Sermon Tone Analysis

*The Character of Jesus*

*December 19, 1999*

*Gospel of Mark*

* *

*Introduction:*

 

/"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"

The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.

(Luke 1:34-35 NIVUS)/

/ /

/ This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.

(Matthew 1:18 NIVUS)/

/ /

/ But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

(Matthew 1:20 NIVUS)/

 

          Mary was pregnant with the Holy Spirit.

The seed of God mixed with her seed and Jesus was both God and man.

He was 100% God and 100% man.

He could, and did, choose to exercise either prerogative at any time.

But they could not be incompatible.

Since God is holy, Jesus the man could not choose sin.

As a man he could be tempted, but as God he could never yield to it.

A similar process can begin to take place in us by faith in Jesus.

In a sense like Mary we become pregnant with the presence of the Holy Spirit who lives inside us so that we are holy and have power not to sin.

And we will ultimately be perfectly born through the new life of the Spirit into Christ-like-ness.

The Christ-child is born in us by faith.

We are able to become like him, although as yet imperfectly, because we still carry sin.

We will struggle with it the rest of our lives on earth until we get to heaven.

But we will be just as Jesus is when the time of our pregnancy is over.

That time of gestation may be different for each one of us, however, before we go through the labor of death into that holy crossing.

/Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.

But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.

(1 John 3:2-3 NIVUS)/

 

          Whenever a child is born, people invariably wonder whom the child will be like in personality.

Will he be like his mother or his father?

And whom will he look like?

I wonder what people thought about Jesus when he was born?

Do you think anyone wondered whether this child would reveal to them what God is like, since God was his father?

If I had to pick genetic predominance in a child whose mother was human and whose father was God, I'd pick God.

And if God is truly born in you by faith in Jesus, he will have his predominance in you too.

Once you are impregnated with the Holy Spirit by faith, you will come to full birth.

/For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-- (Ephesians 1:4-5 NIVUS)/

 

          And that brings me to another question.

What do you think is the clearest example that we are made in the image of God?

Of course, the answer is Jesus.

If God came in our image then certainly it must be true that we are created in his image like he says.

We look like God.

He looks like us even though he is far more perfect than we can totally imagine.

Perhaps he just chose to look like us, and that in itself is pretty inspiring.

But much of the resemblance stops there because we fell into sin and have been genetically and spiritually messed up ever since.

He didn't come just to look like us.

He came that we might return to what it is to be like him in character.

We needed to experience the pattern in order to fit the mold.

Man is Made in God's Image

 

/Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

(Genesis 1:26-27 NIVUS)/

 

/ A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man.

(1 Corinthians 11:7 NIVUS)/

 

Christ is God's Image

 

/ The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

(2 Corinthians 4:4 NIVUS)/

 

/ He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

(Colossians 1:15 NIVUS)/

 

Believers will be renewed in God's Image (to be like Christ)

 

/Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

(2 Corinthians 5:17 NIVUS)/

 

/and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

(Colossians 3:10 NIVUS)/

 

          Do you know what happens when we become engrossed in the faults of each other?

We become like each other more than ever because we continue to pour over those same character flaws that we don't like.

We ask ourselves, "Why, why, why, is so-and-so that way?"

And then after awhile we see that we have become like them because they are constantly on our minds.

God has given us the perfect model to worship.

It is enough to be like Jesus.

We must constantly pour over him.

And it is a delight because there is no flaw in him.

And we will grow in his likeness.

/Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.

The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; (Romans 8:5-6 NIVUS)/

 

Today I want us to get a picture from the Gospel of Mark of just what Jesus is like so that we can concentrate on him especially at this time of his two-thousandth birthday.

I have identified 25 character qualities from individual verses in Mark.

The points are from A to Y.

 

Why not A to Z you ask?

It just worked out that way.

But if we might surmise for a minute, we could say that the "Z" factor is missing from Jesus.

We could call that the sin factor.

It is a propensity we carry around in us because we are contaminated by sin.

But this propensity to sin is not in him.

We see this in his perfect character.

Let's take a look at it and concentrate on it so that we can be transformed by it and worship him because of it.

When we are wallowing in whatever pit we might be in, let us consider the acronym PIT: Positive Image Therapy.

That means that if we concentrate on Jesus, we will be transformed.

This is especially meaningful at this time of year when so many flaws in the character of so many people surfaces because of the rush of the season.

It seems that at the time we are supposed to be worshipping him, we are distracted by so many other things.

This is his time.

This is his party.

Let us devote our attention to him.

*          A.

Having a Sincere Concern for the Souls of Men (1:17)*

*          B.