Sermon Tone Analysis

Claiming the Proclamation

Introduction

I. THE POWER—

Turn to the third Book of the New Testament, the Gospel of

(Comments: Thankful for last week’s stewardship conference with Dr. Charles Shoemaker.

Faith Promise Missions commitments have grown over the week!

Most excited for the two people who trusted Christ as Savior!

We’ll be having baptisms coming up.

Those considering being a part of our church, set aside March 4 at 6pm to come to “Connecting Pointe” dinner with me, my wife, and some church leaders.)

We’re considering our own managing of life, so we can each be involved in proclaiming the Gospel.

If the Devil can get us to feel like we have no time, no treasure, and no talent to use for God, then the Devil has effectively shuttered our witness for Christ!

Next Sunday, is “All In Sunday.”

Be praying and asking God to help you be “All In” when it comes to serving God with your time, your giving, and your treasure.

I encourage every believer to recommit to giving their tithes and offerings.

If you’re not there yet, I challenge you to try it, and see if God “will not open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing...” ().

The faith principle is that you can live better with 90% when you honor God than you can with 100% and live selfishly.

I believe that every Christian is going to have a desire to share Christ, and it is on that premise we will build today.

Whether or not you are effective or active in it yet, I believe because the Holy Spirit is alive in your heart you know others need the change, life, joy, grace, forgiveness, your found in Jesus!

Isn’t it true, though, that sharing Christ can be one of the hardest things we do?

ILL: “I Ain’t Doin’ It” comedian Heather Land is known for her app-enabled buggy eyes and puffy lips partnered with sarcastic humor based on Christian life and popular culture.

In her monologues, she mutters under her breath and ends by saying what she’d rather do—which is rather extreme—compared to the situation she just picked apart—and then she ends by saying, “I ain’t doin’ it!”

Sadly, borrowing some of her thoughts, some Christians would rather…"eat a fiber brownie while eating an ex-lax milkshake in an outhouse wearing a straight jacket...OR walk through a den of lions in a ham suit…OR put sewing needles in your corneas…OR ride a speedboat through a sewer pond…OR jump in a wheel barrow full of fire ants…OR slide down a razor blade into a tub of alcohol…” than go across the street or to the next cubicle to share Christ!

You laugh, but that is how many feel!

Isn’t it true that the Church’s witness for Christ looks more like Jonah’s than Jesus’?

Do you have any doubt that if we could get over the things that hinder us from sharing Christ that we would be more effective at connecting people to Him?

The main reasons people don’t share Christ are:

1. Fear

There is no doubting that Jesus was a preacher.

We see Him preaching in our text at the synagogue.

2. Lack of Knowledge

3. Political Correctness

4. Laziness & Unconcern

There is no doubting that Jesus was a preacher.

A common misconception of preachers is that they are brash, brazen, loudmouths who aren’t afraid to say whatever comes to mind.

This attribute many believe is what enables them to share Christ.

We see Him preaching in our text at the synagogue, not brash or brazen, but with gracious words.

We can freely recognize the hindrances to sharing Christ, but there is little motivation to overcome them unless we can CLAIM the Proclamation—Not just seeing it is God’s, but making it our own knowing It’s in us and there’s something very special about it!

Stand and Read Text: .

Pray.

Sit.

What was so special about the message Jesus took upon Himself?

Why would He make His mission to live and die for it?

What was so important about proclaiming the Gospel that everything else in Heaven and on earth paled in comparison?

.

What Jesus indicated was so important is that the Gospel is the everlasting status-changer!

Jesus reads from ,

A. Jesus reads from ,

Notice these verses carefully, and see that all of man’s needs are met in them.

1. Anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor

2.

He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted

3. To preach deliverance to the captives

4. Recovering sight to the blind

5. To set at liberty those which are bruised

(All needs met as Paul says in )

Christ is interested in your need—He cares—He understands.

You’ve got pictures of shame, the poor, prisoners, the blind, and the oppressed.

These are all pictures of shame in the first century.

Then, you’ve got pictures of honor, good news, freedom, recovery of sight, and release for the oppressed.

You’ve got honor and shame put right beside each other.

shame, the poor, prisoners, the blind, and the oppressed.

These are all pictures of shame in the first century.

Then, you’ve got pictures of honor, good news, freedom, recovery of sight, and release for the oppressed.

You’ve got honor and shame put right beside each other.

An quick comparison of the text the Jews would have easily revealed that Jesus intentionally left off some of Isaiah’s words—Jesus came at the first advent to declare all of these life-changing things—it was not until later that He would return to proclaim “the day of vengeance of our God.”

()

The people “wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth” (v.

22).

Jesus was up to something—something big was about to happen as Jesus’ ministry of proclaiming the Gospel “to the Jews first and also to the Greeks” got underway.

Jesus willingly came from Heaven to proclaim the Gospel.

If you think you have it hard telling others the Gospel, think of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemene humanly feeling the weight of sin, praying to the Father, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine be done” ().

Later, Jesus willingly proclaimed the Gospel at the cost of His own life--“who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross” ().

What compelled Jesus to overcome the obstacles to claiming the proclamation of as His own?

India used to have a legal class system under the Hindu religion called castes.

Essentially, if you were born in a certain caste, you were stuck.

There was no hope to advance.

In the first century, it was pretty similar under Roman rule.

What you were born into, you usually died as.

Jesus came along, and He says, “I have come to proclaim the Good News.

If you’re poor, you can be rich.

If you’re broken, you can be healed.

If you’re in chains, you can be unshackled.

If you’re abused, you can be free.”

I’d like to show you a few ways Jesus embodied and lived out this message we also preach.

Why?

Because if we will CLAIM the Gospel, we will PRO-CLAIM It more powerfully knowing it makes a difference in people’s lives.

Proposition: Claim the Gospel’s power!

What status can the Gospel’s power change in a person’s life?

1.

The Gospel Makes People Who Were Dirty Clean.

:12-14

& 14 have a long list of rules for people with leprosy.

Leprosy was a physical condition.

Leprosy was a social condition.

Isaiah uses leprosy as a picture of sin.

Jesus willingly took upon Himself our defiling sin, so we could be made clean!

Some of you have come today, and you are untouchable.

You are dirty in your sin, and Jesus says, “Be thou clean.”

Leprosy is a spiritual condition in all our lives Jesus wants to cure.

In your dirtiest state of sin, Jesus does not turn away from you; Jesus turns to you in love, wanting to make you clean!

Song: Whiter Than Snow, by James Nicholson, “Whiter than snow, yes, whiter than snow.

Now wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”

2. The Gospel Makes People Who Were Rejected Accepted.

The scene is of Jesus at a meal with a Pharisee, and a woman known for her sensual living bursts in.

The religious Pharisee, steeped in ritualism and protocol can’t believe that Jesus, Who had just claimed to be a prophet, could be the Christ because, after all, if He was a prophet He would know who this woman is and the great sins she has committed!

The only person who is thinking the woman should be there was Jesus—everyone else had rejected her because of her sins and her reputation.