Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.07UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.06UNLIKELY
Fear
0.11UNLIKELY
Joy
0.69LIKELY
Sadness
0.2UNLIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.55LIKELY
Confident
0.25UNLIKELY
Tentative
0UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.89LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.89LIKELY
Extraversion
0.28UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.85LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.79LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Last week we began a series on the Book of Matthew.
My message pointed to Jesus as the Messiah.
It is important that we understand Jesus as being the Messiah.
Today we will be reading Matthew chapter 3.
This is what starts the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.
About 20 years have past since we last heard about Jesus.
This is the last story we know about Jesus until His adult ministry starts.
When Jesus begins his adult ministry he is about 30 years old.
Think about something new for a moment.
It’s exciting when you get something new, right?
Christmas happened less than a month ago.
Some of you are still enjoying your new things that you received during Christmas.
That newness hasn’t wore off yet.
You’re still showing your friends the new items you received.
If there was something you didn’t like you probably have already taken it back to the store.
The truth is we all like something new.
We like new beginnings.
Do you remember when you first started dating your spouse?
Do you remember when you got your new car?
Do you remember when you bought your house?
Kelly and I have had the privilege of building two new homes.
Our current home, I remember building and the anticipation of when we would get to move in.
We were so excited and then moving day came.
We had friends and family help us move.
It was exciting.
We have now lived in that house almost 9 years.
God has blessed us.
We enjoy our home and the blessings that those beginnings brought to us almost 9 years ago.
The beginning of Jesus’ ministry was the beginning of something special.
There was something brewing and it started with a man that wasn’t Jesus.
His name was John the Baptist and he actually was a distant cousin of Jesus.
Go with me to chapter 3 of Matthew.
John the Baptist was a strange man.
He was someone that liked to stir things up.
The religious leaders had been cruising along thinking all their religious stuff was the way they should be until this man John came stirring things up.
Matthew is quick to point out that John was the one prophesied about in Isaiah.
John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair.
He ate honey and locusts.
That’s a new diet trend we can start.
The John the Baptist diet.
All you can eat buffet of locust and honey.
Grab you some locust from the fields and drizzle some honey on it.
And John’s message was simple, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
And people were flocking to his message they were coming and repenting of their sins and John was baptizing them in the Jordan River.
That is how he gets the name John the Baptist.
Word is spreading around about this John the Baptist guy.
It gets back to the religious leaders and they decide to come check it out and apparently this sets off John and he tells them how it is.
Look at verse 7.
John sets the religious leaders straight.
He basically lets them know, don’t think that because you are religious leaders that you are exempt from this.
He tells them just because they come from Abraham doesn’t mean a thing.
What matters is there life.
He tells this baptising thing isn’t for funnsies either.
I like how the message puts verse 11.
And all this happens before Jesus comes on the scene.
John is setting everything up.
He is getting everyone ready for the man that is going to change the world.
He is preparing the way for a man that John says, “whose sandals, I am not worthy to carry.”
John knew that the Messiah would be coming after him.
Although John was the first genuine prophet in four hundred years, Jesus the Messiah would be infinitely greater than he.
John points out how insignificant he was compared to the one who would come.
Remember what John would say later in John 3:30
What John began, Jesus finished.
What John prepared, Jesus fulfilled.
And then in verse 13, Jesus arrives.
Everything that John had been doing to that point was preparing the way for something greater.
Jesus is that someone greater.
Look at verse 13.
John didn’t feel worthy to baptize Jesus, but Jesus assured him that it had to be this way.
So, why did Jesus have to be baptized?
Here are three reasons this morning.
1.
To Fulfill All Righteousness
By Christ being baptized He is making a public statement that He was set apart for God’s purposes and He is prepared to fulfill all of God’s requirements.
2. To Identify Himself with Sinners
To be clear here, I am not telling you that Jesus sinned.
Jesus never sinned.
He did not need to repent.
He did not need to make a change in his life.
He was perfect.
But He was setting an example for us to follow.
3. To Associate Himself with the Repentance Movement
This new movement of calling people to repentance started with John the Baptist.
Jesus was beginning His ministry by continuing John the Baptist repentance message.
Jesus wanted people to see that this was the message that He was following.
If you want to know why you should be baptized, this is it.
You need to follow the example of Jesus and be baptized.
Water baptism is a representation of you leaving the old life behind in the water and coming up and starting a new life.
What happened to Jesus when He came out of the water.
Look at verse 16 again.
Everything Jesus did, his preaching, his healings, his suffering, his victory over sin and Satan’s power, he did by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Even though He was fully God, He willingly laid aside and limited His rights and privileges as God.
In becoming fully human, He had to operate the same way we must, as people dependent on God’s Holy Spirit.
If Jesus could do nothing apart from the power of the Holy Spirit, how much more do we need the Spirit’s power.
The Spirit equipped and worked powerfully through Jesus to accomplish God’s plan of restoring HIs relationship with all people.
Jesus Himself would later baptize His followers with the Holy Spirit so that they too might have the Spirit’s power to accomplish His purposes for them.
The last thing I want to show you about Matthew 3 is the picture of the trinity that we get here.
Look at verses 16 and 17 again.
Jesus’ baptism is an extraordinary revelation in that it gives a unique picture of the Trinity, the fact that the one true God exists in three distinct, interrelated, unified persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Look at the verses I just read to you.
First of all, Jesus is the one being baptised in water.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9