Sermon Tone Analysis

It is an excellent day to be in the house of the Lord!

I say it often, but there is no where else I’d rather be than right here, right now, with the opportunity to share God’s Word with these people.

As you well know, today is Easter Sunday.

This is a day in which families gather together, eggs are hunted, laughs are shared.

The big question that I want us to be thinking about today is, “Why?”

So let us ask ourselves, why do we celebrate Easter?

Well, I’ll be honest, I have no idea why we celebrate by hunting for eggs filled with candy that was left behind by a rabbit.

That’s a tradition that seems to trace back to Mesopotamia as an early Christian way to celebrate Easter.

Its become tradition and been changed a bit a long the way.

I would say that the family gatherings, meals and laughs, are also from cultural tradition.

Why does the family get together on Easter?

Because that’s when we get together.

Why do we go to church on Easter?

Because that’s the day we go to church.

There are a lot of cultural traditions surrounding the day and celebration of Easter.

But I’d like us to push just beyond tradition.

I’d like us to ask why did the traditions start in the first place?

Why did Early Mesopotamian Christians even feel the need to start coloring those eggs?

It is because Easter marks the day in which Jesus Christ rose from the grave.

A better name for Easter is Resurrection Sunday!

Some 2000 years ago, Jesus was in a tomb sealed away and then, “Up from the Grave He Arose!”

Well, as we are being inquisitive today, we should ask, how did Jesus end up in the tomb?

Three days prior to the Resurrection, He was put on trial and found innocent, but swayed by public opinion He was sentenced to death by crucifixion anyways.

He was beaten and whipped, made to cary the instrument of His own death on His back as He walked to the place of His execution.

Why was the public so adamant that He must be put to death?

Because throughout His life He claimed to be the Son of God.

He showed people what it truly was to be righteous and many hated Him for it.

Jesus shook up their tradition, He called for them to truly repent from their sin, believe, and love God.

Jesus’ life and message threatened the leaders of the day and so they conspired to kill Him.

They accomplished their goal by appealing to the authorities and swaying public opinion.

But here is the real kicker to all of this: Jesus didn’t just claim to be the Son of God, He IS the Son of God.

Before the plots to kill Him were acted upon, Jesus traveled from place to place, displaying mighty power.

He gave sight to the blind, He healed the sick, He rose the dead, He even forgave people for their sins against God.

For the last few weeks, we have been walking through the beginning of the book of Hebrews, examining the excellencies, the awesome power of Jesus.

Did you know that Jesus was the Hand of Creation?

Did you know that all things belong to Him? Do you know that He is worshiped by the angels?

I would guess that all of us have some view, some opinion of who Jesus is, but Scripture shows us that He is better and beyond whatever we could measure.

Now you may ask, if Jesus is so powerful, if He did and does so many great things, then why did He die in such a humiliating fashion only to arise a few days later?

Was He not powerful enough to prevent such a fate?

The people there on the day of His crucifixion brought up that point:

The depraved, blinded mind sees Jesus on the cross and mocks.

But please understand that the God of this Universe was Sovereign even as Jesus was placed on the Cross.

Jesus had a job to do that day.

And that job was not even to earn anything for Himself, but to pay the debt owed for the sins of everyone who would ever believe in Him.

Christ’s death was greatest expression of love ever given.

Follow me through Scripture real quick:

The Religious Leaders and even Satan himself probably felt real proud of themselves the moment Jesus died on the cross.

They thought mission accomplished.

Their problems were gone.

Well they were only half right.

The mission was accomplished but not their mission.

The mission of God to reconcile unto Himself a people through belief in Jesus Christ was accomplished.

The mission of God to act in a way depraved humanity could not and pay the cost of sin was accomplished.

Jesus was not defeated that day, but death sure was! Follow me through the message preached on the day of Pentecost through Peter:

Jesus’ death and resurrection ARE God’s plan of salvation.

Jesus did what was necessary to pay the cost of sin.

He was then resurrected and ascended into heaven.

The living Jesus is there right now interceding for those who believe in Him.

He is both the Authority and the Anointed one, Lord and Christ!

His death and resurrection are the proof of that.

When that message is understood it is overwhelming!

Those listening to Peter preach in Acts asked, what do we do with all of this, brothers?

And the only right response to understanding the life, death, resurrection, position, and power of Jesus is to repent and publicly profess Jesus is the Savior, through repentant faith you are forgiven of your sin and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Helper, right there in that moment!

So Easter is not to be celebrated because of tradition, but because of the true Risen Savior!

You can’t even really celebrate Easter properly if you have not repented and believed in the name of Jesus Christ for forgiveness of your sins.

That’s what Easter is really all about.

Salvation distributed by the grace of God alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

Grasping a message like that will make you savor the easter dinner a whole lot more.

On Easter we celebrate the Risen Savior who gives a salvation that is better beyond all measure from anything we ever conceive.

I know that was a bit of an elongated introduction, but if you would open your Bibles to Hebrews 2. Here, the author of Hebrews is drawing our attention to just how great a salvation it is that Jesus accomplished for those who believe in Him.

This is a bit of a biblical anthropology, that is an understanding of the human condition and what salvation entails for us.

Let’s begin by looking at verse 5.

Now, to give you a little backstory here.

In the verses just prior to where we are picking up today, we are told of the beautiful salvation Jesus bring.

We are told that Jesus is the only way to escape just retribution for transgressions and disobedience.

It is a beautifully great salvation and beginning here in verse 5 and then continued through verse 8 we are shown that this beautiful and magnificent salvation is given to people.

This is a big deal.

In the past, as we’ve been going through Hebrews, we’ve talked about angels.

They are, from our perspective, truly remarkable creatures that are hard for us to even conceive.

But the wonderful Salvation Jesus accomplished on the cross isn’t for them!

It is not the Angels that God has subjected the world to come!

Let’s look at who, then, God has subjected the world to come, and spoiler alert, if you are repentant of your sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you should be getting excited as we look at this, The Holy Spirit writes through the author of Hebrews starting in verse 6:

I want you to imagine for a moment, the biggest most magnificent thing you can think of.

For me, it would be the entirety of the cosmos.

I can’t even fully imagine the vastness of our universe.

Even just look at the title slide for this series:

INSERT TITLE SLIDE

Think of just how magnificent all of existence is.

We’ve seen pictures and computer generated models of the galaxies.

Our Earth is just a small speck in the milky way, floating about the stars, all of which are proclaiming the glory of the creator.

It is a simple fact that God created everything in existence.

The beauty of space gives glory to the artist whom painted it.

Really ponder on the universe.

In our verses from hebrews, the Spirit is quoting from Psalm 8. Psalm 8 is all about the Majesty of God.

The Psalmist writes:

This is asking, when we see the greatness of all of creation, why would God even care about silly little creatures like us humans.

And truthfully, this is a valid question.

There is so much beauty all throughout the cosmos, why should God care for humans?

“When we look at the vast, seemingly endless universe and then think about the little dot that we call earth in the middle of it all, we … cannot but ask, ‘What is man?

What right do we have to be so much in the mind of God?’” (MacArthur)