Sermon Tone Analysis

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! Introduction
            At the beginning of this year when we began to write 2000, I thought about what the defining event of the year, the decade, the century and the millenium might have been.
I thought that perhaps the proliferation of computer use was the defining event of the decade; the communist revolution the defining event of the century and the industrial revolution, the defining event of the millenium.
You may not agree with me on this, but I am sure that you will agree that the defining event of all of human history is the coming, death, resurrection and reign of Jesus Christ.
In the 50 day spiritual adventure, you have been examining Jesus Christ who is the central figure of all human history.
I have heard of the 50 day spiritual adventure, but I have never participated in it.
What a marvelous adventure.
I commend you for pursuing such a worthy goal as trying to get to know Jesus Christ better.
There is no activity that is more worthwhile than that.
This morning, we will look further at Jesus and why he is the most significant person in all of human history.
We will think about why he is worthy of our praise, our obedience and our love.
Have you ever watched a swallow build a nest on your house?
No matter how many times you knock it down, they continue to build, if not in one location, then in another.
They have such a drive to nest that they keep at the task until they have nested and raised their brood.
Now as much as it is annoying to have swallows on your house, you have to admire their persistence in accomplishing their task.
One year when we flew home from my mother’s place in Phoenix, Arizona, we flew in a 747.
As we flew I was amazed that such a large plane could stay up in the air.
Just 110 yeas ago, in 1890, French engineer Clément Ader built a steam-powered airplane and made the first actual flight of a piloted, heavier-than-air craft.
However, the flight was not sustained, and the airplane brushed the ground over a distance of about 50 m.
For that reason, we are more familiar with Orville Wright who at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903, made the first successful flight of a piloted, heavier-than-air, self-propelled craft called the Flyer.
That first flight traveled a distance of about 37 m.
We admire the determination of such men who persisted in striving for the goal of being able to fly so that now 100 years later flight is almost something we take for granted and is  safe, comfortable and fast.
They probably failed many times, but eventually persevered and eventually succeeded.
We admire persistence especially when it follows failure or continues in spite of difficulties.
How much more ought we to admire Jesus who accomplished the greatest task on earth, the most needed task ever and accomplished it through great difficulty.
As we consider this thought, we want to worship Jesus and we want to consider what He means to us today.
!
I.
The Mission Of Jesus
            Although there are some people who believe that Jesus’ life and death were the result of a series of accidents, the Bible is quite clear that He came to this world with a purpose and through great difficulty accomplished that purpose.
!! A. Sense of God’s sending
            You have heard it said that if you aim at nothing, you are sure to hit it.
When Jesus came to this earth, he did not come aiming at nothing.
He had a clear sense of mission.
He knew that He had been sent by the Father.
Already early in the gospel of John, he declares this sense of mission.
While waiting for the woman at the well to bring the people out of the city of Samaria, Jesus said to his disciples in John 4:34, “My food…is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”
This sense of a mission was not only something that appears once, but is presented throughout the gospels.
Especially in the gospel of John this idea appears in at least 14 verses.
!! B. The Task He Was Sent To Accomplish
            What was the mission Jesus came to accomplish?
            Shakespeare’s Macbeth is about the inner consequences of evil.
Macbeth, at the urging of Lady Macbeth, murders Duncan, the king of Scotland in hopes that he can take the throne.
Afterwards, he and Lady Macbeth are destroyed by their own guilt.
In Act 5, Scene 1, Lady Macbeth is so overcome with guilt because of the murder that she has a nightmare in which she tries to wash the blood off of her hands.
The physician who observes this scene says, accurately, that she does not need a physician, but a clergyman.
She needs God’s forgiveness.
Macbeth, however, is not merely about some specific evil and the guilt for it.
It is about our own evil and the sense of guilt we have.
All of us are filled with guilt because we know that we have done things wrong.
I read somewhere that many people have a general sense of guilt about nothing in particular.
The guilt is not there for nothing because we are all guilty before God.
The mission Jesus came to accomplish was to remove our guilt and set us free.
Paul puts it this way in I Timothy 1:15 where we read, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”
I heard on the radio the other day that there are people who have a problem with addiction to prescription drugs.
For example, one lady took 50 pain killers a day.
We may not be addicted to alcohol, smoking or even prescription drugs, but every person on earth is addicted to sin.
We sin and we seem to have no power to overcome sin.
The mission Jesus came to accomplish was to remove the power of sin so that we do not have to live in its bondage anymore.
This past week, we were visiting with my uncle, my dad’s brother, who is visiting from Russia.
His son and daughter-in-law and his sister live here and he and his wife came to visit them.
When he showed us on the map where he lived, I noticed that it was not very far away from Grozny.
He told us that it is about 100 km away from their home.
Then he added that the bombs from that conflict fly over their house.
How would you like to live in such a place?
However, even in the most peaceful place on earth, we still experience illness, conflict and  uncertainty.
The mission Jesus came to accomplish was to bring peace to people who live in a world at war.
I have met people who work all week so that they can earn enough money to have a drinking party on the weekend.
How sad to have a life that is so devoid of meaning.
There are many in our world whose life may be full of things, but who do not experience joy and significance.
The mission of Jesus was to bring us, as John 10:10 says, “abundant life.”
Life to the full.
Several years ago, a young fellow, a friend of ours, full of life and strength went up north to go hunting.
When he didn’t return, they began to look for him and after several days of searching, found his body floating in the lake on which they had been hunting.
He had died of exposure as the result of a boating accident.
I conducted the funeral together with another minister.
It was a sad time, but the sadness was significantly changed because we recognized that Jesus came to take away the sting of death and give us eternal life.
This is the mission Jesus came to accomplish - a mission to bring forgiveness, freedom, peace and abundant and eternal life to people who are lost in hopelessness.
Jesus came to bring what we need most.
!! C. Sense of the cross.
The road to the accomplishment of this task, however, was no easy road.
Jesus could not just dip into a fat bank account and write a check to buy a way out of these problems.
The road to the accomplishment of his mission led through the cross.
The Greek word for “necessary” is the small, three letter word, “dei.”
Even though small, it is very important for repeatedly in the gospels, Jesus uses this word to talk about what he had to do.
It is used each time he told his disciples that it was necessary for him to go to the cross.
In fact, there is a movement which occurs in each of the gospels, a constant movement towards the cross.
For example, if we trace it in Luke we learn first of all from Luke 9:22 that he announced to his disciples,  “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
Jesus awareness of the cross is evident in his conflict with those who wanted to destroy him.
We read in Luke 13:32,33, “Go tell that fox, ‘I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’
In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!”
Jesus saw beyond the cross to the great victory which was coming, but was aware that victory would not come before the cross.
In Luke 17:24,25 he says, “For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other.
But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.”
And as the final day approached he continued to move towards the cross.
As he awaited his betrayer he said to his disciples in Luke 22:37, “It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me.
Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.”
Jesus knew that he had come to die and moved steadily towards that goal.
! II.
The Difficulty Of Accomplishing His Mission
            Having a baby is a wonderful thing.
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