Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
If you’ve prepared for today’s sermon by reading ahead in the text, you may have come away thinking that there’s not much there.
In fact, that the way I described it to Katie at the beginning of the week.
She asked how sermon prep was going on Monday or Tuesday, and I think I told her something like, the translations done, but there’s not a whole lot there.
Jesus chooses his twelve disciples and then its the introduction to the Sermon on the Plain.
So I’m not sure where it’s going.
But here is the thing about the Bible: if you scratch beneath the surface you may find more than you were expecting.
And by that, I don’t mean find something that isn’t there or finding your own preconceived notion.
But rather, slow down and meditate on the text and see what the Spirit leads you to.
In this case, he led me to see for observations about Jesus.
And these observations are not unique to this passage, but are seen throughout the New Testament.
The first observation is that Jesus was a Prayerful Man.
The second is that Jesus was a Choosy Man.
The third observation about Jesus is that he was a Welcoming Man.
Finally, Jesus was a Powerful Man.
Jesus was a Prayerful Man
Jesus was a Choosy Man
Jesus was a Welcoming Man
Jesus was a Powerful Man
Jesus was a Prayerful Man
The first observation that we see in this narrative about Jesus is that he is a prayerful man.
Luke, more than any other gospel writer, describes Jesus as being a prayerful man.
We first see this lifestyle at Jesus’s baptism.
Luke is the only one to mention that Jesus prayed at his baptism.
In the same way, Luke is the only writer to mention that Jesus prayed before choosing his disciples.
Luke saw Jesus’s praying as a integral part of his doing what he was able to do.
The same is with the church.
Luke constantly wrote on the praying life of Jesus and the praying life of the church and/or its members.
Between the two books that he wrote, Luke and Acts, he mentions prayer and praying 35 times.
What we see in this narrative is how Jesus prayed: long and hard before selecting the twelve disciples who would carry on his mission.
And that really is key to understanding this passage.
And so I want to sit here a while and just work through this idea of Jesus praying and compare it with the first time we see him praying at his baptism.
There, at his baptism, Jesus was in the wilderness.
That’s where John was doing his baptism.
And that’s where Jesus went to receive it.
Thus, we see Jesus praying in the wilderness as well as on the mountain.
In the Bible, the wilderness typically represents a time of trial and testing.
It’s a time of deprivation and discovery.
However, the mountain is representative of closeness with God.
You may have notice how often in the Old Testament, mountains and hills are mentioned and many times in relation to worship.
Moses went up to Mt. Sinai to meet with God.
The people built high places on the hills to worship, whether it was to false gods or to the true God.
The temple was built on Mt.
Zion—in fact the holy city of Jerusalem is on a mountain.
In the New Testament the Samaritan woman wanted to know which was correct: worship on Mt.
Zion or Mt.
Gerizim.
Thus, Jesus prayed in the wilderness—where one is tried and deprived, and Jesus prayed on the mountain—where one is near to God.
As the southern gospel song says, “The God on the mountain is still God in the valley.”
And if Jesus knew that he needed to stay in prayer while in both places, what does that mean for us?
Secondly, while at his baptism, Jesus was planning to begin his ministry—the work of inaugurating the kingdom of God.
He would soon be heading deeper into the wilderness by the prompting of the Spirit, and then into teaching and healing and ultimately his own death.
This was not a time to take lightly and so we find him praying.
At the same time, Jesus is about to choose his twelve disciples, whom Luke tells us he also called apostles.
These men would be the ones who would be carrying on the ministry of Jesus—the work of advancing the kingdom of God.
So Jesus’s prayer life is not only a constant whether in the wilderness or on the mountain, i is focused on God’s kingdom coming on earth as it was in heaven.
But there is still a third truth about Jesus’s being a prayerful man.
His prayer led to his death.
God answered Jesus’s prayer for guidance.
Who would be the disciples?
Who would carry on the task of advancing the kingdom?
And we see all the apostles listed, including Judas Iscariot—the one who would betray him.
The praying of Jesus led to the picking of Judas!
Because like it or not, the kingdom would never advance unless Jesus was betrayed and died.
God’s plan was moving and God’s kingdom was advancing through this prayer of Jesus that led to much anguish and heartache.
Beloved we need to understand that praying through a decision does not take away difficulties.
We need to be reminded that praying through a situation does not mean it will be smooth-sailing.
In fact, it may actually mean that we are inviting problems into our lives because we are more interested in progressing God’s kingdom than protecting our own.
Jesus was a Choosy Man
We first saw that Jesus was a Prayerful Man.
We now see that Jesus was a Choosy Man.
Again, when one’s mission is to advance God’s kingdom, he needs to be prayerfully choosy.
In fact, we could call it discrimination.
Discrimination actually just means to divide or separate.
It can be done wrongly, but it can be done rightly.
As Al Mohler points quite a bit, we discriminate constantly.
We choose this over that.
When it comes to childcare we discriminate.
There are whole categories of people we discriminate against: murderers, kidnappers, and child-molesters to name a few.
But also, most people discriminate against men.
Have you ever noticed the lack of male babysitters?
We are completely underrepresented in this field!
When we choose a church to attend, we are discriminating.
We want a Baptist church, but not just any Baptist church, we want a Southern Baptist Church, but not just any SBC church, we want a reformed Baptist SBC church.
But not just any reformed SBC church, we want Highland View Baptist Church.
So Jesus, in his prayer to advance God’s kingdom, is seeking guidance on those who would further the kingdom.
These men and not those men.
And when day comes, Jesus has received the guidance that he needed.
We see the same thing happening at the beginning of Acts when the apostles are seeking to replace Judas.
Notice what they do:
They prayed for God’s guidance.
They prayed for him to choose through them.
And then they allowed him to do so by casting lots.
After all:
Jesus, prayerfully chooses his close-knit twelve disciples/apostles.
And incidentally, every list of the apostles starts and ends with the same people.
Every list starts with Simon Peter and every list ends with Judas Iscariot.
Those in between are often in different order and depending on who is writing, certain ones will have their alternate name given: Bartholomew instead of Nathanael or Judas instead of Thaddaeus.
But what a bunch they are!
Four of them were fishermen—one of which was impetuous and mouthy.
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