The Seven Major Themes of the Bible
Luke 6:17-26
Do preachers repeat themselves? The good ones do! Certainly, Jesus did. A good preacher repeats himself Sunday after Sunday. I’m not talking about telling the same stories repeatedly; nor am talking about using old, worn-out phases that everyone has heard a million times, I’m not talking about being predicably boring from the pulpit. No, no. When I say that pastors ought to repeat themselves over and over, I mean we ought to stick to the great foundational themes of the Bible and repeat them again and again.
Jesus did. Even a casual reader of the New Testament will know when he or she hears our Gospel reading this morning that they have heard this before – wait a minute, this is almost like the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. Even the closing story is the same. Different place, different crowd but many of the same points said in a slightly different way. Jesus repeated himself.
I suggest that there are seven major themes that every Christian preacher ought to hammer home from the pulpit. Not every theme every week but over a year of preaching every theme should be proclaimed. Let me briefly share with you these seven great themes or doctrines of the Bible and see if Jesus picks up on and of them here in Luke 6.
1. The Doctrine of God. One British Oxford professor and philosopher Dr. Michael Reeves has recently pointed out that our generation has great fear of viruses but little fear of God. We have great knowledge of human behaviour but little knowledge of God. We need to grasp anew the God of the Bible Who is Almighty, loving, holy and eternal. This Spirit Being has shown himself to be One God in Three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is the creator of all things, seen and unseen. He is the source of all life not just in the past but right now. Should God choose to stop sustaining our life we would cease to be instantly.
2. The Doctrine of Homo Sapiens as imago dei. Or the Doctrine of Man made in God’s image. One of the problems with our culture is that most of us don’t realize how special we are. Because we have never been taught that humans are created in the image of God, we think we can sleep around like the chimpanzees and steal like racoons. But the truth is God Almighty choose homo sapiens to bear his image. He created us for his glory and pleasure and to represent him. To fellowship with Him. Sadly, we rebelled and lost that awareness of who we are. And so, we fall apart. We are lost. Were confused.
3. The Doctrine of Jesus Christ. What is the greatest miracle in all of history? - an event that defies all the laws of science? I suggest there are two miracles that are far and away greater than all the rest. First of all, the creation of this universe from nothing. We create things but we create from other stuff. God created from nothing.
Scientists can now go back to within a millionth of a second of the Big Bang and explain what was going on but then the laws of physics break down. They do not know what came before that. And that, friends, is where Christian faith and holy mystery come into play.
The second great miracle and mystery is the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. How is it that the eternal, Spirit God, the immutable One who fills all worlds could become a microscopic embryo in Mary’s womb, grow to be a man with all the limitations that implies and still be God? No greater theme ever passed the lips of a preacher than Jesus Christ: His birth, his life, his teachings, his death, his resurrection, his ascension and his Coming Again. Charles Surgeon used to tell his students: whatever text you take for your sermon make a bee line for the cross. And that brings me to the doctrine of Salvation.
4. The Doctrine of Salvation. We need to learn that the human heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. We need to confront what the Bible teaches about evil and suffering. Most people have some idea that the world is a mess. We barely pull out of Afghanistan and we’re getting ready to fight in the Ukraine. Most people secretly admit their lives are a strange mix of good and evil. We have lofty ideals, but we do some terrible things. And most people don’t even want to think about death and what might lurk after that.
How are we to be saved from all this? Most world religions teach that if we do enough good things, we can dig our way out of the mess. Many Christians believe that. We need to learn once more what Jonah learned long ago that Salvation is of the Lord. Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling. By grace we are saved through faith. Good behavior does not earn brownie points with God. There are no Air Miles to heaven. Good Works are important, but they will not get us to heaven. And that brings me to the next great theme of the Bible.
5. The Doctrine of Christian Ethics. If we are not saved by works, how are we supposed to live as followers of Jesus Christ. How are we supposed to live as Christians? What is the Christian life supposed to look like? And that is why the Ten Commandments, as well as the teachings of Jesus Christ and much of the New Testament letters are given to us. They are supposed to help us understand how to behave with the help of the Holy Spirit. What are God’s expectations of us?
And right here, friends, is exactly where we get into a lot of trouble with our culture. We cannot obey the 10 Commandments and the precepts of the New Testament without clashing with the Canadian Culture. We need to hear Christian ethics repeatedly again and again before we are squeezed into the world’s mold.
6. The Doctrine of the Kingdom of God. We need to grasp that the kingdoms of this earth are temporary. The reality is the Rule of God. What God did in Jesus Christ on the cross is much bigger than our salvation. When Jesus cried: It is finished. He was talking about the restoration of all things. Bringing the universe back to God’s original plan. Where human beings will co-reign with Christ. Where the will of God will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The Kingdoms of this earth will become the Kingdom of our Lord. And that brings me to the last great theme of the Bible.
7. The Doctrine of Last Things. Eschatology is the doctrine of destiny. Where is all this headed? Are we headed for oblivion? Or does God have a grand design in mind for us?
If the universe came into being by design, its destiny is planned as well. If every atom, every star, every butterfly, every human was part of God’s design than our destiny is not helter skelter. Our Sovereign God has a predestined plan for this universe and all its inhabitants. I love the old Anglican collect: Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in thy well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that all the peoples of the earth, though now divided and in bondage to sin, may be made free and brought together under his most gracious rule, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
These are the great themes that need to be heard from our Christian pulpits Sunday by Sunday. I think you can see it does not give much time in a sermon for a discussion of trucks and protests. Surely you can see that given our mandate it is beneath the dignity of the Christian pulpit to dispense self-help advice or to throw around ideas on how to make the world a better place or discuss politics.
We are not called by God, in my judgement, to be historians or scientists or psychologists although we may use history and science and psychology as illustrations of these great themes. We are not even called to be comedians. Certainly, there is a place for humor in the pulpit. Jesus told jokes but that was not his focus. Nor should it be ours.
We are called to declare the whole council of God. To make clear these seven major themes of Divine Revelation.
And when I look at this sermon Jesus gave here in Luke 6 it is not hard to find some of these seven great themes. Not all of them but some of them. Even Jesus couldn’t preach everything at once!
But Jesus certainly taught about the doctrine of God. We learn a lot about what God is like in this passage. Remember Jesus was God come in the flesh. Before Jesus Christ began his sermon, he reached out the hurting, the sick, the oppressed. He healed them all verse 19 says. You want to know how God feels about your pain, you wonder if God is concerned about the demonic hold drugs have on so many in our province, just read these words and see what Jesus does.
Jesus also touches in this sermon on how his followers are to behave. He teaches Christian Ethics. How are we supposed to handle money? How are we supposed to react to people who hurt us? What are we supposed to do when we meet a homeless person?
The answers are all there in this sermon. Mark Twain once said that it wasn’t the parts of the Bible, he didn’t understand that troubled him but the parts that he did understand. This is a very troubling sermon, and it is not troubling because we don’t understand it. It’s because we do understand it and don’t obey it.
Jesus concludes this sermon with a story. I had a man come to me one time early in my ministry and say: don’t tell stories in your sermons. Just stick to the Bible. Well, this man must not have read the Sermon on the Mount or the Sermon on the Level. Both sermons end with the same story. It’s the story about two guys who build two homes. One house on the rock and the other on the sand. Jesus was talking about the doctrine of Last Things. Jesus ends up these two sermons with the Doctrine of Last Things.
This life is not all there is. Judgment Day is coming. Therefore, in this life, it is important that we pay heed to our Lord’s teachings and these great themes of the Bible.
Holy Father, thank you for your Revelation to us in your creation, thank you for your Revelation in the Bible, but most of all thank you for your Revelation in your only begotten son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Help us to remember what is important in life. Help us not to get distracted on things that wouldn’t matter at all in 100 years. Help us in this church to focus on Jesus.
