Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

Today will be a continuation from last week, part 2 with A Celebration of Jesus, the Christ.

Last week, we saw Jesus and celebrated Him as an extraordinary Person in John 1:1-5.

This week we will celebrate Jesus with His extraordinary mission and continue in John starting at verse 14.

Our passage John 1:14-18

Scripture Reading:

All of that is descriptive of the mission of Jesus, a reason to celebrate our Lord, Jesus, and the pattern to imitate in the 21 century.

That's where I want to park for just the next few moments.

The celebration of Jesus, the Christ, not only an extraordinary Being, but an extraordinary mission.

And it is preparation for this mission to justify the existence of Grace Baptist Church--it is what Grace has been all about for over a couple decades now.

Preparation for this mission-- the equipping of a whole new generation of Gospel communicators and Good News ambassadors who will imitate the mission of our Lord Jesus boldly and unashamedly is what our church is all about-- what good biblically shaped men and women throughout our area are all about.

Christ mission is in many ways the model for ours.

In John 1:14-18, with the use of the most eloquent language possible, theologically rich verbiage, John explains precisely what Jesus Christ has done for us--His extraordinary mission.

It made an incredible definition of the sacrificial investment which Jesus Christ has made in each one of us, and it's something that all of us should learn to imitate in behalf of others.

Our mission should be a mirror of His.

Transition:

So what does this mission look like?

To accomplish this redemptive mission, Jesus Christ was willing to take multiple sacrificial steps.

Each of them is a reason to celebrate Him all the more, and each of them as a pattern for you and me to imitate in our lives, and our ministries.

What are the steps?that's my outline--these multiple sacrificial steps

I.

He Renounced Comfort

“The Word became flesh”

The Bible says the word was made flesh.

The distance between these 2 extremes: the Word and flesh.

This monumental incident, if you will, Here's the word: “In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the word was God” and He became flesh the distance between these 2 extremes is monumental, monumental.

Jesus as God becoming man is the dual nature-- theanthropic--the God/Man Jesus.

He voluntarily gave up the divine-only nature to take on the human nature, flesh sarks.

This flesh word refers here to physical human life.

Jesus is the God/Man.Partakes of the fullness of deity--He's the Word--and the fullness of humanity--He is flesh.

Flesh is inherently frail woven from dust and destined to return to the dust, and limited by time and space.

Jesus entered into that.

Before He was flesh, before the incarnation there was no dust to Him.

There were no limitations, and at that moment there was no death for Him.

But now the word was made flesh.

He sacrificed being pure spirit.

YHWH is always spirit.

He sacrifice being the purest Spirit for being made of human flesh.

He was no longer God with God exclusively.

He was God with us sacrificially and redemptively.

Clearly this was a move which took Jesus far outside of His “comfort zone”.

That's how you get ministry done.

Jesus did not remain in the safe community of heaven--gated from the difficult people.

Remote from human skin and suffering, remote from human tragedy and trauma, remote from human anguish.

He didn't remain in the safety and the immunity of heaven.

Instead, He took our nature.

He lived our life.

He got inside our skin and looked out for our eyes.

He endured our temptations, He experience our sorrows.

He was a Man, the Man of sorrows and familiar with grief.

He felt our hurts, He bore our sins which means He suffered the consequences of the the guilt of them.

The punishment fell upon Him.

He bore our sins and died our death.

What was he doing exactlyHe was penetrating deeply and authentically into our humanness by getting down deep inside our flesh-- the Word was made flesh.

He was made man--He was made dust.

He was made human in order that He might live and die to redeem us.

It was not simply a momentary visitation, rather it is permanent incarnation--even in his ascended setting.

According to 1 Timothy 2:5

He is still the Man, Christ Jesus

The Creator assumes the human frailty of His creatures.

The eternal one entered time.

The all powerful made Himself vulnerable-- made Himself crucify-able.

The all Holy exposed Himself to evil temptation, and in the end the immortal, the deathless one--we are mortal, subject to death--He's immortal not subject to death in the end the Immortal, the deathless One died.

All of this as a part of the rescue operation--His redemptive mission.

For me, this is the shape that all authentic missions and ministry takes.

What shape does it take?

All authentic ministry and mission always moves us outside our comfort zone.

It has to be patterned after Christ’s.

Even Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” and that's more than a statement of fact, it is the supply of a pattern: in the same way as the Father sent me in that very same way I send you.

John 17:18 before His death & chapter 20:21 after the Resurrection.

Jesus not only entered our world, but He also entered our flesh--He fully identified with us in our humanness without succumbing to our sinfulness.

In identifying with us in our humanness, He was expressing His great love for us.

In refusing to succumb to our sinfulness, He was expressing His holiness before us.

He left the comforts and the glories of heaven for the pain and the anguish of earth, voluntarily leaving behind the comfort zone and entering into an alien and hostile and sinful world as a part of the rescue operation--this is agape!

Unself-centered, self-sacrificial love--I celebrate Christ's love for me, and for you, and for all of humanity.

And I aspire to love Him in the very same way, yet I don't do it perfectly -- I can't do it quite like He did it, but I aspire to have that heart.

Not many contemporary Christians, by the way, are into renouncing comfort.

An article found in the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2002 that first showed up in the Los Angeles time and was repented in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

About one of George Barna’s polls.

It describes the condition of much of contemporary Christianity.

I won't bore you with all the details, I'll give just 3 or 4 examples of what he says because the divorce rate is no different for born again Christians than for those who do not consider themselves religious.

He says, “only a minority of born-again adults adults-- 44% of them, and a tiny proportion of born-again teenagers-- only 9% of them--are certain that absolute moral truth exists.

56% of born-again adults, 91 percent of born-again teenagers doubt that absolute moral truth exists.

The poll demonstrated that most Christians’ votes are influenced more by economic self-interests than by spiritual and moral values, “will it improve my bank account?

that's the one I'll vote for!” the most disturbing one to me was this: “desiring to have a close personal relationship with God” ranks 6 among the 21 life goals tested among born-again Christians, and “desiring to have a close personal relationship with God” trails such desires as living a comfortable lifestyle.

So many contemporary Christians are not into renouncing comfort, yet Jesus, the Christ was.

And that's why we sit here today as the people of God with our sins fully forgiven--redeemed--and on our way to an eternal Heaven.

Transition:

Now there's a second sacrificial step the Jesus took: He not only renounce comfort, He befriended sinners.

II.

He Befriended Sinners

“and dwelt among us”

Not only was the Word made flesh, the Bible says He dwelt among us--He befriended sinners! this powerful expression “dwelt” it's a powerful expression it means to dwell in a tent with someone.

The tent of course was the dwelling place of YHWH on earth in the Old Testament.

He dwelt in a tabernacle.

His visible presence was there, so when the Word became flesh, that with the tent in which he dwelt.

When the Word became flesh--the glorious presence of God--was embodied.

In the flesh, our Lord, Jesus the Christ-- for He is the true Shekinah, the true “dwelling glory of YHWH.”

I think it means something else in middle eastern culture.

To enter a person's tent was to be accorded the privilege of momentary membership into his family.