Sermon Tone Analysis
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We believe…
In my conversations the past few weeks, when I’ve told people I’d be preaching, of course they’d ask, “well what are you going to preach about?”
To that, I’d reply, “Jesus.”
We Believe… in Jesus
That’s when the funny looks start…
The faces that scream, “I want to ask for more info, but….”
Or the snarky, “isn’t it all about Jesus?”
To which I reply, “yeah, so you see why I’m having such a hard time with it…”
They just look at me more confused…
It’s all good, we are going to talk about Jesus today.
However, I feel the need to start with…
A Disclaimer…
And it comes straight from Scripture, so you can’t say I’m making stuff up… yet anyway.
So, even with my plan to keep this short and get you out of here by around 3:00, there’s just no way we can cover all the amazing things about Jesus today.
So we’re going to start from the article, and then see where that takes us.
Sound ok?
The article (Part One)
We believe in Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Triune Godhead; that He was eternally one with the Father;
that He became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and was born of the Virgin Mary, so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say the Godhead and manhood, are thus united in one Person very God and very man, the God-man.
I’m going to stop here for a minute… this is what happens when academic theologians write things…
Now, you’re all thinking of a superhero, or a comic book character - yes there is one, I checked.
I couldn’t being myself to share a picture of that one..
God Man
But even this is what we sometimes may think about when we hear words put together like God-Man.
So let’s not be thinking superhero, and I’m actually going to steer clear of using the term God-Man.
What I am going to say is this.
Jesus is fully God - we established that last week - and by virtue of his incarnation and birth, fully human.
We’ll come back to that, just needed to address the potential spandex-wearing elephant in the room.
You good?
We good?
Moving on…
The Article (Part Two)
We believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins (Fully Human), and that He truly arose from the dead (Fully God)
and took again His body (Fully Human), together with all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature (Fully Human), wherewith He ascended into heaven (Fully God) and is there engaged in intercession for us.
(Fully God)
We Believe… In Jesus
John’s Gospel
John 1:1-18 - Read by
We Believe… In Jesus
There’s a little bit to unpack here, and we’re going to reinforce things with some other Scripture passages as we go.
So as we look at this second article of faith, the first thing established is that Jesus is
fully God.
Eternally one with the Father,
present at creation - He was part of the ‘Let Us’ make human beings in our likeness…
ever existing…
(slide)
So this is really a recap from last week, right?
Fully God.
Jesus was also
fully human.
In the Article of faith, we read,
“He became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and was born of the Virgin Mary (slide), so that two whole and perfect natures…are thus united in one person…”
He became incarnate - ok, the theologians are using big words again.
What does it mean to become incarnate?
Well, Mirriam-Webster (for you younger folks, us older people used to have these big books called dictionaries.
We’d go into them to learn definitions, and how to pronounce words) - Now, I guess you can just ask Siri or Google for that…
Anyway!
Incarnation is defined as “invested with flesh or bodily nature and form”(slide)
That’s so good, right?
(Slide)
INVESTED - God is so INVESTED in creation that he became one of us in order to save us.
So invested in humanity that he put together a rescue plan like the world had never seen before.
Invested in relationship with us, regardless of the cost.
Amazing, isn’t it?
We’re also told that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary
(Slide) Why is this important?
Well, it’s important for two reasons.
One, it fulfills prophecy.
Isaiah, hundreds of years before Jesus birth, wrote a message of hope about a messianic king
(Slide) It says:
Immanuel, God with us…
invested in us…
present with us…
- a sign from the Lord Himself.
fully human.(slide)
The second reason the Virgin Birth is important, to put it plainly… it’s messy
Birth is messy.
Humanity is messy.
Personhood is messy.
God chose then and chooses now to be with us right here, in the mess.
Jesus meets us in the mess.
God reveals himself to us fully in the form of a “Son of Man”.
Consequently, the editors of the Common English Bible translate that phrase “Son of Man” to read, “Human One” - not to deny an aspect of divinity, but to emphasize just how fully human Jesus is.
God chooses to reveal Himself fully to humanity in the only way that humanity can truly understand… looking like us, in the middle of our mess, on our turf…
John says,
(Slide) John 1:9
(Slide) John 1:14 NRSV
(Slide) John 1:14 MSG
Jesus is...
fully God.
fully human.
fully revealed!
Fully revealed, but not fully recognized...
Fully revealed
to a nation suffering under roman occupation.
The “Roman Peace”, (the pax romana) didn’t really extend all the way to the edges of the empire.
On the fringe, peace was maintained through force.
Through soldiers and centurions, through oppressive taxes, and through systems designed to keep the poor and less fortunate… well poor and less fortunate.
Sound familiar?
Fully revealed to a culture led by people who believe impurity, or uncleanliness, or sin is contagious…
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