What did Jesus really preach?

Ask a pastor what topics he has preached on and you would likely get a long and varied list.

Within that list you would probably find that often when preachers taught on what Jesus Himself preached about, they may have focused on topics like loving God, loving others, and doing good of some kind.

Early in His Gospel, Matthew gives us a concise summary of just what it was that Jesus preached about. At least, so often that Matthew would describe in writing Jesus’ preaching like this:

“From then on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is nea‭‭r,’” Matthew‬ ‭4:17.

According to Matthew, primary content in Jesus’ preaching was a call to repentance. You might not have guessed that about Jesus since repentance isn’t the primary content in the preaching of many of today’s preachers. But it was so common in Jesus’ preaching that it’s the first thing Matthew mentions in summarizing the Lord’s sermons.

In that case, it might be wise for us to revisit the topic of repentance.

It’s actually easy to understand why repentance from sin would be so important to Jesus. It was sin that broke our relationship with God and sin that separates us from God. In that case, it would be of primary importance to Jesus that we repent (or turn from) our sins so that we could be reconciled to God.

Today’s theologians speak of two types of repentance – the repentance of attrition and the repentance of contrition.

Attrition is a shallow repentance that might lead to some outward change (often temporary) without any real inward change. Pastor Perry Greene tells the story of a little girl that demonstrates repentance of attrition:

A five-year-old girl was having one of those trouble-filled days with her mother. It seemed they spent the day arguing back and forth. Finally the mom had enough.

“Jenny, go sit in the corner, right now! Don’t get up until I tell you to!” the mother commanded.

Jenny went to the corner and sat down. In a few minutes she called back, “Mom, I am sitting down on the outside, but I am standing up on the inside!”

That’s the kind of “repentance” when we’re only sorry that we got caught in doing something we shouldn’t but we still, deep down inside, want to.

Then there’s the repentance of contrition which is when we are convicted of our sin by the Holy Spirit and experience genuine godly sorrow to the degree it moves us to repent or turn away from our sin and toward God. We see an example of this in Acts 2:37 when Peter was preaching and the people responded with contrition:

“Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what should we do?’”‭‭ Acts ‭2:37‬.

The Apostle Paul highlights why this repentance of contrition is so important:

“For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death,” 2 Corinthians‬ ‭7:10‬.

Jesus had a three-year ministry which included a lot of preaching.

What did He preach?

“Repent of your sins and turn to God …”

Jesus leaves no question that He means repentance of contrition.

Why did He preach this?

“… for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”

Sounds like a good message for the world today, doesn’t it?

How have you responded to Jesus’ message to repent from your sins and turn to God?

Scotty