLY qualify to enjoy his glory forever.

Was Jesus created before the creation of the universe?

No, that is not a concept that can be harmonized with Bible truth. Consider the following:

No other God before or after

Jehovah God explicitly declares that no other God existed — either before or after him. Note the testimony of Isaiah:

“[B]efore me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am Jehovah; and besides me there is no God” (Isa. 43:10-11).

Christ is eternal

Eternality is a prime characteristic of one who possesses the nature of deity. God is “from everlasting to everlasting” (Psa. 90:2). He is the “high and lofty One who inhabits eternity” (Isa. 57:15). Now, inasmuch as it is clear that the divine Word (Christ — Jn. 1:1, 14) possesses the nature of deity, one must conclude that he is intrinsically eternal.

Declared eternal in prophecy

The Old Testament explicitly declared the eternal nature of the preincarnate Christ. Isaiah refers to the “Prince of Peace” as “everlasting” (Isa. 9:6).

The prophet Micah says that, in reality, the “goings forth” of the Bethlehem baby have been from “of old, from everlasting” (Mic. 5:2).

New Testament testimony

The New Testament is equally clear in this matter. Three times in John 1:1 the apostle employs the imperfect tense verb en(rendered “was”) to denote the “timeless existence” of the sacred person known as the Word. The eternal existence of the preincarnate antedates “the beginning,” to which John alludes, in this passage.

Jesus claimed eternality

Jesus himself affirmed his eternal existence, when he said to the Jews: “Before Abraham was born, I am” (Jn. 8:58). The present tense form, ego eimi (“I am”) stands in contrast to the aorist form “was born” (genesthai — to begin to be, to come into existence). The two expressions contrast the eternal and the temporal.

The Jews certainly understood what Christ said, i.e., that he claimed eternality, therefore, the status of being God. That is why they sought to stone him. The expression “I am” points one back to Exodus 3:14, where Jehovah identifies himself as the Jehovah identifies himself as the “I AM,” i.e., the self-existent One.

The first and the last, the “always living one”

In the book of Revelation, Jesus claims that he is “the first and the last, and the Living [present participle — always living] one” (Rev. 1:17-18). He is also the “Alpha and the Omega” — first and last letters in the Greek alphabet (22:13; cf. 1:8; 21:6). These phrases assert the eternal nature of the One so described, and are applied in these texts to either God, the Father, or to Christ.

Christian and prosperity gospel messages

 In the prosperity gospel, also known as the “Word of Faith,” the believer is told to use God, whereas the truth of biblical Christianity is just the opposite—God uses the believer. Word of Faith or prosperity theology sees the Holy Spirit as a power to be put to use for whatever the believer wills. The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is a Person who enables the believer to do God's will. The prosperity gospel movement closely resembles some of the destructive greed sects that infiltrated the early church. Paul and the other apostles were not accommodating to or conciliatory with the false teachers who propagated such heresy. They identified them as dangerous false teachers and urged Christians to avoid them.

Paul warned Timothy about such men in 1 Timothy 6:5, 9-11. These men of “corrupt mind” supposed godliness was a means of gain and their desire for riches was a trap that brought them “into ruin and destruction” (v. 9). The pursuit of wealth is a dangerous path for Christians and one which God warns about: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (v. 10). If riches were a reasonable goal for the godly, Jesus would have pursued it. But He did not, preferring instead to have no place to lay His head (Matthew 8:20) and teaching His disciples to do the same. It should also be remembered that the only disciple concerned with wealth was Judas.

Paul said covetousness is idolatry (Ephesians 5:5) and instructed the Ephesians to avoid anyone who brought a message of immorality or covetousness (Ephesians 5:6-7). Prosperity teaching prohibits God from working on His own, meaning that God is not Lord of all because He cannot work until we release Him to do so. Faith, according to the Word of Faith doctrine, is not submissive trust in God; faith is a formula by which we manipulate the spiritual laws that prosperity teachers believe govern the universe. As the name “Word of Faith” implies, this movement teaches that faith is a matter of what we say more than whom we trust or what truths we embrace and affirm in our hearts.

A favorite term in the Word of Faith movement is “positive confession.” This refers to the teaching that words themselves have creative power. What you say, Word of Faith teachers claim, determines everything that happens to you. Your confessions, especially the favors you demand of God, must all be stated positively and without wavering. Then God is required to answer (as though man could require anything of God!). Thus, God's ability to bless us supposedly hangs on our faith. James 4:13-16 clearly contradicts this teaching: “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” Far from speaking things into existence in the future, we do not even know what tomorrow will bring or even whether we will be alive. 

Instead of stressing the importance of wealth, the Bible warns against pursuing it. Believers, especially leaders in the church (1 Timothy 3:3), are to be free from the love of money (Hebrews 13:5). The love of money leads to all kinds of evil (1 Timothy 6:10). Jesus warned, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). In sharp contrast to the Word of Faith emphasis on gaining money and possessions in this life, Jesus said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal” (Matthew 6:19). The irreconcilable contradictions between prosperity teaching and the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is best summed up in the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:24, “You cannot serve both God and money.”

Suffering as a Christian.

Why should Christians Suffer?

As Christians, we like the thought of sharing in Christ's glory, but what about sharing in His suffering? Jesus took care of the death penalty once and for all so we don't ever have to worry about that again. But the Bible teaches that we must suffer times of trial if we are to share in the glory. Is it worth it? Read what Paul says inRomans : ...For I consider that the sufferings of this present time (this present life) are not worth being compared with the glory that is about to be revealed to us and in us and for us and conferred on us!

Are Christians who toil for the cause of Christ wasting their precious time?

Imagine a friend offered you a free lottery ticket. Would you take it? You've got nothing to lose—it's free! Too busy? Oh, but if you win—you win millions. You've got nothing to lose and millions to gain, so why not take the ticket? Of course you'd take it.

The great mathematician Blaise Pascal, in his Pensees, saw a similar scenario regarding faith in Jesus Christ. He concluded that the struggle to believe was worth it. He saw that if you believe in Christ—or at least die trying—you will gain everything as God promised. But if you choose to say no without trying—if you choose to say "meh"—you lose will everything. Dr. Peter Kreeft unpacks Pascal's Wager in his essay"Argument from Pascal's Wager":

“If God does not exist, it does not matter how you wager, for there is nothing to win after death and nothing to lose after death. But if God does exist, your only chance of winning eternal happiness is to believe, and your only chance of losing it is to refuse to believe. As Pascal says, ‘I should be much more afraid of being mistaken and then finding out that Christianity is true than of being mistaken in believing it to be true.’"

Who sent Jesus, why death..?

Genesis 3:21 states the first known blood covenant God made with man in His great love, for the forgiveness of sin. In that blood covenant, God sacrificed an innocent perfect lamb which provided sanctification and a covering of their exposure or nakedness which was in essence an awakening to their senses as knowing the difference between right and wrong for the first time.

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him. He has put Him to grief when you make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great.

Jesus our High Priest forevermore died so we could be set free from eternal death. God saw fit to make the sacrifice of His only Son, Jesus Christ, as a seed sown for the harvest of our souls for eternity and so we could be redeemed into the family of God.

Knowing man’s incapability to maintain perfection by means of the law that was set up in the old covenant, God’s compassion and great love for mankind allowed for a new covenant. This would be an everlasting covenant to be established through the sending of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus became the true Lamb of God that took away the sins of the world and bring peace and restoration to a broken relationship between God and His people once and for all.

This covenant is from everlasting to everlasting and has eternal significance to the soul of man. Our souls were destined for eternal punishment because of our inability to be righteous and tendency to given in to temptations.

Praise God that Jesus became that High Priest for us. In Hebrews 2:5, it states,

For He has not put the world to come, of which we speak, in subjection to angels. But one testifies in a certain place, saying, “What is man that You are mindful of him, or the Son of man that You take care of him? You have made him a little lower than the angels; You have crowned him with glory and honor. And set him over the works of Your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet.” For in that He put all in subjection under him. He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.

Jesus our High Priest forevermore died so we could be set free from eternal death. God saw fit to make the sacrifice of His only Son, Jesus Christ, as a seed sown for the harvest of our souls for eternity and so we could be redeemed into the family of God.

Do You Want a Relationship with God?

If you want this kind of relationship with God, pray this prayer right now:

Lord Jesus Christ, I believe that you took the pain of the cross to give me new life. I ask you to come into my life and to give me your peace and joy. I confess that I am a sinner -- that I have gone my own way and have done wrong. Please forgive me for my sins. I receive you now as my Lord and Savior. Please fill me with your Holy Spirit. Help me to follow you and to serve you all my life. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Not ready?: Ask your question about salvation, the Bible and Jesus

If you prayed that prayer, you are now a child of God. The things of your old life have passed away and He has made all things new.

The brief of Paul, ministry, articulated.

• 

YROMANS: THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD

How many times have you heard a master of ceremonies say, “And now it is my pleasure to introduce to you a man who needs no introduction …”? Why are the longest introductions often for those who “need no introduction”? A good introduction will accomplish several important tasks. It will arouse the interest and attention of the audience. Also it can build a relationship between the speaker and his audience. This is especially important if the speaker is not well-known by his audience. The introduction can also acquaint us with the speaker’s message and his method so that we can follow him as he speaks.

In the days when I listened to sermons rather than preached them, I had a “five minute rule.” It was a simple rule applied to preachers during the first five minutes of their message: the speaker had five minutes to get from his introduction to the text in the Bible. 

As my five minutes are passing quickly, let us turn our attention to our text in Romans 1:1-17. This is Paul’s introduction to the entire Epistle to the Romans. While all of Paul’s epistles have introductions, this particular introduction is especially important. The church in Rome was not founded by Paul. The Roman saints had not been brought to faith through the preaching of Paul. He did not seem to be well-known in Rome.51 Paul had not yet been to Rome, and most of the saints there would not recognize him if they saw him.52

 We find Paul’s strong sense of calling and his resulting authority, balanced with an equally strong sense of servanthood and humility. Paul manifests a boldness and authority which comes not from himself, but which is the result of his calling as an apostle.54 He begins this epistle by referring to his calling, and thus, indirectly, to his apostolic authority. And yet this authority does not “go to his head.” Paul is equally conscious that his calling is to the role of a “bondslave” to God and to a life of service to men. Paul is greatly humbled by his calling and authority. Paul’s words in Romans reflect both a boldness and a humility.

Second, we find in Paul’s words here a strong sense of unity and continuity. Paul ties together the gospel which he proclaims and the promises of God made through the Old Testament prophets. He joins together both the Jews and the Gentiles. Paul will not allow a misguided polarization (taking of sides) between the Jews and the Gentiles. He stresses that the gospel unites all believers. He emphasizes the continuity between the Old Testament and the New

How many times have you heard a master of ceremonies say, “And now it is my pleasure to introduce to you a man who needs no introduction …”? Why are the longest introductions often for those who “need no introduction”? A good introduction will accomplish several important tasks. It will arouse the interest and attention of the audience. Also it can build a relationship between the speaker and his audience. This is especially important if the speaker is not well-known by his audience. The introduction can also acquaint us with the speaker’s message and his method so that we can follow him as he speaks.

In the days when I listened to sermons rather than preached them, I had a “five minute rule.” It was a simple rule applied to preachers during the first five minutes of their message: the speaker had five minutes to get from his introduction to the text in the Bible. If, in that five minutes, the speaker had not begun to expound the Scripture text, I knew he would never get there. And so I would mentally turn the speaker off and read from my Bible for the rest of the sermon.

As my five minutes are passing quickly, let us turn our attention to our text inRomans 1:1-17. This is Paul’s introduction to the entire Epistle to the Romans. While all of Paul’s epistles have introductions, this particular introduction is especially important. The church in Rome was not founded by Paul. The Roman saints had not been brought to faith through the preaching of Paul. He did not seem to be well-known in Rome.51 Paul had not yet been to Rome, and most of the saints there would not recognize him if they saw him.52

Our study of Paul’s introduction will concentrate on the reasons Paul gives for writing this epistle, which will also prove to be the reasons why the Romans should read and heed his words. Paul’s introduction will also help to explain why the Romans did receive Paul’s epistle, and why this epistle has continued to bless and to impact the lives of men and women down through the ages of church history.

Beyond this, I believe Paul’s introductory words provide us with a “mentality of ministry,” which is a bench mark for every believer. Paul’s words describe, as the title of this message indicates, “Paul’s Motivation for Ministry.” Before we hear so much as one word of preaching from Paul, he lays out for us his “perspective.” Paul will tell his readers how much he cares for them, how often he has tried to come to visit them, and how long and diligently he has prayed for them. Paul will tell all of his readers “where he is coming from” and “where he is going” in the ministry, our ministries would take a different form and would have a much greater impact on others. Were our ministries to be patterned after Paul’s ministry to the saints at Rome, we would not have to work so hard to get a hearing from those we are striving to reach with the gospel.

You and I should not need to be convinced that this epistle is worthy of our diligent study or that its message is desperately needed today. We will find, however, that we are drawn to Paul as a person as we read his words of introduction. Here is a man with a heart oward God, toward the saints, toward Israel, and toward the lost. Even though this man lived centuries ago, we shall find ourselves drawn to him as a person and his proclamation of the gospel. Let us listen well to these inspired and heart-warming words.

Paul’s Calling and His Creed 
(1:1-7)

1 Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2 which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, 3 concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, 4 who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord, 5 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles, for His name’s sake, 6 among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ; 7 to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Have you ever seen one of those long limousines, the “stretch” kind that looks like the car has been cut in two with a third section sandwiched in between? They are unusual, and they catch our attention. Paul’s greeting, in verses 1-7, is what I call a “stretch version” of his usual greeting. It is the longest greeting of any of his epistles. Here is a sampling of his more typical greetings.

The reason seems to be clear when you consider the uniqueness of this situation. Paul had never been in Rome. He had never previously taught these saints, as he had those in all the other churches to which he wrote epistles. And until now he had never written to them. In his other epistles, Paul was writing to those who knew him, those whom he had led to Christ and whom he had taught. Here, Paul was writing to those whom he had never met, who did not know him and did not know his doctrine. Because the purity of the gospel is vitally important, Paul immediately sought to demonstrate that his gospel was the same as that which the saints in Rome had believed, resulting in their salvation. In very few words, Paul highlights several of the fundamental elements of his gospel:

(1) Paul’s gospel was based upon the belief in a triune God. Paul was a trinitarian. In verses 2-4, Paul refers to all three members of the Godhead: the Father (verse 2), the Son, who was of David’s seed, and who is exalted in the heavens, ready to reign over God’s kingdom (verses 3-4), and the Holy Spirit (verse 4).

(2) Paul’s gospel was established by the resurrection of Christ from the dead (verse 4).

(3) Paul’s gospel was not “new,” but was the fulfillment of that which God had promised His people through the Old Testament prophets (verse 2).

(4) Paul’s gospel was God’s provision for the salvation of both Jews and Gentiles (verses 5-6).

(5) Paul’s gospel was a sovereign calling, a calling to salvation, a calling to service, and a calling to a Christian lifestyle, a lifestyle of obedience (verses 5-7).