Sermon Tone Analysis

Overall tone of the sermon

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Anger
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Joy
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Confident
Tentative
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Anger
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"In The Wilderness of Temptation"
(Mark 1:9-15)
*INTRODUCTION:*
            I had the strangest dream the other night.
I found myself standing at the gates of heaven talking to St. Peter.
I thought, /"Oh, man, there's still a bunch of stuff I haven't done yet."/
St.
Peter grinned and said, /"Don't worry, you're just here for a guided tour."/
And sure enough that's all it was.
St.
Peter took me around showing me all the sights.
The streets really are paved with gold.
Everything was more beautiful than I could ever describe.
But there was one really strange aspect about heaven.
Everywhere you looked there were clocks.
They were all different.
Some were huge old grandfather clocks, some were small mantle style clocks.
There were modern, post modern and antique clocks.
I've never seen so many clocks or so many styles of clocks.
Then as I was looking at the clocks, I noticed something else.
Each clock had a solid gold name plate on it.
And on each name plate was the name of some person.
I looked and sure enough, I found names of people I knew.
My mom and Dad, Mary, Joshua, my old  High School buddies.
I even found most of your clocks and name tags, all except for Marcus Stewart.
Marcus Stewart's Clock just wasn't anywhere in sight.
The other strange thing was that each of the clocks was keeping a different time.
Some of them were keeping regular time, some were a little slow or a little fast.
I saw Kirby Stewart's and it was stuck on the time of her birth while others were going extremely fast.
It was odd so I asked St. Peter about it.
In my dream he told me that the clocks were actually sin  meters.
For every sin that was committed, the minute hand moved forward.
That's why some were slow and some were fast.
Everywhere St. Peter lead me I could see clocks with people's names on them.
I found Chuck Boggess', Tommy Spinks' and Ken Adair's all together and they were running pretty fast.
Tommy's was about an six and a half hours ahead of everybody else's.
But I still couldn't find Marcus Stewart's clock.
I looked and I looked everywhere we went but still no clock with Marcus Stewart's name on it.
St.
Peter showed me the Book of Life, where everybody's  name is listed and Marcus Stewart's name was there, but I couldn't find Marcus Stewart's clock anywhere.
Finally, my curiosity got  the better of me and I asked St. Peter about Marcus Stewart's clock.
St. Peter looked at me and said, /"Marcus Stewart?
Oh, yeah, we keep Marcus Stewart's clock in office.
We use it for fan." /
*            *It was very tempting to go on and on, especially when talking about someone else's  sin.
I know Marcus is a good sport, besides, his father bought the Certificate I put together for F-4, about *"The Name Of Your Choice used in a sermon 10 times" *and since Wednesday is Marcus' birthday his father and I thought it appropriate to use this day.
Of course the point of the illustration is that none of us are perfect.
It really is as Scripture says in Romans 3:23, /"/*ALL*/ have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." /All that is, except one, Jesus the Son of God.
*I.
JESUS WAS TEMPTED:*
*            A.
*Jesus never sinned but that doesn't mean he wasn't tempted.
That's what this passage is all about.
After his baptism by John, Jesus went into the Judean Wilderness where he was tempted for forty days and forty nights.
That's sort of the Biblical way of saying we really don't know how long but it was a real long time.
Mark says that the Spirit drove Jesus into the desert.
One time, after reading this passage, one little boy wanted to know what kind  of car they were driving when the Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness.
And then he asked, is that what it means when we pray, /"The Lord is my chauffeur, I shall not walk?"/
The driving here was an inner compelling.
Jesus was compelled to go into to Judean wilderness, out amongst the wild beasts, without food or shelter and wrestle with how he was going to carry out God's mission.
He knew what needed to be done, but he had to decide to do it.
He had to/ "set his face to go to Jerusalem"/ as the Gospel of  Luke says.
*B.
*Jesus wrestled with the hows and the whys of his earthly ministry.
He was tempted to take short cuts and to do it his way and not God's way.
God said, /"Take my love to these people.
Show them how much I love them.
Love them yourself, love them until you die for them.
Conquer these loveless people with this love  undeserved, unselfish love even if you have to die on cross."
/
/            /The temptation was to take the short cut, to use his miraculous powers and wow the people into loving him or to bow down to Satan and not die for the cause And even worse, he was tempted to put God's faith in him and God's plan to the test.
He was tempted to test God's faithfulness.
*II.
TEMPTATIONS IS REAL:*
*            A.
*A number of people don't like this passage.
They're uncomfortable with Jesus, the Son of God being tempted and tested.
They say it was all symbolic and that Jesus wasn't really tempted.
But scripture contends differently.
It says that Jesus was tempted in every way like we are.
The temptations were physical, mental and spiritual.
Through the temptations, Jesus had first hand experience of what our lives are like and the temptations we face.
For me, it is comforting to know that someone has been through the same thing we're going through.
That's what support groups are all about.
There is real solidarity and strength when you find out that others have the same problems as you.
You don't feel so cut off and alone.
You are strengthened for the long haul.
You are encouraged by those who have gone through what your are currently going through.
They give you help and advice.
They stand by your side.
Sometimes they even hold you up.
We need that extra strength because temptation is very real.
It doesn't tempt us with what is ugly, instead it tempts us with something which we would think is delightful.
What would be the sense in tempting us with something that we wouldn't do.
It touches those nerves of the things we might do or that we've thought about doing.
For example, Hagar, that Viking from the comics and his best friend, Fast Eddie are walking along being followed by Hagar's arch enemy, Mean Max.
Mean Max is hollering out things like: /"Roast Pork, Potato Pancakes, Candied yams, Sticky Buns, Dumplings, Blueberry Pie, Fried Rice."/
Hagar has this look of desperation on his face as he says, /"I'd love to know who told Mean Max I'm on a diet!"/ (1)
            Temptation is just like Mean Max.
It never really touches you, it never really assaults you, it just follows you where ever you go, filling you with ideas of all the things you know you shouldn't want or crave.
There is something we need to understand about the power of temptation, the more we give in, the weaker we become.
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