Sermon Tone Analysis

Which is faster, hot or cold?

Hot because you can catch a cold.

I’ve been reading a book, how to climb a ladder, well its more of a step-by-step guide.

Jesus is the Lamb of God.

There are a couple of things the Jews reading this letter would have remembered hearing this term Lamb of God… First they would have remembered Abraham’s words in Gen 22:7-8

And they would have remembered the words of Isaiah 53:6

But it goes even deeper than that....

Lets talk about why this idea of the Lamb of god is important, and I think there are four reasons why

B. The second thing about this picture of the lamb is it will be a picture of the blood of Jesus which will redeem us.

We can see historically in Ex twenty 9:38-39 that typically two lambs were sacrificed day by day for the sins of the people.

One in the morning and one in the evening.

They were killed as a substitute for the people, because the people knew that their sin had seperated them from God and their sins had to be removed from them to be reconciled the animals were to be without blemish, without spot, and they had the sins of the peopel placed upon them, and symbolically they bore the judgment of sin which was indeed death.

They were sacrificed and by their death they symbolically set the people free by redeeming their sins.

And it was not the deed that caused God to remove their sins, but the faith in Gods word that he WOULD do so )

One of the questions of the Old Testament is where is the Lamb that would take away all of their sin, they were aware that no animal could take the place of a human so they would have asked the priests where they true lamb was to take away all of their sins...

So as a picture of CHrist we see Jesus is:

the perfect Lamb ofGod, without sin, spot or blemish

The one upon who the sins of hte people would be placed

The one who bore judgment for sin, which was death

the one who sacrificed for sin

teh one whose death sets people free by redeeming them

the one whose blood is counted precious by both God and believers

We must realize also that Christ willingly offered himself as the sacrificial lamb and our substitute, and God willingly accepted the offering and sacrifice of his Son for his sins

A. Jesus as the Lamb was a picture of the passover for the Jewish people.

Lets talk about that… Passover explanation

Ex 11.

God was going to judge Egypt, and gave instructions to kill a pure lamb and sprinkle its blood on the doorposts of the home.

The blood was then a sign to the incoming judgment that the price had already been paid for those in the home, and they would be spared.

He would PASSOVER the homes with on the doorposts, those who didn’t their first born would not be spared and God would take the life.

And you have to realize these Jewish people would have FELT this statement… not just heard and recognized but it would have hit them on a different level.\

And what we can see from that is even the passover was going to point forward to the life of Jesus.

While they didnt yet see it what we know is it was showing us how Jesus blood spared for the life of the believer and would cover their sins.

and what we see from this that it was the blood that saved the people.

The lamb was sacrificed, so its blood was a substitute for the people.

Thus we must apply the blood of Christ to our lives for us to be saved… You have no other way, we must apply it to our hearts and our lives for us to be able to make it and have our lives substituted through his.

C. The lamb of God is not of men but of God.

The thing here is the lamb BELONGS to God.

How beautiful is this , God gave and supplied and provided the sacrficed.

and this says so much about god...

His unbelievable love of man

how great the sacrifice and humiliation was that Christ suffered for us

the forgiveness of sins and salvation which came from Gods grace and not from mans resources and works

the deity of Christ he was OF GOD.

d.

The lamb of God takes away the sin of the world

THis idea of the word WORLD would have been controversial to the jews as well, because he is telling them its not just for the Jews, but its for everyone

the phrase takes away is airon means to lift away to carry off.

It means to bear in behalf of one, as one’s substitute.

Jesus christ was the sacrificial lamb of God who lifted our sins off of us, and bore them and carried them away

The word sin harmatian is singular, not plural.

All the sins of the world are taken and placed into one package.

The whole package of sin - all sin of every man who has ever lived was laid upon Jesus.

the world was look at as a whole… Christ bore the sins of US ALL… nto just some....

2.Jesus is the preeminent One

Jon said he was before me… he existed before me....

Much like JTB we must:

declare christ is before all

believe God’s promiose the messiah has come

act and get about the mission of proclaiming christ

3. Jesus is the one whom the spirit of God remained on

We must be like John and bear witness to the light

His witness was a verbal witness, we must have a verbal witness.

We tend to think we can do it without speaking,

My neighbors will know I am a christian by the way I mow my yard.

but even if we are trying to honor god with our lives and the way we are living, it should always lead to a conversation about who Jesus is and what he can do for us.

IF we are going to witness verbally we need to know the message… and that message is the one that John is sharing with us… know your testimony

The dove was a sacred bird to the Jews.

It was a symbol of peace and gentleness. of purity and innocence.

The dove was also identified with the spirit of God.

The dove descended upon Christ.

IT symbolized the spirit of God himself descending upon Christ.

The dove was to identify Jesus as Messiah and show the Power of God was upon him.

In the old testament the spirit of God came upon men only on special occasions.

He never remained on them.

John went out of his way top point out that hte spirits descent upon Christ was unique He rested on and remained on Jesus.

IT was the holy spirit entering the life of Jesus once and for all permanently and powerfully in a full manifestation of unlimited power

John shows us he didnt It would be his cousin, but the dove descending on him was the sign of who he was.

Jesus is the one who baptizes us into the spirit

4. Christ is the First Born Son of God

This is the definite article.

THE son of God… not A son of GOd but THE

later we will see he is the oly begotten son and over and over again throughout the scriptures Jesus refers to God as his Father.

THis lines up with the book of Acts

Lines up with Pauls writings

Peters writings

and John in revelation and his epistles

Church, we must realize first and foremost that Jesus is the one that bore our sins and inequites and sets us right with God, and they we must be willing to witness to that.