Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

Misunderstanding is a part of life, and much of the laughter of life is due to it.

One little guy surprised his whole family one evening at the supper table by asking which virgin was Jesus' mother?

Was it the Mary virgin, or the King James Virgin?

He had misunderstood one word and was confused.

Much humor is based on misunderstanding another's meaning.

The judge, for example, asked the accused: "Have you ever been up before me?"

The accused responded, "I don't know judge.

When do you usually get up?"

If misunderstanding is limited to jokes, it would be an enjoyable aspect of life.

Unfortunately, it is not limited to jokes.

Even when it leads to something funny it can be terribly embarrassing for the one who misunderstands.

Like the newly elected secretary of the youth group, who was told it was her duty to keep a record of the minutes of the meetings.

The next time they met she announced the last meeting had been 20 minutes and 36 seconds.

She had misunderstood the meaning of minutes.

This is a major problem in communication, because words can have more than one meaning.

It is so easy to take words literally that are not meant that way.

A mother asked her little boy if he thanked the neighbor lady for the party.

"I was going to," he said, "But when the little girl ahead of me did, the lady said not to mention it.

So I didn't."

He took her words literally.

One of the major problems of marriage is mates who do not grasp what the other is really saying.

One of the major problems of any organization is communication breakdown that leads to misunderstanding.

During World War I American soldiers whistled when the French Premiere came on the screen.

The French soldiers rushed at them in anger, but before they came to blows, someone was able to explain the American behavior.

To whistle in our culture was to express approval, but to the French it expressed disapproval.

It was all a matter of misunderstanding.

One of the major problems that Jesus had in living the life of a man was in being misunderstood.

His own disciples did not understand He was going through agony in His final hours, and they slept while He wept in Gethsemane.

They did not grasp much of what He tried to teach them, and in their misunderstanding they even tried to stop Him from going to the cross.

The Pharisees misunderstood Him completely.

They thought He was a law breaker, and one who was defying the God of Israel.

They did not see His love and compassion for the sinner as good news.

They saw His association with sinners, and His violation of the Sabbath by healing then, as the action of a rebel rather than a redeemer.

They totally misunderstood Jesus and His mission.

Amiel in his Journel says it was one of the greatest wounds men inflicted upon Jesus.

He was the great misunderstood, and the least comprehended.

Jesus says to His disciples, "Beware the leaven of the Pharisees," and they debate about bread.

He says, "I have meat to eat ye know not of," and again they wonder where He got bread.

"Destroy this temple and in 3 days I will raise it up," He said, and the leaders of Israel wondered how He could build what took decades to construct in only 3 days.

On and on it goes, and even the intelligent leader Nicodemus asked, "How can I go back into my mother's womb and be born again?"

Everybody kept misunderstanding Jesus, and taking His word so literally they came to strange conclusions.

This is still a major problem today, and it will be one of the struggles we face in going through the Sermon on the Mount.

We will have to spend a great deal of time and effort in explaining what Jesus did not mean.

So many take the words of Jesus in a literal sense that leads to deep misunderstanding, and some have even cut off their hands to try and prevent sinning.

It bothered me as I studied this sermon, that so much of what Jesus says has to be explained again and again to prevent wrong conceptions.

But as I focused on verse 17, I realized this was the very thing Jesus had to do Himself in giving the sermon.

"Think not I have come to destroy the law," Jesus said.

In so saying, He acknowledges that He knows He has already been misunderstood, or that He will be.

He is trying to clarify His position and avoid misunderstanding.

I realize that if Jesus had to do this, then it is just an inevitable part of life, and the process of communication.

There is no way to be effective in communicating if you do not remain constantly aware of the reality of misunderstanding.

Rudyard Kipling said, "We are like islands and we shout to each other across seas of misunderstanding."

Not understood.

How many breasts are aching

For lack of sympathy.

Ah, day by day,

How many cheerless, lonely hearts are breaking,

How many noble spirits pass away-not understood.

O God!

That men would see a little clearer,

Or judge less harshly when they cannot see!

O God!

That men would draw a little nearer

To one another!

They'd be nearer Thee,

And understood.

It is one of life's biggest battles to be understood, and one of life's greatest virtues is to be one who strives to understand.

Misunderstanding, and being misunderstood, is one of life's greatest trials, and Jesus experienced it to its depths.

In our text we are focusing on one of His attempts to overcome misunderstanding.

"Think not," he says, and some go no further than this, and think they obey because they think not.

What Jesus is saying is, do not jump to conclusions and end up with a false impression of my goals.

Jesus knew that His opposition to the leaders of Israel, and His violation of their interpretation of the law, would cause many to assume He was anti-law, and that His goal would be to overthrow the old and begin a whole new system.

This is how the Pharisees saw Jesus.

He was a threat to Judaism, and a rebel who sought to overthrow the law of Moses.

In fact, Jesus wanted just the reverse.

He wanted to restore Judaism from its flat and tasteless state to what God intended it to be.

He was the salt to bring out the fullness of its flavor, and bring it to its full potential, and fulfill it.

Let us learn from this conflict of Jesus and the Pharisees never to judge a person's motives on the basis of what seems, or on the testimony of their enemies.

The only way you can avoid misunderstanding and bad judgments is to listen to the clear statements of the person in question.

It is not what you think, or what the critics think, but what does the person say himself.

Jesus gives us His own clear statement on a major issue of conflict, and He doubles the certainty of our not misunderstanding Him by dispelling a negative, and declaring a positive in verse 17.

I.

A NEGATIVE DISPELLED.

Only twice did Jesus use these words to try and dispel misconceptions.

Here and in Matt.

10:35 where He says, "Do not think that I have come to bring peace on the earth, I have come not to bring peace but a sword."

Jesus was so loving, and such a peacemaker that people could easily jump to the conclusion that following Him would lead to a life free from all conflict.

Unfortunately, Jesus had to drive this misconception from people's minds, or they would not be prepared for the shock of conflict and persecution that was ahead for those who followed Him.

One of the major tasks of Christian teaching is to set the record straight, and scatter the misconceptions that people have about God and Christ, and the Christian life.

Will Rogers was right, all of us are ignorant just in different subjects.

All of us have misconceptions and misunderstandings that need to be dispelled by clearer light.

Christian education is the process of pushing back the darkness of misunderstanding with the light of true conception.

One of the biggest issues of Christian history is the one Jesus deals with in this verse.

It is the issue of the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament, or to Christianity.

This is a complex issue that has led to much misunderstanding through history.

Jesus first makes it clear that the negative idea that He came to destroy the law and the prophets is to be cast to the wind.

It is false view of His mission, and is not to be a part of Christian thinking.

Jesus abolishes the idea that He has come to abolish the law.

Jesus does not come to build a kingdom from scratch.