Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro:

I have a question for you?

Depending on how you hear this and what the context is can really determine the next little bit of your life.

Now because Katie has the unique ability to make all things beautiful, she's never asked me how she looks in something and my reply not be either, "Stunning" or "Beautiful" she is a lily among brambles to me.

I pray for the Lord to increase this heart in me everyday, being that we are still in the newlywed faze.

However, I am known to share my opinions freely on food.

I can't hide them on my face.

This is where I get this question: Katie will make something and she will ask, "What do you think?"

It doesn't matter what I say, she can see if on my face.

Since we are still in the newlywed faze, I figure I will just be honest.

Most of what Katie makes is great.

If she's baking, it will be amazing.

In our home school, we were trying to do food from around the world.

There was an Ethiopian soup she made.

It smelled good.

It was full of spice and flavor but then they had you add peanut butter.

It turned from an interesting dish to one that rings of infamy in our home.

I didn't answer that day verbally.

When Katie asks this question, it is an honest one but one where too much of an answer isn't always helpful.

Another time someone has said, "I have a question for you" and that is when I was in basic training.

The drill sergeant would note something that was wrong that could only be fixed with push-ups and mountain climbers.

Him saying, "I have a question, what do you think" was rhetorical.

You aren't meant to answer.

If anyone did, we were all blessed with more push-ups and mountain climbers.

There is another time when someone says, "I have a question.

What do you think..." This is given in the context of being a Christian.

These types of questions are the best.

Sometimes, people will ask it in a way that isn't completely genuine but I enjoy spiritual conversations of any type.

Usually though, this question is done more in the context of a genuine question.

Today, we will see some questions directed to Jesus.

Then we will see Jesus ask some questions.

These are going to teach us to build our life on the foundation of Jesus.

FCF: Jesus shows the Sadducees and Pharisees issue do not rightly understand the Word.

They do not believe in the Word of God or the power of God.

As the religious leaders failed to see the Scriptures rightly, we too fail when we do not view Scripture through Christological lenses.

AT: There are so many things trying to capture your attention.

The way you view your life and how you live is under assault of the enemy.

Today, I want you to see how to build your life on the sure foundation given in Scripture.

In a world with tons of questions and no answers, I want you to see how the Christian worldview alone answers the questions of life.

Big Idea: Build your life on the foundation of Jesus.

or

A right view of the word gives us a right view of the Word.

1.

What do you think about the afterlife?

Matthew 22:23-33

2. What do you think about the commandments, which is the greatest?

Matthew 22:34-40

3. Whose son is the Messiah?

(Matt 22:41-46)

1.

What do you think about the afterlife?

Matthew 22:23-33

(Mk 12.18-27; Lk 20.27-40)

Matthew 22:23-29

Sadducees rejected the afterlife.

Pharisees did not they leaned heavy on two

Isaiah 26:19 (ESV)Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.

You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!

For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.

Daniel 12:2 (ESV)And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

Sadducees bring up the Levirate marriage in Gen 38:8 and what we see play out in Ruth with the goel kinsman-redeemer.

There is a play on words in v. 24 - raise up is resurrected that Jesus uses in v. 30.

Hypothetical story meant to target Jesus and prove the Sadducee way.

Matthew 22:29-30

Jesus' reply to the Sadducees counters their incorrect belief in the resurrection and angels.

Acts 23:8 (ESV) For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.

The Afterlife:

We will not be married but we will know one another.

We will not be constrained by the power of sin.

We will love without reserve.

Being like the angles is not that we are angles.

Jesus has a resurrected body.

His body, like that of angles is a body but is not constrained to the many limits of our own.

Matthew 22:31-33

Jesus quotes the Pentateuch, which the Sadducees valued more than the rest of the OT.

Whereas the Pharisees believed the Bible to be the words of God, the Sadducees believed the OT, specifically the Pentateuch to be Word of God.

They rejected the oral tradition.

Exodus 3:6 (ESV)And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

For us today:

The existence of mystery (not knowing everything about future events and heaven) does not negate the reality of eternity.

We must have a correct view of life and that includes prioritizing the afterlife.

Jesus is the resurrection and the life.

John 11:25 (ESV)Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.

Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,

We do not have Sadducees today, they really fell out of existence after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70.

However, we do have groups of people who have a type of Sadducees, that is those emphasizing the natural world, rejecting the spiritual world and like the Sadducees who rejected the spirituality of the Pharisees, modern day Sadducees are those who are the ruling elites of the day.

I'm not naming specific names or groups but rather I'll point to some of their foundational beliefs (presuppositional beliefs).

Some people call these worldviews, some think that is too simplistic of a term.

Generalizations and stereotypes always breakdown but they are helpful at times.

Alright, enough of the disclosures, let's move on to these areas that will surely generate some emails.

Ha!

Worldviews:

Naturalists

Everything comes through evolutionary means without God directing all areas of life.

You live, you die, and you never come back.

General teaching in schools and society.

Most uncommon view at funerals.

Hedonists

Hedonism "The ethical theory that identifies the good with happiness and understands happiness as the presence of pleasure and the absence of pain." C. Stephen Evans, Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics & Philosophy of Religion (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 51.

Nihilists

Nihilism.