Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Alright everyone, we are going to dive right into it today.

I think this message tonight is pretty straight forward and simple…and flows right out of last week’s message.

If you weren’t here, or you need a refresher, last week we began our first real dive into the Gospel of Luke.

I told you we’d be meeting every week in this gospel to learn more of who Jesus is.

And last week we titled the message Jesus As The Prophesied One.

Meaning, he was this long awaited savior that had been predicted and prophesied about for thousands of years.

We looked at what that meant for not only the Jews of that time, but for us now.

There was a big focus on the need to repent and believe in Jesus as the one whom God has promised for our salvation.

That was Luke 3, but Luke doesn’t end with that account.

Go ahead and open your bibles or get your device out and turn to Luke chapter 4. We are actually going to be looking at the end of Chapter 3 first, so make sure you have that in view as well.

Now, go ahead and take a look at Luke 3 verse 23.

Right there, Luke states that Jesus was about 30 years old when we began his ministry (which is what is about to kick off in the following chapters), and Luke goes on to list Jesus’ entire Genealogy from Jesus to Adam…the first man created by God.

There’s a ton of reason why Luke could have chosen to put this here.

Some of them are certainly to prove that Jesus actually existed, that he was a jew, that he descended from the line of David…all things that accent what we talked about last week, with Jesus as the Prophesied One.

But here’s the reason we are going to focus on tonight…Luke’s writing of the geneaology, and stating how old Jesus was…emphasizes that Jesus was a man.

Not, male.

A man.

As in human.

That’s the focus of tonight…and tonight’s message Title.

Luke 4: Jesus As A Man

Jesus was 100% man.

and 100% God.

If that intriques you and you’d love to know more about how we come to that, and how all that works, and you want to talk about some of the questions that arise from that…stick around.

Because in the coming weeks we will be talking about Jesus as God, and that’s where we will dive into some of these complications.

But for now, Luke is showing us that Jesus was a man.

He was human.

He ate, slept, breathed, walked....all of it.

And tonight, we are going to talk through 3 implications of what it means that Jesus was a man.

But first, let’s dive into our scripture tonight.

Look again at Luke 4:1-13

Big passage for us to cover tonight…but, we aren’t going to break this down verse by verse.

Instead, we are going to see just some of the truths that can be drawn from it…specifically the ones that relate to Jesus being a man.

So I said, 3 implications of what it meant that Jesus was a man.

Here’s the first one.

Jesus was a man that followed the Holy Spirit.

This is extremely important and extremely underrated.

In fact, it’s a fact that many people miss.

I remember it didn’t really stick out to me until my new testament class in Seminary, where we studied the themes of the gospels.

And the thing that I’m talking about…is Jesus’ reliance and following of the Holy Spirit.

Luke is super intentional to emphasize that in this passage.

Look again at verse 1 of chapter 4. Luke 4:1

The text doesn’t say…and Jesus…being God, knew to go to the desert in order to be tempted by satan.

The text says ...Jesus was led.

by.

the.

spirit.

Which is exactly the same way that we would describe when one of us does something according to God’s will.

When we raise up and send missionaries to go to the nations for God’s glory among them…we say that spirit led them to go...

When we started up this college ministry we would say that the Spirit led us to do so.

When Pastor Rob and his wife sold their home and left everything they had to come plant this church from nothing in 2004…we would say that the spirit led them to plant the church?

Why do we say it like that?

Because we are emphasizing they we are human, and we are relying on God’s spirit to guide, protect, teach, and lead us.

We are emphasizing that we are not the divine, but that we are following the divine’s will.

And Luke..in this passage…is choosing to emphasize Jesus’ humanity and reliance on the Spirit of God.

The exact same spirit, that any of you who truly call Jesus Savior and Lord have residing in you right now.

We call him the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, or the Spirit of Christ.

Luke says in chapter 11, which we will get to this series, that the Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who call on him.

Jesus says in John 14 that that spirit dwells in believers forever.

Paul writes in Ephesians...

The Holy Spirit resides in you, as a downpayment of your inheritance.

As a guarantee…like a finder’s fee.

We’ll pay you half now, half later…the Holy Spirit is that half now.

A sign of good faith and the thing that will allow you to get through the rest of the journey to receive the ultimate prize…if you would only follow him.

Just as Jesus followed him.

That’s the point of application from this point.

Jesus was a man that followed the spirit.

So should you.

That was the first implication.

Here’s the second.

Jesus was a man that fought temptation.

The whole subtitle that the editor’s of the ESV put on this passage is “The Temptation of Jesus”.

It’s the main thing of this passage.

Jesus being tempted by Satan.

And not just little temptations…but the strongest temptations out there.

The root of all idols and things that cause us to worship something other than God.

Three things Jesus was tempted with:

Jesus was tempted with comfort.

The comfort of a full belly and satisfaction of food.

Jesus was tempted with power.

The power to control all the earthly kingdoms.

And Jesus was tempted with control.

The ability to control his own fate and manner of life or death.

Temptations that we today still constantly struggle with.

Why do you desire a good paying job?

Comfort.

Why is being out of your parent’s sight or even their house so appealing?

Control.

Why do you want to work your way up the corporate chain?

Power.

And these things mix together, sometimes we desire the power over something simply so we can control it…or that we can comfort ourselves in it.

The point is…the temptations are real…and whether you’re willing to admit it or be introspective enough to see it…they are real in your life as well.

I just bought a new car.

Well…new to me.

I decided to get rid of my 2018 Nissan with only 50,000 miles on it for a 2012 Chevy with 89,000 miles on it.

Why?

Because we need a bigger vehicle for our family.

And just Brittany having the bigger vehicle wasn’t going to be enough.

So…it was a good reason to buy it.

One that I would say the spirit was leading me in (like we talked about earlier).