Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

For thousands of years, human beings have been fascinated by stories.

Stories of love, drama, action, mystery, good defeating evil, and so much more!

For years and years stories were passed down orally from generation to generation.

Eventually they were written down and stored in books to be told to future generations.

Now we document these stories on camera in order to pass them along.

Think of a story that has stuck with you for years and years.

Perhaps it is a story of love between two characters who cross a great space in order to be together.

Perhaps it is a story of an individual who stands up for someone else and defeats a foe.

Perhaps it is a story of an unlikely hero emerging to do what no one else would dare to do!

We all love a good story - it’s part of the reason why people flocked to hear orators speak in amphitheaters in ancient Greece, why people attended plays and dramas, and why so many people go to the movie theaters today!

We love to witness good stories that make us feel positive about either ourselves, the world around us, or humanity as a whole!

The stories that often resonate with us are the unexpected ones.

The stories that JRR Tolkien coined as Eucatastrophes or stories where someone turns defeat into victory.

Stories that turn suffering into joy.

Tragedy into triumph.

These types of reversals stand out and stick with us for some reason as humans more so than other types of stories.

These types of stories pluck at our heart and strike a chord but one story in particular reverberates over all the others.

There is a reversal greater than any other reversal.

A hero greater than any other hero.

A story where the good guy genuinely beats the bad guy once and for all!

This is the story that we celebrate on Easter Sunday - Easter is not whenever we look at the doom and gloom of “Good” Friday.

Easter is the day where we celebrate the greatest victory in the history of victories as our Savior defeated sin and death.

We celebrate our Living Hope as Jesus Christ rose from the grave ALIVE!

The Resurrection specifically makes Christianity stand out compared to other world religions.

The fundamental message of Christianity is not “do” it is “done.”

The fundamental truth of Christianity is not here’s 10 steps to apply to your life and if you do them well enough then you might enter into heaven… That’s a depressing message because unless we’re perfect, we’re not going to be good enough!

The fundamental truth of Christianity is this: You aren’t good enough on your own, but Jesus is - believe in Him.

Maybe you’re here this morning and you find yourself working and working trying to earn your own way to heaven and you think that you can make it there if you just do enough good stuff… Friend, I pray that by the time you leave here this morning that you rejoice not in your good works but in the finished work of Jesus in your place.

Don’t stress yourself up trying to maintain your salvation with more good actions and words, that’s an exhausting way to live and it will lead to pride, frustration, and despair.

Look instead to Jesus.

Repent of your sins and trust in Him to save you - He delights in saving us.

This morning we’re going to be in Philippians 2 as we look at what Jesus did and why Jesus did what He did.

Let’s read and give Him thanks this morning

Jesus Came (5-7)

Think of something that you would consider to be impossible:

Getting along with your siblings?

Passing a difficult test?

Achieving your dream job?

2 + 2 equalling 5?

In the Bible we read of another such impossibility and that is simply this: There are not multiple ways to be saved - there is only 1

I love you enough to be honest with you this morning, church.

Some will say that God has a balance scale and if your good works outweigh your bad works then He will let you in, or if you attend church, or repeat some magical words, or help others out, or memorize some Bible verses then you’re definitely going to heaven because of whatever it is that you’ve done!

That’s not a message that will bring you hope, that is a message that is from hell and it will lead you there if you’re not careful.

We read in Philippians 2 that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, humbled Himself, and came to this earth as a servant.

Whenever you think of a servant, what is the picture that pops into your head?

Likely someone at a restaurant who gives you food and drinks or perhaps someone who assists you in some other capacity.

Whenever we read about Jesus in the Bible, we read that He is One who came to help others

How exactly does Jesus serve others?

He does this by healing people who are sick.

By feeding those who are hungry.

By teaching those who are confused, but the main way that Jesus serves others is by dying on the cross.

Who is this man who gives His life for us?

None other than the Eternal Son of God, the One who created the entire world as Hebrews 1:1-3 shares with us.

That same Jesus who spoke creation into existence humbled Himself to be born in Bethlehem as a baby and grew up after living a perfect life to die as our substitute on the cross - praise the Lord that Jesus came!

Praise the Lord for the cross and the empty tomb.

But why did Jesus come to serve?

Why did He come in the first place?

Think if Jesus were to be born as a baby today, what would the typical American expect Him to be?

We might expect Jesus to be born in the Bible belt to a middle-class couple that always has attended church.

We’d expect Him to grow up and attend a good school and become a megachurch pastor.

We’d expect Him to never offend anyone.

We’d expect Him to only talk about love, inclusion, and grace.

Some would expect Jesus to become wealthy, powerful, political, and possibly even run for president.

If Jesus were born as a baby in the United States, many of us would pass Him over because He doesn’t fit our expectations of what He should be.

Why?

Because we’re looking for the wrong thing, often times.

The people in Jesus’ day were expecting their Savior to be a military leader to liberate them from Roman rule.

People today expect Jesus to be a genie in a lamp to grant them their every wish ranging from happiness, prosperity, and a healthy, comfortable life.

That’s not what He came, though.

He came to serve.

He came to save.

He came to shepherd.

He came to sanctify.

He came to satisfy.

Ultimately, Jesus’ road would lead to the cross but it all started long before Bethlehem as Jesus humbled Himself to this perfect plan.

Jesus Christ is the God-man.

He’s not half God and half man.

He’s fully both!

This doesn’t always compute in our brains because it’s mathematically impossible to be more than 100% something - contrary to what your coach told you, you can’t give 110%!

If you have a glass full of water and you pour more water into it, what happens to that water?

It spills onto the floor and Pastor David gets upset because the Pageant decorations get ruined!

Yet, Jesus (fully God) humbled Himself and became a man without stopping to be God.

Why?

Because only a human could pay the price for our sins but only God could endure the wrath of God against sin and be the perfect sacrifice.

He had to be both.

Some Easter messages intentionally exclude words like sin, punishment, and wrath but these are Biblical words that we have to understand in order to properly understand the miracle of the cross and resurrection.

Jesus Won (8-11)

Why did Jesus have to die?

Our sin.

You and I are not good enough on our own because God’s standard is perfection.

He is holy and requires us to be holy as well.

Yet, the Bible shares with us that we have all sinned and that we fall short of the mark.

Because of this, Jesus had to come and verse 8 tells us that He came and died on the cross.

We often like to compare ourselves to others and we do this in order to feel better about ourselves.

For example, remember to whenever you were in school and you didn’t do very good on a test, you feel a little upset.

Then your best friend tells you that they did even worse, then you feel a little bit better because at least you did better than they did.

Take this a step further: You make more money than that person, you haven’t gotten a ticket like that person, you’re kind to others unlike that person, you’re a nice person unlike that person, you donate more time and money than that person, you do all of these things that other people don’t do so obviously you’re a good person because you’re the exception to the rule!

It’s so easy for us to set our eyes on other humans in order to be the standard for goodness - yet humans don’t get to be the standard for goodness - God is the One who sets that standard!

Though our world likes to tell us that the vast majority of us are good people, the Bible tells us that we are all sinners and we all need saving and that that is why Jesus came!