Sermon Tone Analysis

! Introduction

            This week I heard on the radio that Sidney Crosby is already on the front cover of some magazine and already has product endorsements.

I suspect he is on his way, young as he is, to becoming famous like Lemieux and Gretzky.

There are many people whose names we recognize because they are famous.

Most of us have heard of Alexander the Great, Hitler, Ghandi and many others.

Of all the famous people in history, I wonder who is the most famous.

Whose name is known by the most people?

I wonder if it would be Jesus?

Another famous person, probably well known mostly in Canada, is Terry Fox.

Last week, we were reminded again of what he accomplished when they held the Terry Fox run.

What he did lives on as people continue to raise funds for cancer research in his name.

In a much more significant way, what Jesus did lives on as we celebrate the four great festivals of the Christian year(Christmas, Good Friday, Easter and Ascension Day).

These four festivals remind us of the four great events of Jesus life and each one of them tells us about who Jesus is and what He has done for us.

Because we celebrate these festivals (except Ascension) so much, we know a lot about Jesus.

But the truth we know about Jesus has not always been that obvious.

Over the millennia, many different beliefs have arisen regarding Jesus.

In the early centuries of the church, the Docetics, taught that Jesus was fully God and his appearance as a man was not real, it was simply an appearance.

In other words, Jesus was not fully a man.

On the other side, during this same time, the Ebionites believed that Jesus was a man who was adopted into the Godhead by the descent of the Spirit.

In other words, they believed that Jesus was not fully God.

In 1929 and 1930 Robert Eisler published, in German, two volumes entitled Jesus the King Who Did Not Reign.

He argued that Jesus was a revolutionary whose campaign against Rome failed.

I have read material that comes from the last few hundred years in which writers have proclaimed their understanding that Jesus did not actually rise from the dead.

Over against these and other teachings, we as members of the Evangelical Mennonite Church have searched the Scripture and have declared what we believe about Jesus.

Our Confession of Faith indicates that *“We believe that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God.

He became man, being conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.

He is fully God and fully man, yet without sin.*

*“We believe that Jesus Christ, the divinely appointed Substitute, provided the only atonement for sin by shedding His blood.

Through his death he defeated the Devil, enabling people to be set free and to be reconciled to God.

He arose from the dead, bringing life and hope.

He ascended to the right hand of the Father.

There He rules as Lord and lives to intercede for those who come to God by Him (Isaiah 7:14; 53:5, 6; Matthew 1:20-23; 28:5; Luke 1:35; John 1:1, 14; Romans 1:4; 5:8-10; 6:2-4; I Corinthians 15:20; II Corinthians 5:21; Ephesians 2:4, 5; Colossians 2:15; Hebrews 2:9, 10, 14; 7:25).”*

It is important to know and believe the truth about Jesus because our salvation depends on it, but probably for most of us these things are so fundamental that we don’t really question them.

We have celebrated the festivals about Jesus so often and have been taught these truths so well that there is nothing really new here.

But is it really about what we know?

Is knowledge about Jesus, grasping the truth of Jesus all there is?

In a conversation with a person from our church this week, I was encouraged to realize once again that knowing these truths isn’t enough, what we really need is a passion for Jesus.

Has our heart grasped the wonder of His amazing work for us to the point that we are deeply in love with Jesus?

Why does the life and work of Jesus draw us into a passion for Him?

Let us look at the four truths which are celebrated in the four great festivals of Christianity in order to be drawn once again to have a passion for Jesus.

!

I.     Because In Jesus, God Became A Man

Our confession says: “We believe that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God.

He became man, being conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.

He is fully God and fully man, yet without sin.”

This is the truth which we celebrate at Christmas.

In it we are taught some important truths about Jesus.

The essence of it is incarnation which means that God became a human being.

It reminds us that Jesus Christ, the second person of the Triune God came into this earth.

The way in which He came was through the work of the Holy Spirit who caused Him to be conceived in a human mother, Mary, who, at the time, was a virgin.

The aspects of this truth that are important are that Jesus was fully God and became fully man, yet as man he never sinned and so was the perfect man.

We understand these truths to be Scriptural.

A number of the verses which are listed with the confession of faith speak about these things.

I would like to highlight just a few.

John 1:1 reminds us that Jesus is fully God.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Matthew 1:20-23 is one of the passages which tells us how God became a human being in Christ.

“But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.”

Whenever we walk through a mall in December, we hear these truths sung.

But for most people and often for us, they go in one ear and out the other.

John 1:14 reminds us why this is such an amazing truth and why this truth must draw us to a passion for Jesus.

There we read, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

When Moses received the law, he carried with him the glory which came from being in the presence of God.

It was so amazing that the people could not stand it and Moses had to wear a veil over his face.

How much more amazing to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ!

How awesome to realize that God left the glories of heaven so that He could come to be with us!

How wonderful to understand that in Jesus, God’s love has been poured out into the whole world.

We have seen the face of God, it is the face of Jesus and it is a face of love.

MASH; boy drowning; child in pig barn?

As we contemplate the wonder of that reality, we cannot let it go as an interesting truth.

We must let it stir our hearts to a passion for Jesus.

Do you love Him because He came from heaven to earth?

!

II.

Because Jesus Died In Our Place

The second great Christian celebration is Good Friday which reminds us of the death of Christ on the cross.

Our confession of faith declares this truth when it says, “We believe that Jesus Christ, the divinely appointed Substitute, provided the only atonement for sin by shedding His blood.

Through his death he defeated the Devil, enabling people to be set free and to be reconciled to God.”

What wonderful truths we find here.

The message of the gospel is that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Since all have sinned and since “the wages of sin is death” we are all under condemnation.

Our confession indicates that Jesus is the “substitute” who took our place.

The wrath of God fell fully on Jesus so that our sins could be forgiven.

Revelation 12 has a cartoon like picture of cosmic proportions which speaks about an enormous red dragon and a woman who has a child.

The picture in that passage reminds us that something of world wide significance happened when Jesus died on the cross.

In a daring and amazing move it was through death that Jesus defeated the devil.

He destroyed the kingdom of evil and established in its place the kingdom of righteousness.

As a result we are given the possibility of being freed from the kingdom which has held sway in our world and which is marred by sin and ends in death.

Instead, we are able, through faith in Jesus to leave that kingdom and come into the kingdom in which we can have friendship with God, leave our life of sin and enter into life which is eternal.

These are also amazing truths and truths which are well supported by Scripture.

Once again the confession of faith identifies a number of Bible passages which clarify these things.

Isaiah 53:5, 6 is one of the most amazing, not only for its clarity, but for the fact that it was written long before Jesus was even born.

It says, “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Romans 5:8-10 is a wonderful explanation of the love of God demonstrated in Christ’s death.

We read, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!

For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!”

Colossians 2:15 is another of the passages which remind us of the cosmic victory which has taken place in Christ when it says, “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”

James S. Hewett tells the following illustration, “Billions of people were scattered on a great plain before God's throne.

Some of the groups near the front talked heatedly--not with cringing shame, but with belligerence.