Sermon Tone Analysis

! Today’s Message

 

Date:               January 8, 2006

Speaker:          Pastor Steven Thomas

Title:                */What’s It All About?/*

 

Text:                Mark 1:1-8

The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Introduction:  Kent Hughes begins his book on the Gospel of Mark with the famous story of Dr. E. V. Rieu, on of the world’s renowned scholars of classical literature.

After Dr. Rieu completed a translation of Homer’s works into modern English for the Penguin Classics series, the publisher approached him again and asked him to translate the four Gospels.

Now, Rieu was sixty years old at the time and had been an avowed agnostic all his life.

When his son heard that his father was undertaking a translation of the Gospels, he said, “It will be interesting to see what Father will make of the f Gospels.

It will be even more interesting to see what the four Gospels make of Father.”

He did not have to wonder very long.

Within a year’s time Dr. Rieu, a lifelong agnostic, professed faith in Christ.

His story has been told again and again as a testimony to the transforming power of God’s word.

Today we begin a new study.

Together we will unfold the story of the life of Christ as told by the pen of Mark.

The message of Mark’s gospel will be the centerpiece of our worship services for several months to come.

As we embark on this journey, we would do well to ask, what will this gospel make of us?

What impact will it have in our lives?

Let us approach it with the full expectation of its transforming power.

Preliminary considerations:

 

1.

Who wrote this book?

Where did he get his information?

2.

To whom did he write this book?

There may be some hints of sub themes

 

3.

Why did he write this book?

Main theme: 

 

This morning I would like to spend our time introducing Mark’s gospel the way that he did.

Let’s look at verse one which functions as the title of the book.

A great deal of information is packed into the few words of this title.

From it we learn that:

 

*I.

Mark proclaims a vital message.*

Notice central word in this title:  gospel.

That word speaks to the character of this book and its intended use.

A gospel was a message delivered.

You see, from Mark’s perspective, this book is not a biography or a history, but a message.

A biography is intended to be read.

A history is intended to be studied.

A message is intended to be proclaimed.

Do you understand the difference?

What we do hear is not mere academic exercise.

What we have here is living, vital, essential.

Listen attentively!

Hear the news!

Spread the word!

A.

The message is good news.

This term “gospel” means good news.

The word was well known in the ancient world—not just in biblical contexts.

It was used in a variety of situation s, though often associated with the news of victory that came from the battlefield.

We find it used in the Old Testament in that way several times.

Ill.

Mine explosion in Tallman WV

 

They sat there in that church desperately awaiting news regarding their loved ones; desperately longing for a gospel—that is the meaning of the word.

Finally a gospel came, “Good news, good news, they are alive.”

But in the end, the good news evaporated into bitter disappointment because the word was wrong—a message based on faulty communication.

Quickly, their elation gave way to anguish.

The world desperately needs good news.

I heard a news commentator say just this week that the world is currently in more danger than he can remember in his lifetime.

Surely the sinfulness of humanity has made a mess of things.

We could use some good news.

Our community desperately needs some good news.

Have you really seen what goes on around us every day?

We are drowning in immorality and it not only is tolerated, but upheld as right.

Our children don’t stand a chance apart from God’s grace.

We have made a mess of our society.

We could use some good news.

We are desperate for some good news in our individual lives.

Sometimes it seems as though we will be crushed by the consequences of our sinful choices, crushed by broken relationships and empty promises of vain pleasures and mounting burdens of debt and disease.

Oh how we could use some good news.

Mark says, here is the good news that you really need and unlike the news that came in Tallman, WV, this news will never disappoint.

It will never let you down.

B.

The message is /the/ good news.

In the ancient world this term occurred frequently, but /always/ was used in the plural form, meaning one message of good news among many.

Interestingly, we have it recorded in a document commanding the celebration of the birthday of Octavius (Caesar Augustus).

Since the Roman emperor was worshiped as a god, his birthday was celebrated as good news for the world.

But this, too, was one message of so-called good news among many.

Caesars came and Caesars went.

But when the biblical writers picked up this word to describe their message, they breathed new significance into it and always used it in the singular form.

The significance?

This is /the/ good news.

There is no other.

This is the message you need, this is the only message you need.

*II.

Mark reveals a divine plan.*

Mark’s title implies that his book is a record of the outworking of God’s eternal, sovereign plan.

Or to put it another way,

 

A.

It records what God has done for us.

Notice how our title begins:  “the beginning.”

It is the very same word that John uses to launch his story of the life of Christ:

 

/            In the beginning was the Word  . . .

/

 

The use of this term is undoubtedly intended to remind us of the way the Bible itself begins:

 

            /In the beginning God created . .

./

Now Mark does not focus our attention on the beginning of all things.

His book is about another beginning, but the connection is this:  he chooses a word that has the taste of God’s activity in the world.

Just as God spoke the world and its history into existence—the beginning of all things, so at another time he moved into that history with a new beginning of even greater significance and this book is the record that activity.

What we have here is the awesome account of the linchpin of God’s activity in history.