Sermon Tone Analysis

Easter Sermon 2008 – The Words and Works of Jesus

Lay Reading:  Isaiah 55:3, 5-7

Isaiah writes in 53:3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.

\\  Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

\\ ISA 53:5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; \\  the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

\\  ISA 53:6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; \\  and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

\\  ISA 53:7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; \\  he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, \\    so he did not open his mouth.

\\ Pastor Reading: 1st Corinthians 15:1-8 \\ Paul says: Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.

By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you.

Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.

After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.

Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

\\ *The Words and Works of Jesus*

/Open with prayer /

Good to see all of you today.

As we launch in, obviously we are going to be talking about Jesus Christ.

We will be examining the words and works of Jesus, and through that we will see why we celebrate his resurrection today.

Jesus grew up in a small rural town of little note, not the kind of place you would expect God to show up in.

His mother was a young teenage woman, his father was a blue collar construction worker – a carpenter - who would’ve swung a hammer.

He grew up in very simple and modest accommodations.

He never owned a home, ran for political office, never made a lot of money, never married a woman, never traveled more than 200 miles from his home.

His first 30 years of life were lived fairly anonymously, just working a job.

He only spent 3 years in public ministry, preaching, teaching and performing miracles and the like.

Yet today, from this very simple, humble, relatively obscure man comes the most important person in all of history.

Today we break our calendar into two parts – BC which is before Christ, and AD which is Latin for Anno Domini which is the year of our Lord.

All of human history hinges on this one man, Jesus Christ.

And today, on this, the day the church has selected as the day to celebrate his resurrection, roughly 2 billion people (yes I counted them all) gathering together in Easter services to honor and celebrate this man, Jesus Christ as God.

And it is amazing because all of human history, and all of our faith comes down to this one man.

And that begs the question that we will spend our time this morning investigating – why this man as opposed to other men?

Why his teaching as opposed to the teaching of others.

First, Jesus himself gives us a clue in the 14th chapter of John in the 10th and 11th verses.

Jesus says:  You should listen to my teaching – Jesus is a Rabbi and a teacher and he wants us to listen to his teaching, and he says: If you do not believe my teaching, then investigate my works.

And so he tells us to investigate both his words – what he has said - and his works – his deeds and what he has done.

And so briefly today, that is indeed what we will do.

For the first part, we will be focusing on John’s Gospel.

Jesus says to us that he came down from heaven.

And he says this in John 6:38 - For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.

Jesus says that he came down from heaven – this is an extraordinary claim because no one else has made this claim in the history of life on the Earth with any credibility.

Occasionally you might hear of people who had a near death experience and got a glimpse into heaven.

Or a religious leader like Mohammed will claim that one day they got to peer into heaven for a period, but no one claims to have come down from heaven.

This makes Jesus distinct from and superior to any other religious leader who has ever lived.

The second thing Jesus tells us is that he is the only way to heaven.

Not only did he come down from heaven, but if we would like to go to heaven, he is the means by which we obtain that great gift.

He says in John 14:6 - I am the way (singular and exclusive) and I am the truth (Singular and exclusive) and the life (Singular and exclusive).

No one comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus said I came down from heaven to rescue and to save and if you would like to go to heaven I am your only option.

There is no salvation apart from me.

Christians believe in the exclusivity of Christ, that there is no hope beyond the grave apart from Jesus.

We believe this not because we are trying to be narrow minded but because we are trying to say the same thing that Jesus did.

He was emphatic on this point because he loves us and he wants it to be exceeding clear that everything comes down to his person and his work.

So Jesus says that he came down from heaven and if we would like to go to heaven then we need to have a relationship with him.

The third thing that Jesus said was that he was in fact sinless.

This again is an extraordinary and unparalleled claim.

None of us would make this claim, all you’d have to do is to ask our wives!

Women like Mother Theresa and men like Gandhi have themselves declared that they are sinners, that their thoughts are not always pure, that their words are not always carefully chosen, that their motives are not always without pride and selfish ambition.

But Jesus makes this extraordinary claim.

That he alone is without sin.

Again, this makes him superior to all other religious leaders.

Jesus says in John 8:46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?

This would have been impossible for anyone else to utter.

This is an extraordinary and unparalleled claim.

No human being could risk making that challenge without many flaws in his character being exposed.

Had Jesus not been sinless, someone in the hostile crowd would eagerly have charged him with at least one sin.

And then the fourth thing that he said regarding himself was that he was indeed God.

An again, this claim is highly unusual.

In the history of the world only a few people have claimed that they are in fact God.

And let me tell you, they don’t have the resume to back that claim up.

And of the religious leaders who founded various religions on the Earth – none of them made this same claim.

All they will claim is that they have a relationship with God, or they speak for God, that they are a prophet or a servant of God, that they point the way to God, but they themselves are not God.

Jesus however is emphatic on this point, and I want to stress this for you because there is teaching out there that states that Jesus was not considered to be God, either by himself or his followers.

They would claim that this is only a legend, a myth, a fable created many years after his death.

The fact is that he repeatedly said he was God, and it was the primary reason for which he was put to death.

He states it here, in the 10th chapter of the book of John beginning in verse 30 – Jesus said “I and the Father are one.”

Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many great miracles from the Father.

For which of these do you stone me?"  "We are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God."

Everyone understood very clearly that Jesus repeatedly and emphatically stated that he was God.

Some people say that he was not God but that he was a good moral man and a religious teacher.

Friends if he told us he was God and he was not, he was not a good moral man but he was a liar, and he was not a good teacher but he was a false teacher of the worst kind.

Jesus was so clear on this point.

We are here today because Jesus is our God.

If you do not know him as your God these are the four statements that Jesus made about himself.

There are many perspectives on Jesus, but I think it is so important that we allow Jesus to speak for himself on these matters.

He said that he came down from heaven, that he is the only way that we can get to heaven, that he lived a sinless life, and that he is God.

He declares this.

These are four things I have listed are some of his greatest words.

Now we will look at his greatest works.

First of all, he foretold the future – which would be great if we could do this.

I’d know which stocks to buy and when to sell.

I’d know which check out line at Hy-Vee to get into.

I’d know which car to buy, and I’d win with every NCAA tournament bracket I entered.

Wouldn’t you love that?

I’d even settle on just knowing if the Twins will be any good this year so I don’t get my hopes up for nothing!

Wouldn’t that be nice to know the future?

Wouldn’t that be great?

But we don’t know the future because we are not God and we don’t have full knowledge, and for us the future is still open, but for God who is over all, he knows the future.

Jesus repeatedly foretold and promised the future.

I’ll give you one example here in relation to his friend Peter in Luke 22:34 – Jesus said "I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today; you will deny three times that you know me."

Jesus does this repeatedly – tells the future.

It’s one of his great works that verifies his great words.