Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Last night we began by looking at why we are here and what the Bible tells us about our purpose.

One of the things that the Bible tells us is that we are here to know Jesus and to live for Him.

We’ll continue looking at how we can live for Him tomorrow, but tonight I want to really look into why Jesus had to come in the first place.

Jesus came to do 3 key things: Seek, Save, and Serve.

We talked last night about how Jesus came to save us from our sin - does anyone remember what sin is? (Anything we think, say, do, or don’t do that displeases God) This makes sense because we usually think about Jesus being our Savior.

But what about Jesus coming to seek and serve?

Jesus gives a story about a shepherd having 100 sheep and 1 getting lost and the shepherd leaves the 99 to go and find the 1 that is lost.

Isn’t that how Jesus is?

He goes after and pursues those who are hurting and lost.

He seeks us out and lets us know that we are loved.

But what about Him serving others?

Did Jesus ever serve other people?

Much of His ministry was built on serving others.

He fed those who were hungry.

He healed those who were hurting.

He encouraged those who were healthy.

Jesus came not to be served but to serve others and He calls on us to be servants too!

Tonight we’re going to look at these 3 reasons why Jesus came and we’re going to do this by looking in the book of Philippians!

Philippians is in the middle of the New Testament toward the end of your Bible.

We’ve been studying out of Philippians 1 at FBC Salem the last few weeks and we’re going to study the whole book this summer.

Do you know what this means?

This means that what we study the rest of the week here at Camp Joy will help you be ahead of your parents and friends at church the rest of the summer - you’ll know where we’re going and you’ll know some of the key themes in this book.

Here’s a quick background about this book: Paul is in prison - things aren’t going the greatest.

If you were in jail do you think you’d be happy or sad?

Probably sad because we’d want to be with our friends and family… But not Paul.

He’s not sad, he’s happy because he knows that he is exactly where God wants him to be.

Paul writes this letter in prison and in Philippians chapter 2, where we’ll be tonight, Paul talks about who Jesus is and why Jesus came to the earth in the first place.

Tonight I pray we’ll give thanks to Jesus for what He has done and if you haven’t trusted in Jesus as Lord and Savior, my hope is that tonight you would see why we all need Jesus so desperately!

Jesus Came Because of Our Sin

Sin is serious.

Sin separates us from God. Sin is so serious that Jesus had to come to this earth and die in our place on the cross.

Did Jesus ever sin?

Can you imagine that?

Whenever someone was mean to Jesus, He was nice back to them.

Whenever things didn’t go His way, He didn’t complain.

Jesus lived a perfect life and He had to do this because the only way that He could die for our sins was to be a perfect sacrifice.

He had to be perfect.

One of the things that Jesus lived out was humility.

Do you know what the word humble means?

Being humble is the opposite of being prideful.

It means that you don’t boast in yourself, you have a level head.

Jesus was humble.

He helped others.

He put the needs of others before His own needs.

We often do the opposite.

How many of you have siblings?

Is it easy or hard to put their needs above yours?

It’s hard to do that!

Do you know why it’s hard to do that?

Because of our sin.

Because we want to do what we want to do first.

We want to help ourselves and if there’s room leftover then help someone else.

Look at what Paul says in these opening 4 verses - he ways to do nothing out of selfish ambition but consider others as more important than yourselves.

Does this come natural to you?

It doesn’t for me!

It’s really hard to consider others as more important.

It’s hard to look out for the interests of other people.

But this is what we are supposed to do as Christians.

We are supposed to know Jesus and live a life that points other people to Him.

One of the ways that we do this is by helping others and serving them.

Think about how Jesus serves us.

Where was Jesus before He was born in Bethlehem?

He was in heaven!

He was in the perfect place.

Yet, He came to the earth.

The reason that He came was because you and I can’t make our own way to God.

How many of you have flown on an airplane before or have been to a really tall mountain?

The highest we can go is still not nearly high enough.

We can’t get to God on our own.

It’s kind of like this picture.

We’re on this side and God is on the other side.

There’s a bottomless pit between us and the pit is too wide that we can’t jump across it.

We need help - we need saving!

This is what Jesus comes and does!

He is the loving bridge that connects us to God.

He is the only way that we can be saved and He left the glory of heaven in order to do exactly this!

The reason that He had to do this in the first place, though, was because of our sin.

Think for a moment about how serious your sin is and my sin is.

What did our sin cost Jesus?

His life.

Yet, He put our interests above His own.

He died in our place because He loves us so much.

He wants you and me to live for Him and He wants you and me to follow Him as our Lord and Savior.

As Jesus comes to save us from our sin, we are reminded that this is all a part of God’s perfect plan.

Jesus Came Because of God’s Plan

Now, doesn’t this plan seem a little strange?

The only solution for us to be saved is to have Jesus, the Son of God, come to the earth and give His life in our place?

Lots of people wonder if there could have been a different way.

A better way.

Have you ever thought that you had a better plan than someone else? Whenever I was in 7th grade me and a couple of friends thought that it would be fun to play hide and seek at our church in Ozark.

After all, churches have lots of awesome hiding spots.

Plus, at FBC Ozark our youth group would play a game called Romans and Christians a couple times each summer which was basically a big game of hide and seek.

Whenever we played Romans and Christians there were a couple of rules: you have to stay in the building, you can’t go into a locked room, and you had to come back to the fellowship hall at a certain time to restart the game, even if you had the perfect hiding spot.

Now in 7th grade I started working at the church as a custodian and had keys to unlock certain rooms and I had a brilliant plan.

I was going to play hide and seek with my friends and I’d go and hide on the roof of the church.

I thought my plan was the best plan because no one would find me up there - after all, you had to have a key to unlock the door and no one else did.

How do you think my plan worked out?

Terribly.

My boss saw one of my friends running upstairs and walked up to the youth area and asked what was going on.