Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Introduction

Me:

Why do we look at the whys of the easter season?

Isn’t this the stuff we learn about in VBS and Sunday School?

Shouldn’t it be relegated to special services like Christmas and Easter?

There is a simple saying that answers this question.

The first time I heard it was from the late John Crawford.

He was a Navigator who spent a lot of his ministry in OKC.

Many of you have been effected by his minsitry, becuase he founded the Keymens conference.

Almost every year I went to that conference and heard him speak he would simply review his verses with another guy and share stories or sermonettes based on the verse he quoted.

Anyway, one time I was talking with someone who was talking about the beauty of focusing on the basic disciplines of the Christian life and he quoted John saying, “John Crawford always says, “You never out grow the basics.””

This was a powerful statement for me.

It reminded me, in context that I never need to let go of the disciplines of the Christian faith.Since then it has also reminded me that I can never loose sight of the work of Christ and how it impacts the core of everything I am and do.

Paul put it this way,

Romans 15:16

Notice Paul affirms the Romans, how they are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another, but he still felt it was necessary to write them one of the first theological explanations of the work of Christ.

It is healthy for us to consistently and rhythmically look at the work of Christ so that we may be reminded not only of what He did, but also why He did it and how it impacts us every day.

So my prayer is that no matter where you at in your relationship with Jesus as we walk through this section of the Story it leads us to a richer and deeper appreciation of the work of Christ.

Which results in us loving Him, following Him and living for Him.

As we move forward lets do a quick recap of what we have covered so far.

The first week we sought to answer the question of “Why does the cross matter?”

Looking into we saw that through His work on the Cross Jesus suffered the punishment we deserved, and in doing so He opened access to the Father which was signified through God tearing the curtain in half.

Last week as we started to ask the question, “Why does the resurrection matter?”.

We focused on the relational aspect of His work on Easter Sunday.

How when He came back He showed Mary, the Emmaus Duo and the Disciples that He is alive, His Father is pleased with Him and that He cares for them.

He did not just come back and send them marching orders.

Those would come, but only in the context of relationship.

He wanted His followers to know that He loves them and had not abandoned them, just like he wants us to know that today.

Today we will continue our look at “Why the resurrection matters?” by focusing on His redemption plan.

Before we move forward I do not want to miss this point - Redemption is birthed out relationship.

This fact ties what we talked about last week with what we will talk about this week.

Through the resurrection Jesus shows His disciples that His work, what He has been talking about, why He asked them to follow Him and even His death were all meant to heal the broken relationship that we created by our rebellion.

So lets pick up where we left off last week.

Turn to .

Redemption is birthed out relationship.

We are called to join in Jesus’ redemption plan.

The resurrection of Jesus reminds us that He is in control.

-

We have already seen that Jesus used the word to re-established His relationship with His disciples.

Now Jesus again turns to His word to show them His redemption plan.

This time though He does not have to prove who He is or how He fulfilled the truths of Scripture.

While these are involved in what He is saying what Jesus is doing is showing them that through all of this God never lost control.

Notice how He starts His statement with “This is what is written...” The verb tense used for written shows that it is a completed action that occured in the past but has present realities.

One author put it this way, “The emphasis of the perfect is not the past action so much as it is as such but the present “state of affairs” resulting from the past action.”

Why do we need to know this?

Because it sets the stage for what Jesus is calling them too.

He has already asked them to follow Him before His death, now He is going to call them to join Him by briefly and succinctly showing them they are part of His redemption plan.

In other words He has accomplished the work so that they can join Him in accomplishing theirs.

The verb tense used by the writer to describe a completed verbal action that occurred in the past but which produced a state of being or a result that exists in the present (in relation to the writer).

This time He is showing them how everything He has gone through, his suffering and resurrection were part of God’s divine plan.

This time He is showing them how everything He has gone through, his suffering and resurrection were part of God’s divine plan.

By showing His consistency in the scriptures Jesus is also showing how the Triune God, is in control.

Nothing Jesus went through was out of line, out of God’s plan or a surprise to God.

Some people do not like this reality, but through out scripture we see God using the sin of others for good.

A great example of this is found in .

After Jacob dies his 11 sons are scared Joseph is going to finally get his revenge for being sold into slavery.

However, Jospeh understood what God was doing so he reassures them by saying.

Gensis 50:19-20

Jesus’ words would have been reassuring to the disciples.

He is reinforcing the reality that we have a God who is never out of control.

While they may not have grasped the extent of the plan or of the control God had knowing that God was not going to loose control of His created order would have been great comfort.

He is showing that what He went through was always in HIs plan and in HIs control.

There is a lot of theology that has to be covered to understand this just a little bit, but as we look at Scripture we know that God is timeless and that He can and does use the evil that people are responsible for to bring about His plans.

The old Metaphor that He is constantly weaving a tapestry and on one side we see threads that look like it has been thrown together and on the other side we see the beautiful work that He has sewn together is true.

Jesus is showing them this was all written about long ago.

Darrel Bock summed this up well in his theology of Luke and Acts “From the divine perspective nothing happens outside of God’s plan.”

This was written about in the OT.

So what was written?

How does God redeem?

Jesus starts with showing why His work was necessary.

He focuses in on the Mission that He had while He was on earth.

That is he had to suffer.

Luke uses this word through out his two major works as a summary statement of the complete work of Christ that culminated in HIs crucifixition.

Jesus wanted His followers to get this point, we see almost the same statement made in .

Even with these two Jesus emphasized the need for His suffering.

It wasn’t an accident or an event of mistaken injustice.

It was not just in human terms but as we saw before it was part of plan.

We can often take this for granted, but Jesus physically walked with these guys.

They saw Him do amazing things, including change them and He knew they needed to have the proverbial curtain peeled back a bit so that they could see His plan and how it fit together.

The next thing He focuses on is His resurrection.

Even before His crucifixition the disciples struggled to see how dying would do anything.

The famous episode of Jesus rebuking Peter is a great example of this.

Take a look at it on the screen.

Matthew 16:22-

Matthew 16:21-

From a psychological understanding we can see why Peter and the others would struggle with the Lord’s crucifixion.

Heroes aren’t supposed to die that way.

They knew Jesus was a conqueror, but they did not understand what he came to conquer.

He is using this time to reinforce this reality, to show them how it works together in this grand plan the Lord put together and pointed to in the Hebrew Scriptures.

The next thing He focuses on is His resurrection.

It was common in first century Jewish thought to look forward to the resurrection on the last day, but this is not what Jesus is focused on.

He is focused on His resurrection that is why He said on the third day.

This established their hope and helped them see that God was never out of control.

His resurrection was proof of this reality.

Jesus was the conquerer that they longed for.

He conquered death and He did it quickly.

He fulfilled .

Psalm 16:10

The one that was hung on the cross, was back.

He had a new body free from the wounds of the cross, but carrying the scars of our sin.