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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Richard Walton

The Most Important Sermon Jesus Ever Preached

What was the most important sermon Jesus ever preached?

You will notice if you look at the program today that my sermon title is a blank.

I suggest to you there is a reason for that.

As you think about what the most important sermon Jesus ever preached was, Let me invite some response.

What was the most important sermon our Lord ever preached while He walked this earth for 3 and a half years?

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

Compared to prophets and founders of other religions, many of whom had some interesting personal history, what is the 1 thing that is most remembered about our Lord?

That indeed, perhaps, 1 could say, He set an example no other prophet or wise man could set, a perfect, sinless life.

If indeed the most important sermon Jesus ever preached were not the words He spoke but the way He lived, what does that mean for us today?

Beautiful chapel in Loma Linda, California, and what does it mean for the life we live in the week to follow.

I'd like to share with you 3 stories of people that will hopefully help to focus our thinking on what the most important thing anyone as a human being can leave behind.

It was a sunny, hot day in Phoenix, Arizona, and over the Sun City Mall came a beautiful, tightly packed 4 ship of F-16 Charlies.

Screaming along, full military power, 500 feet off the deck, and this display of airmanship caused a letter to the editor to be written to the Phoenix Daily Sun that went as follows.

Whom do we thank for the morning air show?

Last Wednesday at precisely 9-11 a.m., a tight formation of 4 F-16 jets made a low pass over our mall, continuing west over Bell Road at approximately 500 feet.

Do the Tom Cruise wannabes feel we need this wake-up call or were they trying to impress the cashiers at Mervyn's early bird special?

The Author of that letter did receive a response from the United States Air Force that went as follows regarding a wake-up call, Luke's Jets, letter dated Thursday.

On 15 June at Precisely 0912 hours, a perfectly timed four-ship flyby of F-16s from the 63rd Fighter Squadron at Luke Air Force Base flew over the grave of Captain Jeremy Frescas.

Captain Frescas was an Air Force officer who was previously stationed at Luke Air Force Base and was killed in Iraq on 30 May, Memorial Day.

At 0900 on 15 June, his family and friends gathered at Sunland Memorial Park in Sun City to mourn the loss of a husband, son, and friend.

Based on the letter writer's recount of the flyby and because of the jet noise, I'm sure that he did not hear the 21-gun salute, the playing of taps, or my words to the widow and parents of Captain Frescas as I gave them their son's flag on behalf of the President of the United States and all those veterans and service men and women who understand the sacrifice they have endured.

A four-ship flyby is a display of respect the Air Force gives to those who give their lives in defense of freedom.

We are professional aviators and we take our job seriously and on 15 June what the letter writer witnessed was 4 officers lining up to pay their final and ultimate respects.

The letter writer asks whom do we thank for the morning air show?

The 56th Fighter Wing will make that call for you and forward your thanks to the widow and parents of Captain Fresquez and thank them for you.

For it was in their honor that my pilots flew the most honorable formation of their lives.

Sincerely, Lieutenant Colonel Grandel Rosenstiel, Jr., United States Air Force.

Captain Frescas was shot down on 30 May, a member of the 23rd Special Tactics Squadron based at Hurlburt Field in Florida.

He was shot down in Iraq and in fact is buried in a common grave with the Iraqi and American military personnel that were in the aircraft with him because they were charged so badly beyond recognition that they could not be positively identified.

In fact, Captain Fresquez appears in the last moments of his life to have attempted to save the lives of his comrades.

It's a story of a politician, a distinguished man of high public office, who when another politician had an embarrassingly personal failure in the Oval Office, found the closest microphone that was available to him and began to speak.

He spoke at length about the evils of infidelity.

He told the American people that there was no excuse for a politician and a Christian to behave in that manner and people listened to those words because he was right.

There was no excuse for President Clinton's conduct.

Fast forward 10 years and Governor Mark Sanford is again in the news.

What, ladies and gentlemen, will he be remembered for?

His pious words over the political grave of Bill Clinton or his own actions.

If the most important sermon Jesus ever preached was the way he lived, what does that say for us and our Christian experience?

How will we be remembered for what we said or for what we did?

For the entertainment that we indulged in, the diet that we followed or didn't, even though I believe it's this institution that has confirmed that the diet we've known was the right way to eat since 1863, in fact adds now what is it, to my medical colleagues in the audience?

How do we deal with the truth that we are given?

1 thinks of the Lord's temptation in the wilderness.

At the beginning of His ministry, Christ goes out into the wilderness and 40 days, 40 nights He eats nothing, and then the devil appears and presents him with a number of highly clever theological challenges.

Here's something you can do, Lord, to demonstrate your power.

Obviously, my human mind needs sustenance, and so yes, I will use my creative power, consume the bread, and then thus encouraged, engage in a long debate over theological principles with you, Lucifer, and I will demonstrate to you how wrong you are.

Now, The Lord answered not with His words, but with His actions.

He refused to be tempted to do the 1 thing above all else that He really wanted to do.

If we look at the life of Jesus, we see time and time again that a Lord who spoke in parables, a Lord who spoke as much through the miracles He performed and the life He lived as the frequently cryptic things that He said, We see a Lord that lived the message He preached.

The very end of his life, the Lord looks up to heaven and prays to the Father that He will soon have to rely on as He turns loose of life.

He prays for the ordeal that he's going to be going through, he prays for his disciples.

Glorify thy son that thy son also may glorify thee as thou has given him power over all flesh that He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him.

I have glorified thee on the earth." How did He glorify His Father?

I have finished the work that You gave Me to do.

And now, Father, glorify Me with Yourself with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

I have manifested Thy name unto the men you gave me out of the world, vined they were and you gave them to me, and they have done what?

They've kept my word." We know that's not always true.

We know that many of the disciples struggled with keeping the words of Christ right up until The very last moments of his life when Peter, struggling with his own vanity, with his own weaknesses, does exactly the thing the Lord said he was going to do.

But the point is the disciples never quit trying.

They never gave up on keeping the Word of God.

If you have to look at the real message, if the most important sermon Jesus ever preached were His actions, at what point in His life, at what point in His ministry do we most clearly see the 1 message above all else that Jesus left for us through His words and through His actions?

Where in His life do we most clearly see, above all else, the message Christ has for us today.

The cross is always a good place to start.

I suggest to you that the events leading up to the crucifixion demonstrate far more powerfully than anything the Lord could have ever preached, the true depth and breadth of the love of God.

Dear Lord, this morning we're going to spend just a few minutes talking about the last few moments of Jesus' life on this earth.

May I disappear and may Your words be heard.

I understand I have limited time this morning, so I will try to be brief.

In a beautiful Passover weekend, In the space of 1 night, the Lord of creation is seized in the Garden of Gethsemane, taken down the Kidron Gorge, across the Kidron Creek, and up through the eastern wall of Jerusalem.

And he is escorted into a beautiful judgment hall, where assembled is the Supreme Court of Israel.

Jewish term for it is the Sanhedrin, 71 of the finest trial lawyers and sitting trial judges in the entire nation of Israel.

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The Most Important Sermon Jesus Ever Preached

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