Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
This past week during the storm I was amazed at the people who came out during the storm to help and to give.
Young man ferrying people into the shelter.
Why? Heard the call for help and I had to go.
Didn’t have much, didn’t have a truck, just a four-door Chevrolet Impala.
But he knew he must get out and do something.
Young man who rides his bike from Baytown because he knows he must work to pass out goods to the community.
There are times in our lives when we know we must do something.
I want us to look at one of these times in Jesus’ life.
Jesus’ ministry is in full swing.
He has just fed 4,000 people with plenty of food left over, healed a man who had been blind since birth, and the Pharisees as him for a sign!
Really?
The disciples have been witness to all this when jesus asks a question:
Mark 8:27-38
The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected and be killed.
I. Jesus could have avoided the cross but He did not.
He had the power to avoid it.
1.
He explicitly stated so in
2. If you had this kind of power would you ever voluntarily die?
: “No man taketh it [my life] from me, but I lay it down of myself.
I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.…”
2. If you had this kind of power would you ever voluntarily die?
If He had avoided it, He would not have realized the very purpose of His incarnation.
1. “The Word … was made flesh” ().
The Word, Jesus, who existed from the beginning became man. he put aside all the glory of Heaven and came to earth.
Why?
Because blood is in the flesh and without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sin ().
This was the premise behind the entire sacrificial system God have to israel.
Centuries of practice should have prepared them for the coming of Jesus, the Messiah.
Had Jesus come to earth but avoided the cross, he would have missed the entire reason for his coming.
2. People do not come into the world merely to live, for that is no better than being an animal.
We also have “spirit” in addition to a soul and body.
We have a purpose.
To fail to accomplish the purpose for which God destined us, is to miss the real joy of life.
God has a purpose for you or you would not still be here.
3. Can you imagine Christianity without the cross and the following resurrection?
It would be only one of many religions.
It would be just one more religious system with a good prophet who said and did good things.
It would not be the transforming “power of God unto salvation” (). it is because of the resurrection we have hope and new life.
If there is no cross there is no resurrection and if there is no resurrection there is no hope of salvation and eternal life.
II.
Jesus spoke about the necessity of the cross.
A. The little word “must” in , , and is arresting.
In Greek it is this little three-letter word which means “it is necessary.”
He did not die because the situation was unavoidable.
It was wholly unavoidable.
He could have chosen not to do do this.
He could have remained in Heaven unmoved by how bad off we are on this planet.
But because he loved us he did not avoid the death that was to come his way.
C. It was necessary that He die because:
This was how He would redeem us and bring us into fellowship with God.
It was the “must” of duty.
When a soldier goes off to battle, he understands the must of battle.
When an officer leaves the house to go to work he understands.
Sgt Steve Perez told his wife he had to go to work this past week.
He died on the way to work, going to help people in the midst of the storm.
He understood the “must” of duty.
If you are a God follower, He will call you to action, and when He does you will understand the “must” of duty.
III.
He made His announcement only after Peter’s great confession about His being the Christ.
He was recognized as the divinely anointed of God.
B. As a mere man He would not have died while He had the power to live.
C. As people who are indwelt by God and participants in the divine nature (), we choose duty before life, the cross before pleasure and enjoyment of this world.We are called to give.
We are called to set our desires aside and pursue the things of God.
This is clearly stated in , “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”
You cannot deny the cross and call yourself Christian.
Those who believe that they can bypass the cross are not truly Christ’s.
Jesus called Peter “Satan” because he rebuked Jesus for not escaping death although He possessed the power to do so (, ).
IV.
There were no short-cuts to success.
A. The first one to suggest success and achievement without the cross was Satan himself.
Satan suggested success without the cross.
B. Jesus objected to the miracles Satan wanted Him to perform.
Satan suggested that Jesus should change useless stones into useful loaves of bread ().
C. We should watch out for those who have followed Satan’s suggestion to perform “miracles” and have not “taken up their crosses” to follow Jesus.
Beware of those who teach shortcut Christianity.
Beware of the preachers of the gospel of wealth and prosperity.
D. Satan wanted Jesus to acquire instant fame and he quoted Scripture to persuade Him to do so.
Satan suggested that God would perform a miracle if Jesus would only cast Himself from the pinnacle of the temple.
Satan offered Jesus things that were not his to offer.
(Actually, what was already his.)
E. Success from Christ’s point of view is living in voluntary obscurity and self-effacement like Christ when you could live otherwise.
V.
He who had the will to die on the cross had the power to rise from the dead.
A. No other person on earth has ever said what Jesus said and accomplished it:
B. He knew that by God’s appointment He was to die but He was absolutely sure that on the third day He would rise from the dead.
“The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again” ().
B. He knew that by God’s appointment He was to die but He was absolutely sure that on the third day He would rise from the dead.
C. Would the world be better had He chosen to live on, escape death and not exercise His power to rise from the dead?
D. As in His case, so in everyone He indwells: “… to live is Christ, and to die is gain” ().
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