Sermon Tone Analysis

Is Jesus living up to your expectations?

When I was a young boy, my family only went on two out of state vacations.

One was to Daytona Beach and the other was to Panama City Beach.

The red-neck riviera.

Heaven on the Gulf of Mexico.

Only it rained.

And it rained a lot.

The good news was just a block of so away was an arcade where they had Skee-Ball.

I was new to Skee-Ball, but it was my jam.

It didn’t take me but a minute and I owned Skee-Ball.

Ya’ll know what I’m talking about right.

Game has a ramp that you roll a croquet size ball up.

There’s a lip that tosses the ball into the air and it lands in one of the circles and you score points.

It’s built like a target you shoot at.

Outer ring is 10 points, each ring closer to the center is 10 more points.

And the center ring - the bull’s eye, was 50 points.

And I was a madman for that bull’s eye.

If I was rolling the ball, I was dropping those bull’s eyes.

And the best part it, after each game, the machine would spit out these little blue tickets.

Now I was rockin that Skee Ball game and those machines just kept spittin’ out long, loonnggg, rolls of those little blue tickets.

It rained for days - we played for days.

Blue tickets just kept coming.

Every time we had to go, I’d stop by the redemption counter and imagine what it would be like to own a new bike.

Or a new bow and arrow - or a model rocket.

Every day I’d cram another fist full of tickets in my pockets.

On the last day, I couldn’t wait to go shopping.

I was a Skee-Ball Beast.

I marched to the redemption counter with wild-eyed expectations of a poor boy about to strike it rich.

I didn’t have enough for the bike - but that was ok.

The bow and arrow was out of reach too - along with the model rocket.

In fact, all of things I had laid in bed dreaming about.

They were all out of my reach.

Finally, in the area where I could shop, I saw a set of steak knives I thought my mom might want.

So I surrendered my war chest of little blue tickets which probably cost dad $50 in quarters.

For a $5 set of steak knives.

Not exactly what I expected - but they seemed to make mom happy, so there was that.

Have you ever been there?

The party you dreamed about for months turned out to be a drudgery.

The date you’d been dreaming of for weeks turned into an evening that couldn’t be over fast enough.

The job that promised you everything, delivered you nothing?

A faith that made so much sense when you were young, but it just doesn’t seem to make that much sense any more.

Welcome to the world of John the Baptist.

If you have your Bibles with you, and I hope you do, please turn to Matthew 11:2-11.

And while you are going there - let me give you the background.

And there’s a lot of back ground.

400 years before John the Baptist was born, a man named Malachi wrote this:

John’s daddy was priest - he had studied Malachi all of his life.

He knew what it said - he knew what it meant.

Like every good Jew, he was waiting for the messenger that Malachi wrote about to come and tell them that God was ready.

The Messiah was here.

So John’s daddy, like everyone else, waited.

John’s mama and daddy might have been good at a lot of things, but making babies wasn’t one of them.

They were getting a bit old - babies weren’t even on their agenda anymore.

But when it was John’s daddy’s turn to serve in the temple, an angel came to him with unexpected news.

This angel told John’s daddy -

Luke 1:13-17 “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.

And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord.

And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.

And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.””

Of course John’s dad is a lot like us - this isn’t the way things happen in the real world.

So the angel made him unable to speak until the baby was born because he didn’t believe that God could do whatever God wanted to do.

But when the baby is born, everyone wanted to name him after his dad, but mom said no.

So they asked dad - and he said no.

He wrote that his name will be John - and immediately he could talk again.

But now listen to what he said about his kid - it’s a lot, so be ready.

Luke 1:67-78 “And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high”

Luke 1:79-80 “to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

What do you think about that - can you imagine, John grew up hearing that.

“Son, the Lord has chosen you.”

“Son, the Lord said you are Elijah who prepares the way for the Messiah.”

“Son, the Lord has chosen you to usher in the New Jerusalem.”

“Son, when Messiah comes, all of our enemies will be conquered.

“Son, no one will ever be scared ever again.”

“And you, my son, my son, you’ll be right there - in the thick of all of it.”

“I hope I live to see it, John.”

“What a day that will be.”

Let me ask you - what were your parent’s expectations of you?

How did those expectations influence you?

Did they tell you that you’d be the first in your family to go to college?

That you’d be the one to carry on the family name - that they expected you to take what they gave you and make it even more?”

Or did they tell you that you were worthless.

Or dumb.

Or fat.

What did those expectations do to you?

Or what about your faith?

All of those years that mom and dad drug you to Sunday School.

People telling you that Jesus will take care of your every need.

And then you got older, and life slammed into you head on.

And all of a sudden, nothing really seemed to make sense.

How did those expectations work in your head?

See, all of his life, John heard about what great things he was going to do.

And thing’s worked out according to plan for a while.

His mama and daddy raised him well.

He was an extremely devout man.

He moved out into the woods and he started preaching.

And the people loved to hear him.

They came from everywhere to hear him preach.

They were convicted of their sins.

They repented and he baptized them.