Turn, if you would, with me to Matthew
chapter 4.
Matthew chapter 4, and we're going to be
looking at and using this morning verse 23
as our text for the series that we
are embarking upon, which is the life and
times of Jesus Christ.
And so this morning we come to a
new topic, and that is Christ and His
earthly work.
Those of you who are notetakers, I encourage
you to be a notetaker here.
There's paper in front of you, available there
in the seat pocket in front of you.
But if you'd jot down on your notetaking,
we're going to be using Matthew chapter 4,
and we're going to be looking at verse
25 this morning.
Did I say verse 25?
Sorry, verse 23, this morning.
Very, very important.
Matthew's gospel, chapter 4, verse 23 says, Now
Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their
synagogues, listen carefully now, preaching the gospel of
the kingdom and healing all kinds of sickness
and all kinds of diseases among the people.
Three things I want you to notice.
Verse 23, Matthew chapter 4, it says, Now
Jesus went about all Galilee teaching.
Then it says that He went about preaching.
Then it says that He went about healing.
We're going to look at the very important
topic this morning in our series regarding the
life and the times of Jesus Christ, and
that is His earthly work, that it was
predominantly made up of three things.
So if somebody asks you, why did Jesus
come?
The response that you can give is that
Jesus came teaching.
We'll look at what that means in a
moment.
He came preaching.
There's a big difference, you know.
There's a lot of churches today that are
saying that they're preaching, or saying that they're
teaching, and they're not doing one or the
other.
And it also says that Jesus came healing.
And we'll take a closer look at that
this morning.
If you're joining us for the first time,
we're looking at a series, in fact it's
a 16-part series of the life and
times of Jesus Christ.
And last time together, we looked at the
purpose of His mission, the mission of Christ.
And we saw last time together that the
very purpose of His mission was that He
might fulfill all that was written about Him.
Remember that?
We looked at that last time.
Also, we looked at the fact that His
purpose for coming and His great mission was
that He might redeem or ransom Israel.
Oh, that's a fact.
The Bible makes it very clear.
Jesus Christ came first to ransom Israel, as
the Christmas hymn says.
But also, He came to give the gospel
to Israel first.
Why?
Because Israel is His chosen people.
He, or they, are His chosen ones.
And that is true today.
And we talked a little bit about the
rise of anti-Semitic feelings or anti-Jewish
sentiments or feelings in the world today.
That is a sign, by the way, as
you see it in your news, it's prophetic
of our day and age, that we are
living in times of increased demonic activity.
Whenever you see a nation or a people
come against the Jewish nation, you are seeing
a satanic force at work.
Very, very pronounced.
Regarding the purpose of His mission, we also
saw that He came to save us Gentiles
too.
That unlike or untrue to the declaration of
many Orthodox who say Gentiles are created for
fuel for hell, which the Bible doesn't teach,
the Bible says though in the book of
Isaiah that we who are not His people
shall be called His people.
And we who knew not God will call
Him our God.
And the Lord is working that true in
your life.
The second thing we saw last week regarding
His mission is that it had a great
scope.
That the scope of His mission was first
of all to bring temporal liberation.
That is Jesus Christ brought peace between God
and man.
The Bible says that there is one go
-between.
People will say, will you pray for me?
Or they might ask you, will you pray
for me?
Yes, we can pray for you.
But know this, when it comes to your
sin being forgiven, we'll cover this more in
the redemption of Christ in that study forthcoming,
that the fact of the matter is we
can pray for you and we can intercede
for you and we can fast for you,
we can weep for you, but the fact
of the matter is the Bible teaches clearly
there is one mediator.
That is the word go-between.
Between God and mankind and that is Christ
Jesus.
And He has come to liberate us and
give us peace with God.
Also, regarding the scope of His mission, Christ
provided physical relief.
We'll talk more about that today.
But He brought about healing and liberation to
those who were physically distressed.
Also, finally, we saw regarding the scope of
His mission that He provided eternal freedom for
all those who would trust in Him.
What a story!
What a message we have as Christians.
That our God, Jesus Christ, offers to the
world forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
And abundant living both now and forevermore.
I challenge you, go and search any religious
proposal that's out there on the table that
can even come close to what Jesus Christ
has offered.
Free eternal life.
You don't change your life and then come
to Christ.
He says, come to me just as you
are.
You come as a broken down, messed up,
strung out, arrogant, prideful, whatever your case might
be.
Come as a sinner.
And He embeds the Holy Spirit in your
life and He begins to do the work.
I love saying, someday I need to write
a book on this saying of ours here.
If you're doing Christianity and it hurts, you're
doing it wrong.
Christianity should not hurt.
Christianity, yes, in some respects is bloody in
that God will say to you, I want
you to give up your will, I want
you to give up your agenda, I want
you to give up your thing, and let
me lead, let me guide.
But there's this strange paradox.
When you let Christ at the controls, things
go easier.
Life goes better.
There used to be a saying, it's Pepsi
or Coke, forgive me, but things go better
with Coke, I think is what they used
to say.
And I've seen this T-shirt, it says,
things go better with Christ.
That's so true.
Life has a meaning and a purpose.
We saw regarding the mission in that He
executed His mission.
Jesus did that by performing all that was
necessary for us.
He went to the cross for us.
We also looked at Jesus Christ directing all
that was important, that the Holy Spirit was
to come and to teach us.
And then finally last week we saw that
He imparted to us all that we need,
and that is the powerful works of the
Holy Spirit in our lives today.
We saw last time, and I want to
just provide this for you again.
We saw last time that the very mission
of Jesus Christ also dovetails into the earthly
work and that the scripture tells us it
was for this very purpose Christ came into
the world.
He came for us.
He came for all mankind.
And what an unselfish declaration is made there
in John's Gospel.
Jesus said, And for this reason came I
into the world.
What reason?
To save sinners, to give people hope, to
give them life.
Not for religion.
None of that.
No.
But to give us true life.
The Bible says in John chapter 12 verse
32, Jesus said, If I be lifted up
from the earth, I will draw all men
to myself.
That means that every person on the face
of the earth has got to consider Jesus
Christ.
Isn't that awesome to think?
That Jesus Christ declared Himself that every human
being must consider Him before they depart this
earth.
In some way, some shape, some form, even
to the one who's in the deepest, darkest
of India or Africa who's never heard the
Gospel, Romans chapter 1 tells us that God
will reveal Himself to that person so that
they are without excuse.
They will be able to hear somehow, even
without a missionary.
God will somehow speak to the heart of
every man or every woman, even in the
most remote places of the world, that He
is the Creator God.
Every person must be confronted with the fact
of God.
And by the way, everybody is.
Everybody does.
In our following study, we're going to get
into Christ and creation.
We're going to talk about some evolution things
and some recent claims which are absolutely hilarious.
And we're going to look at those.
But the fact of the matter is the
Bible says that God has revealed His existence
to all that He has created, even nature
itself.
Jesus said, if I be lifted up, I
will draw all men to myself.
You're not getting out of this world, friend,
without having to consider Jesus Christ.
You may not bow your knee to Him
in this life.
You may refuse Him and you may reject
Him and thereby purchase tickets for hell, which
you shouldn't have to buy.
But every person must consider Christ.
Jesus is certainly, get a load of this,
is certainly the most famous human being that
has ever lived on earth.
Did you know that?
I know the Beatles once said they were,
but that's not true.
Jesus is, He has been, He is now,
He always will be.
And in fact, Jesus is the number one
most written about person in all of human
history.
Not only that, but the annual bestseller since
it came out, the Bible, every year.
You know the Bible is sold more than
any other book every year, every year.
It sells, Bible is sold more, more people
buy Bibles than any other book every year
that they don't even post it now on
the all-time bestselling list annually.
Whatever is posted is second to the Bible
because it's always been that way.
Jesus, of course, the Bible is written all
about Him.
But more people have written books, either pro
or con, doesn't matter, about Jesus Christ than
any other person on earth.
In fact, Jesus Christ over the ages have
had tens of millions of people follow Him,
if not billions.
And it's estimated that right now at the
close of the millennium, in a few months,
at the end of the 20th century, it
is estimated that Jesus has on this earth
living one billion followers.
Isn't that something?
That's according to statistics.
One billion followers.
He is the most famous person that has
ever, ever come into the world.
And that is the case and that's what
it will be until this world is done
away with.
The Bible tells us that Jesus had His
beginnings, really, in ministry regarding His teaching the
disciples in the northern Galilee region.
As you can see, very beautiful, very lush,
there up in northern Israel.
And the scriptures tell us there in Matthew
4, verse 23, and Jesus went about all
Galilee.
You're just seeing a fragment.
You're seeing the western shore of the sea
there.
That city that lies in the distance, that's
Tiberias.
Jesus went all around Galilee, teaching in the
synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and
healing all kinds of sickness and disease.
Jesus' earthly work can be summed up in
that wonderful verse.
In Matthew chapter 28, verse 18 and 19,
Jesus said, Go therefore into all the world
and make disciples of all nations.
Well, that began in Jerusalem, or excuse me,
in Galilee, there north of Jerusalem, in that
region.
That's where it began.
Jesus began to spread His message and create
disciples.
And that message was to go out into
all the world.
When He says in Matthew chapter 28, 19,
all nations, the word is ethnos.
Go into all the world and bring about
disciples from all ethnos, from all nations of
various, and here's what the word means, colors.
All the various colors, all the various people,
the gospel transcends and looks into their hearts
and their lives and brings them hope.
So the first thing that we'll see this
morning, jot it down if you would, very,
very important, is this, that we are looking
that Jesus Christ came to earth to teach.
Jot that down if you would, that He
came to teach.
Jesus Christ came.
Why teaching?
Because when Jesus taught, and it must have
been awesome to hear Him teach, and literally
to see Him teach.
When He taught, He was unlocking to the
hearts and minds of mankind secrets and mysteries
that had been held forever, spiritually held back.
When Jesus came teaching, as the scripture says
in Matthew 4, 23, that He went about,
that was His earthly work, to go about
teaching.
You might say, what's so big about teaching?
It's all important.
We as humans learn by being taught.
Could be by visual manifestation or by maybe
some sort of tutorial care or maybe some
sort of apprenticeship where we've got hands-on.
We learn by hearing, by seeing, and by
doing.
Jesus taught.
He gave always a good message, and a
good message, well taught, should result in the
listeners being the people that are affected in
at least four ways.
Very important.
Jot it down in your note-taking, if
you would, that a teaching message should affect
me in four ways as a believer.
Well, why should we even ask that question
or make that statement?
Because when Jesus taught, people were affected.
And when the Holy Spirit moves in a
message, people will be affected.
2 Timothy 3.16, very important verse.
2 Timothy 3.16 says, All Scripture is
given by inspiration of God.
That means God breathed out the Bible.
Well, you know, Harriet told me that man
wrote it.
Man did not write the Bible.
God possessed men who under the possession of
the Holy Spirit wrote the Bible.
He incorporated their personality.
He incorporated some aspects of their intellect.
Example, some biblical authors wrote according to their
customs, where they lived, or their education.
But the entire Bible is without contradiction.
It is absolutely perfect.
It is flawless.
And it is accurate scientifically, linguistically, and in
every way.
How did that happen?
Because God breathed the Scriptures.
He wrote them.
Using men, yes, but He wrote them.
In 2 Timothy 3.16, He says four
very important things.
And we'll look at them this morning regarding
teaching.
That the Gospel, or the Bible, I should
say, is profitable for, number one, doctrine.
That is useful teaching.
Teaching that you can use.
Number two, for reproof.
That word means to make us realize what's
wrong in our lives.
Number three, for correction.
That is, the Bible straightens out our lives.
It has that power to do it.
We'll visit these things later in more detail.
Number four, that the Scriptures are helpful to
us in that they instruct us in righteousness.
That is, the Bible teaches us what we
should be doing right.
So the first thing is doctrine.
The teaching of the way, we can put
it, of Christianity.
Reproof, that is showing us what is disapproving
to God.
Correction, that is, to straighten out our life.
And instruction, to give us practical knowledge.
The Bible says in Micah 6, verse 8,
great old verse.
Many of us remember this verse many years
ago.
It was a very popular song.
It says, He has shown thee, O man,
what is good and what the Lord requires
of you.
And this is it.
But to do justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
How does that come about in your life
and in my life?
Through teaching.
So the first thing that we see this
morning is very, very important.
And it is this.
His teaching whispered obedience.
Jesus' teaching whispered in it obedience.
Example, when Jesus taught, there had to be
an explosive vitality about His teaching.
Why?
Because in Matthew 7, verse 29, the Bible
says, For He taught them as one having
authority and not like the scribes or Pharisees.
Well, the scribes and Pharisees would go like
this.
They would open up the Old Testament.
They would say, And Isaiah said that my
word shall go forth and accomplish what I
have sent it out.
It will not return to me void.
Then they would close the book and they
would say, Rabbi Hillel says, and they would
quote Hillel, and Rabbi Shamal says, and then
Rabbi Kaplan says, and they would quote all
these ancient rabbis.
And people would be falling asleep.
It happened for millenniums.
Jesus comes onto the scene, opens up the
Old Testament, and explodes with vitality.
He spoke with one having authority.
When He taught the Bible, people sat up,
and it came to life.
Why?
Because He spoke from what He knew.
When He taught the Bible, the Holy Spirit
took the truth of the word of God
and through the messenger, in this case Jesus,
brought the word of God alive to the
listeners.
That is extremely important.
Jesus taught as one having authority.
But listen to this.
Very much unlike the scribes and Pharisees.
Quickly.
I don't want to make a big deal
of this, but watch this.
Biblical authority is an awesome thing to be
around and to embrace.
Did you hear me, everyone?
You and I live in a culture that
when we mention the word authority, we get
all bent out of shape.
Sometimes we're justified in getting bent out of
shape.
You want to know why?
We have been given a very ill representation
of what authority is.
Biblical authority draws you to it.
You are invited to come and enjoy it.
Well, Jack, I was in a ministry and
there was authority all right, but I was
beat to death by it.
I'm not talking about worldly authority.
No, no, no.
This was in a church.
I'm not talking about worldly authority.
When Jesus exercised authority, people gathered around Him.
Isn't that an exciting and encouraging thing to
know?
When Jesus is in control, you want to
get closer to Him.
The scribes, what did they do?
They pounded on their pulpit.
They put yokes upon people that they themselves
wouldn't dare bear or try to even attempt
to carry.
They were men who were insecure and men
who imposed authority.
Jesus taught in such a way that He
caused the Bible to come to life and
to light and they saw it in front
of them.
Listen, excellent teaching is when the Bible is
being taught and there are graphic representations to
it.
For example, Jesus said in His teaching that
for those who offend a little one, it
would be better for him to have never
been born, but in fact would have a
millstone tied around his neck and cast into
the sea.
Why did Jesus use that word picture or
that description as a millstone?
Because millstones are everywhere there and they weigh
anywhere from 2,000 to 4,000 pounds.
My friend, if you have a millstone tied
around your neck and God throws you into
the sea, you're going to go down.
And when Jesus taught like that, people went,
wow, I see a millstone here.
Hmm, with what He just said, I see
little children standing around.
Boy, if anybody offends any of these little
ones, he's going to tie that millstone around
the offender's neck and cast him into the
Sea of Galilee, which is right there.
Wow!
What teaching!
And that caused people to gather near and
to gather around, not to drive them away.
The Scripture says in Mark 12, 37, and
the common people, the word common in Greek
means the bulk, the most of the people,
the greatest of the attendants of the people,
and normal people.
The common, normal, and most of the people
heard Jesus gladly.
The word gladly in Greek means to be
receiving something sweetly or to receive something with
pleasure or something that is enjoyable.
When Jesus taught, people gathered around and listen
up, everyone.
Unlike many of the messages that I might
deliver to you here, they were pleasurable to
hear.
People went, awesome!
My goodness, I understand these mysteries that He's
teaching.
Never before, as the Scripture says in John
7, 46, has a man spoken like this
man.
Jesus taught, and when He taught, He whispered
obedience and the people probably didn't even mention
the word obedience.
They just gladly followed Him to obey.
When you hear Jesus teach, you're going to
want to gather around Him more and more
often.
His teaching whispered obedience.
Very quickly, jot it down.
Don't want to spend much time there.
Hebrews 13, verse 7.
Hebrews 13, verse 17.
And Hebrews 13, verse 24.
All of those three Scriptures imply to the
religious...
I hate to use that term, but you'll
know what I mean.
To the religious overseer or the pastor or
pastors or evangelist or you name it that
is ministering to your soul.
Listen to what Paul says.
Very important.
He says, remember those who rule over you.
Now, if somebody comes on the scene and
says, submit, I rule over you.
I'm the pastor.
You know what?
I think it's time for you to find
another church.
There's something wrong with that guy.
That's not how Jesus did it.
And that's not what the word authority would
mean.
Remember those who rule over you, who spoke
the word of God to you, whose faith
you should follow, considering the outcome of their
conduct.
They're going to stand before God in the
end.
And every teacher, evangelist, pastor knows that I
better be careful about what I teach and
how I teach it because I will stand
before God in the end alone and He's
going to hold me accountable.
That fear in a godly way or the
word actually for fear as I should use
is the word awesome.
That awesome appointment that I know I have
with God should cause me to be humble,
to be simple, should be careful and never
assume or impose authority.
Paul says, remember those who rule over you.
If somebody is ruling over you, this is
what the result should be biblically.
You should grow in the grace and knowledge
of Jesus.
If you are well-loved and well-taught,
you should be growing up in Jesus, dependent
upon Jesus, not the church's hotline, not a
few people in the church, not the pastor
or not the priest, not the father or
the mother.
Jesus.
Hebrews 13, 7 says, Obey those who rule
over you and be submissive to them.
Why?
Because they watch out for your souls.
It should be a joy.
Can you imagine?
Jesus is my what?
Yoke, it's easy.
My burden, it's light.
That was radical for the people to hear.
It was inviting.
Another thing that we see this morning, His
teaching whispered obedience.
Yes, but also His teaching painted pictures.
When He taught, He had the ability, when
He came teaching, to paint pictures with words.
Very, very important.
You remember in 2 Timothy 3, 16, it
says, All scripture is given by inspiration of
God and is profitable for doctrine.
This now, in teaching, this would be now
reproved.
Consider this.
To make us realize what is wrong in
our lives.
How did Jesus often do that?
Hey, you don't come on the scene.
And a lot of zealous Christians have this
tendency.
They get saved on Sunday and they get
to work on Monday and they burn the
whole company.
You're all going to hell.
Somebody says something.
Oh, that's it.
You're going to burn.
You're out of here.
That's not going to win people to Christ.
Reprove.
2 Timothy 3, 16 tells us that scripture
is given that it is to reprove.
This word is very, very important because it's
to show us what is disapproving.
What's not pleasing to God.
How do you walk up to somebody and
say, Excuse me, but God's called me to
rebuke you.
They will not listen to you, friend.
Who made you the Holy Spirit in their
life anyhow?
There's always the little fault finders and sin
sniffers that are around every church.
I don't know why, but they're in every
church.
Do you realize what you did?
What?
Did you hear what you said?
What?
You know what?
And they're just fault finding.
Get a little notebook.
They don't.
They look like a spiritual poindexter.
Oh.
And away they write sin sniffers and fault
finders.
You will never get someone to grow in
Jesus that way.
How did Jesus Christ do it when he
reproved someone?
How did he do it?
Well, example this way.
When he was teaching the disciples, he said
this.
It says in Mark 12 38, Jesus in
his teaching said to them, beware of the
scribes who desire to go around with long
robes.
Men love long robes.
Religion loves long robes.
The longer, the better.
They love greetings in the marketplaces.
Hi, Rabbi Joe.
Yes.
I'm Rabbi Joe.
They love greetings in the marketplace where it's
crowded.
Hello.
Oh, yes.
Thank you.
They love that.
The flesh loves that recognition.
Jesus is beware of that.
Be careful.
He says they love the best seats in
the synagogue.
A little name on it.
Little name there.
I donated $1,000.
So this is my seat.
Interesting.
Wow.
Jesus says, listen, don't be like those guys.
And he says for a pretense, make long
prayers.
He says, but in reality, they receive the
greater condemnation.
See, long prayers for some strange reason.
Long prayers are synonymous with, in the Bible,
of fleshly offerings.
The scriptures warn us to be careful about
prayer, to be short at prayer, quick at
it.
When you come before the Lord, speak it
directly and that's it.
But not the religious person.
Long prayers, all this stuff.
So what's Jesus saying?
When he's teaching, he's painting a picture.
He says, you guys, listen.
And he might have even pointed across the
courtyard.
See the scribes and the Pharisees?
Look at them over there.
He graphically presented the word to them.
He said things like this.
Consider the lilies of the field.
They neither toil nor do they spin.
Yet Solomon, in all of his beauty, was
not arrayed like one of these flowers.
And if you would have been there with
Jesus in his picturesque teaching, you would have
laughed.
You don't see a lily going, and, you
know, stressing out.
Jesus says, look at the simplicity of this.
And it clicked in the mind of people.
My goodness.
Lord, I understand this.
No, the scripture warns us.
And he taught us when he reproved us,
and he continually does it because he loves
us.
He will often use very graphic pictures to
get our attention.
Why?
That's how we learn.
That is how you and I learn.
In Matthew 23, verse 27, a very horrible
verse.
Matthew 23, 27, says, Woe unto you, scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites!
For you are like whitewashed tombs.
Well, that doesn't make any sense to you
and I.
Not yet.
And indeed, they appear beautiful on the outside,
but inside are full of dead men's bones
and uncleanness.
When Jesus spoke that picturesque statement, everybody recognized
immediately what he was saying.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees!
You're like a whitewashed tomb.
They paint tombs there white, graveyards, they paint
them white, so people don't stumble over them
in the night because that would defile you.
And they're very bright, they almost glow from
a distance, even in the moonlight.
Outwardly, Jesus says, you look great on the
outside, but the inside you're full of absolute
hypocrisy.
That was graphic teaching.
People got it.
Somebody today, and I'm just making this up,
if this offends you or upsets you, I'm
sorry, I don't mean to.
But somebody might say today, you know, be
careful of that man over there, he's as
truthful as a politician.
Whoa, that means, I understand exactly what he
meant.
He meant, don't trust that man.
You know?
Watch out.
Jesus in his teaching unlocks to the heart
of man what he's trying to convey.
Let's continue on with this.
His teaching whispered obedience, his teaching painted pictures,
and his teaching warned of consequences.
Yes, warned of consequences.
And that corresponds to 2 Timothy 3.16.
The third admonition there is that the Bible
is profitable for correction.
That means it straightens us out.
In Luke chapter 22, verse 25, the Bible
says, And he said unto them, The kings
of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and
those who exercise authority over them are called
benefactors, but not so among you.
On the contrary, he who is the greatest
among you, let him be as the younger,
and he who governs among you as he
who serves.
For who is greater, the one who sits
at the table or the one who serves?
Is not the one who sits at the
table greater?
Yet I am among you as one who
serves.
Jesus is obviously the greatest, but he came
serving.
And he taught regarding correction this type of
a warning, that if we are Christians, and
he's speaking to his disciples, he says, Don't
get all haughty and puffed up that you
know the way to heaven.
Don't be all haughty and puffed up that
you know how to find a verse in
the Bible, that you know how to serve
people.
He says, In fact, I, being the creator
of the universe, I've humbled myself, and I'm
serving you.
What an excellent way of teaching a deep
truth that, look, let's be honest, every one
of us have a hard time with.
I'm going to confess something of yours, because
it's something of mine.
All of us enjoy being served.
And don't tell me you don't.
We do.
Jesus says, Listen, the example is this to
those who follow me, serve one another.
And he taught us that if we didn't
do this, that there's consequences.
And there are obviously consequences to many things,
things that we neglect to do, and things
that we shouldn't be doing.
And Jesus teaches not by slamming down the
cosmic flyswatter out of heaven and splatting you.
He teaches by picking you up.
Remember, I've told you before how God spanks.
I think it's a wonderful way how he
spanks.
When he spanks us who believe, his children,
he'll never spank somebody who's not his child,
by the way.
But when he spanks us, he comes down
and scoops up, catches us right in the
rear end there.
And with his spank, we're uplifted.
Only God can spank like that.
I know as parents try, we'll discipline our
child, and then, you know, we'll sit them
down.
First, we tell them, this is why you're
going to get a spanking.
You ever done this with your child?
If you have young kids, let me give
you some advice here.
My kids are older now.
This works.
Tell them, what you did was wrong, and
you know that you're going to be disciplined
for this.
You knew that you shouldn't have done this.
Go to your room.
I'll be there in a moment.
I'm going to come and discipline you.
Now, immediately, they go down to the hallway,
which seems about 40 to 50 miles long
to them.
They get into the room, and what seems
like two minutes, seems like an hour.
And let me tell you something.
When you come in there, and you say
to them now, now you're going to get
a spanking, but before you get a spanking,
do you know what you did wrong?
Yes.
They've been thinking about it.
This is good.
You don't spank a kid to spank a
kid.
You spank a kid to curve that evil
direction or will that's in their heart, not
to break it.
You love them.
Yes, I did something wrong.
What was it?
I barbecued the cat.
Yes, we don't barbecue cats.
Okay.
Now, I'm going to spank you.
Daddy, don't.
Daddy, you know, don't, don't.
Listen, much of the discipline already without me,
even having to spank, has already been done.
There's repentance, but even in the light of
repentance, there are times when judgment must come,
even in the light of repentance.
You can break the law today, ask God
to forgive you, and ask the judge to
forgive you.
The judge says, you're forgiven.
Pay 1500 bucks.
Oh, you're forgiven, but you still have to
pay.
Dependent upon the infraction, so you spank your
child, and I believe one time, and then
the next thing, which is funny.
What do they do when the discipline has
truly affected them the way it ought?
You'll hear this.
Daddy, I love you.
I love you too, peanut.
Come here, sit down.
And it's a big hug, big kiss, and
it's all gone.
Everything's over.
If you don't discipline a child with love
that way, you know what you're going to
do?
You're going to raise up a child that
is filled with guilt, because that infraction, will
load up on their conscience, over and over,
on top of the next, on top of
the next.
It must be cleared.
And you owe that to your child, to
love them that way.
Let their heart be freed, because the judgment
has come.
God does that with us.
He corrects us, but it always builds us
up.
Always builds us up.
So the next thing that we see this
morning, in Christ and His earthly work, is
this.
And that is, His teaching brought about assurance.
When Jesus spoke, He brought about assurance to
our hearts.
Assurance.
And He does it today.
The Bible tells us in John chapter 10
verse 27.
My sheep hear My voice, and I know
them.
They follow Me, and I give them eternal
life, and they shall never perish.
I love when God talks like that.
They will never perish, neither shall anyone snatch
them out of My hand.
My Father, who has given them to Me,
is greater than all, and no one is
able to snatch them out of My Father's
hand.
If I count the hands that are involved,
there's the hand of Jesus, and there's the
hand of the Father, and the Bible says
in John chapter 10, you're right in the
middle.
You're right in the middle of the hands
of God, and you're safe.
When Jesus taught, He brought assurance to the
soul, to the heart, of everyone who heard
Him.
Jesus says in Matthew chapter 15, beginning at
verse 3, He says, What man is there
among you that has a hundred sheep, and
one of them goes astray?
Does he not leave the ninety-nine, and
go after that one sheep that is astray?
And once he's brought him, or caught him,
he brings him back and rejoices?
That's how God loves you.
Are you sinning?
I know we sin.
We sin in our thoughts, or we sin
in our imaginations.
We may even sin in action.
But are you backslidden right now?
Are you backslidden as a Christian?
Are you looking back at a time when
you were more right on with God?
If you can, you're backslidden.
And God would say to you right now,
I've left the one hundred, and I've come,
or I've left the ninety-nine, and I've
come after the one, that's you.
And He says, I want to pick you
up, and put you over my shoulders again,
and bring you back home.
I want to encourage you, friend, listen to
Him.
Listen to Him, because a faithful shepherd, if
a sheep continues to wander away, a faithful
shepherd will break the leg of that lamb,
to keep him from wandering off.
He loves you.
He loves me.
Jesus' teaching brought about assurance.
It's awesome to realize that when Christ taught,
the scriptures say, yes, that the common people
heard Him gladly, but it says that gathered
to Him were all the tax collectors, or
the IRS agents today, the prostitutes, the muggers,
the bums, the thieves, the outcasts.
Now that's teaching.
That is an awesome thing.
Jesus did this very teaching.
The next thing that we see this morning,
the second point to our study is this.
Christ came to earth to preach.
Here's the difference.
The teaching is instructive.
Preaching is evangelistic.
There's the teaching that goes to the body,
that goes to you.
Those who are already saved, those who already
know Christ, He teaches.
Preaching is evangelism.
The word preaching means to herald forth the
news, or the evangel, good news, God news.
So Jesus came to earth to preach.
We saw this in Matthew 4, verse 23.
He went all about preaching the kingdom of
God.
Luke 20, verse 1 says, now it happened,
on one of those days, as He taught
the people in the temple and preached the
gospel.
That is a wonderful thing.
That meant that Jesus was teaching to the
believers who probably brought some unbelievers.
You see this?
I'm sorry, I get a kick out of
this.
This is like important stuff to me.
In teaching, He recognized that there were unbelievers
in the group, and so He preached.
Isn't that great?
I love that.
To proclaim.
To preach is to proclaim.
The word in Greek means to make broadly
announced the news, or to spread the news
widely.
And you know the word gospel.
The word gospel does mean good news, but
it's actually, in its more correct form, it
is God news.
God news, or God's news, the gospel.
Jesus called us to preach.
He preached Himself.
Evangelism is not always done with words, though,
by the way.
It's done more importantly and sometimes more powerfully
by the lifestyle you live.
We can talk to people all day long.
I've noticed with my children, and you've noticed
with yours, that it doesn't matter what I
say to them, they remember what I do.
And yet some people will say, don't do
as I do, do as I say.
That's impossible.
People will do as is done.
But we see this in our study.
We see this, that Jesus came to earth
to preach.
And the first thing that we see is
that Jesus preached to the heart of man.
He preached to the heart of man.
When Jesus preached, He cut right straight through
the crowd and got into every heart of
those who were listening.
When Jesus preached, He was relevant and He
was current.
People could associate and relate to Him when
Jesus preached.
And that's how you became a Christian.
When someone, under the power of the Holy
Spirit, preached the gospel to you, Jesus became
relevant.
How did that happen?
It's miraculous.
I mean, look at you in here.
If you're a Christian, then it's a miraculous
event that brought you to this place.
The Holy Spirit took the words of some
person, which were not His words, but under
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Bible
came out, the Holy Spirit found your seat,
where you were, and said or announced to
you, this is truth, and you need to
respond.
When Jesus preached, decisions were made.
Interesting.
Billy Graham has said this.
He said, And I know that if I
am faithful to preach the gospel, in every
outreach, decisions will be made.
He says, if He preaches the gospel, decisions
will be made.
And this is what He said.
The next line, some decisions may be yes,
and some decisions may be no.
That is all that preaching is to accomplish.
You've been witnessing to your friends.
The whole act of your witnessing to your
friends, I know this sounds brutal, but we
are not the ones that cause the growth.
We are not the ones that cause salvation
to happen.
Did you know that?
We are simple messengers, and the decision they
make is upon their own head.
We have been called to preach the truth.
Do you have a friend that you have
never told the gospel to?
You've never preached to them the gospel.
Then my friend, if a house was burning,
and your friend was in that house asleep,
would you go in to get him?
Or would you stand outside saying, Oh my
goodness, his house is burning.
You'll go in to get him out.
To preach to your friend is to run
into his house that's on fire spiritually, and
to get him out.
To say, listen, your house is on fire,
you need to get out.
Jesus preached with relevancy and a current heart
on the position of men, wherever they might
be.
In Luke chapter 4, verse 43 and 44,
Jesus says, I must preach the kingdom of
God to other cities also, because for this
purpose have I been sent.
And he was preaching in the synagogues of
Galilee.
Plural.
He went all over preaching.
The next thing that we see this morning,
he preached to the heart of men.
He also preached to the minds of men.
You can preach to the mind and simply
affect the mind.
You can preach to the heart and get
an emotional response.
But when Jesus preached, he preached to the
heart and to the mind of all those
who heard.
In other words, this, and we'll move on.
It is that when Jesus Christ taught and
preached the gospel message, it made sense, and
it was logical and reasonable.
It was verifiable.
When Jesus said something, it was factual.
You would listen and say, my goodness, that's
true what he just said.
When Jesus Christ preached, he preached to the
mind of men.
He didn't divorce the intellect of man.
In fact, the Bible makes it clear that
God has created us as intellects.
We think, we reason.
In fact, the Bible says in Genesis that
he has created us in his own image.
That word means moral likeness.
It doesn't mean that God is six foot
tall and weighs 215.
Moral likeness.
Let us make man in our image.
Our moral likeness.
We have the ability to choose, to reason,
to argue, to love, to think, to create.
No other created being on earth has that
capacity.
God has given that to us.
Why?
We are the only ones created in his
image.
That is so important because he has also
given us an intellect.
Again, our society has so fallen, the world
has so fallen in the last 100 years.
Where the greatest minds, the greatest thinkers up
until the last 100 years have been Christians.
Or Jews.
Or Judeo-Christian believers.
Somehow, because of the Scopes trial in the
20s and this ridiculous claim of evolution, which
has absolutely fallen apart.
Again, we will talk about that in our
next series.
That God is not real.
God doesn't exist.
And yet, every human being on the inside
knows that there is an eternal witness regarding
his intellect.
God is out there.
And people don't want to believe in God
because it is a moral issue.
It is not an intellectual issue.
Don't let anybody ever say to you, Well,
I can't become a Christian because I am
an educated man.
Well, you have been educated beyond your intelligence
then.
You think you are so smart.
I would like you to talk to Sir
Isaac Newton about that.
Go tell Newton he didn't know what he
was talking about.
Some of the other greats.
Kepler and the great astronomer, the father of
astronomy.
Love the Lord.
Amazing.
Exciting.
Also, he not only preached to the heart,
he preached to the mind.
He preached to the whole of man.
When Jesus Christ preached, the very whole of
the person was touched.
That there was this concept in their minds
generated that life is temporal.
And that there is an eternal life.
And that there is a sense of urgency
that I need to make a decision for
Jesus Christ.
He preached to the whole of man.
Thirdly, and we will end with this.
Jesus came to earth to heal.
Yes, to heal.
He has authority over traditions.
I want to simply say this regarding healing
and traditions.
In that culture, there were those both of
the Jewish world and the non-Jewish world.
They had their traditions.
Example.
And you know this.
In Mark's gospel chapter 7, Jesus is in
the area of the Decapolis.
The region of ten cities.
And a man came to him, or men
came to him, dragging their friend.
Because obviously his friend didn't want to come.
They had to bring him by force.
And Jesus sees these men.
And Jesus takes this man.
Mark chapter 7 around verse 35-ish.
Jesus takes this man off, away from the
multitude.
And it says in the scripture that the
man had an impediment in his speech and
he couldn't hear.
And the word in the Greek is so
graphic.
It means that the man once was able
to hear and once was able to speak.
And it implies in his infancy or in
his young age.
He had lost that.
Maybe from a fever.
We don't know.
But Jesus pulls him off to the side
from the multitude.
And you know people who once were able
to hear and able to speak.
The noises that they can make.
Kind of embarrassing sounds.
Inarticulate sounds.
Jesus pulls him off, away from the multitude.
I love that.
Maybe to spare embarrassment.
Because maybe the man just sounded so terribly.
And it says there in Mark chapter 7
that Jesus looked at him.
It says that Jesus grabbed his tongue.
Not his own tongue.
Jesus grabbed the other man's tongue.
He spit on his fingers.
Touched his tongue.
Then it says that he put his fingers
in the man's ears.
What is he doing?
What's he doing?
Fingers in the ears and grabbing the tongue.
And then it says that Jesus looking up
into heaven sighed.
And that word in the Greek is to
snort like a horse.
Very exaggerated movements Jesus made.
Why?
Well he was conveying to the man that
couldn't hear or speak.
Regarding the culture where that man lived.
He broke the traditions.
And the traditions were this.
If a physician came to you in your
culture where he lived.
If he grabbed your tongue you'd be made
whole.
If you gave, did, thus, the other.
It would be fine.
Jesus met the man where he's at.
Even in his traditions.
Jesus had authority.
And he grabs his tongue.
He puts his fingers in his ears.
He looks up.
He sighs.
And all this.
And Jesus says finally, which is in Aramaic
says, Be opened.
Be loosed.
Be healed.
And Jesus healed him.
A woman came with an issue of blood.
And she said to herself, If I just
touch the hem of his garment, I'll be
made whole.
That is not biblical.
Did Jesus say, Excuse me.
But don't you dare think that just by
touching the hem of my garment you'll be
made whole.
No.
He says, Who touched me?
The crowd was pushing him.
He said, No, no, no, no.
Virtue's gone out of me.
I felt power leave me.
Can you imagine?
Jesus turns around and says, Who touched me?
And the woman being afraid, Fessed up.
And Jesus says, Your face made you whole.
Go.
You're healed.
That was not a biblical approach to him.
But he has power over tradition.
My mom's life.
All her life.
My mom bowed to statues in prayer.
Condemned by the scriptures.
She bowed to saints and to icons and
statues in prayer.
Four weeks before her death, She bows her
knee to Jesus.
In fact, She says that day, I've been
praying.
Why aren't these saints helping me?
And I said, They can't help you.
They can't.
I've been telling you this for years.
They can't help you.
Well, Then how can I find help?
Mom, On your knees and talk to God
direct.
She accepts Jesus Christ.
Four weeks later, She enters eternity.
Into the kingdom of God.
He's authoritative even over traditions.
Amen.
Quickly.
He has authority over suffering.
Simply this.
Jesus Christ uses suffering.
To bring people to him.
All of us know someone who's suffering right
now.
Don't despise that suffering.
As much as it hurts.
Oftentimes, I have found in my life and
in your life.
That suffering softens the heart towards the truth.
I think suffering is one of God's greatest
evangelists.
Number three here.
On the third point.
Jesus Christ came to heal.
He has authority over death.
This is what we are so excited about,
of course.
Is that Jesus Christ has completely robbed death.
Of its sting.
And of his pain.
The Bible says.
You can close your Bible and rest if
you want.
We're done.
The Bible says.
To be absent from this body.
Is what?
Is to be present with the Lord.
Well, Jack, what's going to happen to me
when I die?
Well, first of all, you Christian.
Yes.
The moment you blink here.
You blink there.
Wow.
Well, the Bible says.
That those who sleep in Jesus.
Speaking only of the appearance of the physical
body.
Not your soul.
Not your spirit.
To be absent from the body.
Says the scriptures.
To be present with the Lord.
Hey, Jesus came.
Teaching.
Preaching.
And healing.
And by the power of the Holy Spirit.
He does it still today.
Father, we thank you for your word.
And we ask even now at this hour.
Lord, that you would continue to touch us.
Through the teaching of your word.
As we look and consider.
The earthly work of Jesus.
That he came to teach.
He came to preach the everlasting gospel.
And he came to heal.
Father, we thank you.
That you are in business today.
To do the same.
Until the culmination of the ages.
We praise you for this.