Sermon Tone Analysis

Sermon Introduction

Rapunzel is not really a story about a beautiful woman but a story about the power of love to heal the blind.

In the In the original, pre-disney version of the story written by teh Brother’s Grimm, an evil sorceress comes and imprisons Rapunzel in a tower and puts thorns all around the tower so anybody who tries to rescue her is going to have to brave the thorns.

Of course, a handsome, young true prince comes up and tries to scheme with Rapunzel on how he’s going to save her, but the evil sorceress finds out about it.

When he’s not there, she spirits Rapunzel away to a far land.

Then, she waits for the prince to come up.

When the prince comes up, he finds the evil sorceress and in despair he throws him off the top of the tower, down into the horrible thorns she had prepared for him, and they gouge his eyes out.

He wanders for years … a blind beggar, completely destitute, unable to see anything, totally miserable.

Probably not exactly the way you read it, and yet because of a supernatural intervention, the prince hears Rapunzel singing and the sound of her song strikes his heart like an arrow from cupid.

She takes him in her arms.

He’s blind; it’s awful, but if they have each other … As she weeps, her tears fall in his eyes and heal his eyes.

Her love for him, heals what the thorns had taken.

In our text, Rabbi Paul says we are waging a war against our former blindness that keeps trying to darken our eyes but … guess what?

If you will hear the what the Spirit is singing, saying He will become the true Lover of your soul, whose love flows mingled down and heals our blindness and takes away our hardness toward others.

He will give you the will-to-do what you have-to-do.

At the beginning of the message Rabbi Vowell used the Rapunzel story to illustrate the Holy Spirit’s healing ministry in our lives.

Can you recall a time when you new the Holy Spirit was healing your soul from past sin?

What was it like?

Ha-Foke-Ba

In 1519, Captain Hernán Cortés landed in Veracruz to begin his great conquest of the New World.

Upon arriving, he caught wind that there might be a mutiny of men and they would want to leave this conquest and abandon their captain.

So the famed story says that Cortés gave the order to his men to burn the ships and and he made sure they sunk in the harbor.

There is something about this story that I absolutely resonate with, that feeling that in order for me to do what I have to do I need to eliminate all possible temptation that might cause me to retreat.

A kind of “No Retreat” option so there is no temptation to turn back, to give up on the challenge that is in front of me.

Have you ever wished you could just burn down all the ships of temptation so it would be easier to just do what you have-to-do?

Why would this not really solve the problem?

I can’t tell you the number of times I have thought to myself, “God, if you would just burn down all the options that prevent me from doing what I have-to-do, then I would have no problem doing it.”

The problem with this is it only forces my hand to do what I have to do but it does not give me the will to do it.

It does not create in me a longing to do it.

It does not give me a vision to do it.

You have to have the will-to-do what you have-to-do to accomplish God’s will for you.

Throughout this series, we have said there is a way that you can live your life that can only get you so far and as good as it gets it is never as good as it gets with the Holy Spirit active in your life.

We have covered a lot of ground about the Ruach, the Holy Spirit.

Today, I want us to conclude our series discovering how Only the Hoy Spirit can give you the motivational will-to-do what you have-to-do.

The Internal Work of the Spirit

The internal work of the Holy Spirit is to radically heal the damage done to your old affections.

Explain what the text says about “how the affections are radically restructured.”

Explain what the text says about the “promise of the Spirit filled life.”

Rabbi Vowell mentioned four things that Holy Spirit does to restructure you affections.

Of those four which one or two stood out to you the most?

Why?

Your affections are restructured towards one-another ().

Your affections are restructured to internalize and personalize the Torah ().

Your affections are restructured against the flesh ().

Your affections are restructured for the Spirit’s guidance ().

Validate: God’s righteous and merciful will can only be fulfilled by the internal work of the Holy Spirit.

Why can’t the Law change our affections and give us the will-to-do what we have-to-do?

Why does it take the Holy Spirit to give us the will-to-do what we have-to-do?

Why can’t the Law change our affections?

Why does it take the Holy Spirit?

We all recognize that Rabbi Paul says in the law slays and has limited potency

We also recognize that it is God’s will and it is Spiritual

The Law/Torah is easily misused and abused by sinful human beings.

Based on a selective reading of the Torah you could choose to focus on the minute details of tithing mint, dill and cummin but neglect the weightier matters of justice, mercy and faith.

And, you can also so overfocus on justice, mercy and faith that you neglect the small matters of the Law and that is why Yeshua says, “You should have not neglected the former while practicing the latter” in .

The Law/Torah is made into a machinery of deception in the hands of sinful human beings.

Under the power of sin the Torah conceals selfishness, self-deception, and the fact that human beings are constantly distancing themselves from the justice that God intended, from His mercy, and from the true knowledge of God.

The Law/Torah can only give us the have-to-do but it does not give us the will-to-do.

The Law/Torah apart from the Holy Spirit operates from the outside-to-the-inside.

The Law/Torah with the Holy Spirit operates from an inside-to-the-outside

Only the Holy Spirit can give you the will-to-do what the Torah says we have-to-do.

Illustrate the Application: those who are led by the Spirit are growing because internally their affections are changing.

They have both the “will-to” and the “have-to.”

Let me ask you.

You’re Houstonians.

You’re probably very busy and never have enough minutes in a day.

Maybe you’re very active in your kids lives also.

Maybe you’re very active in this synagogue.

Are you volunteering?

Are you reading your Bible?

Are you going to meetings?

Good.

These are all great spiritual practices.

I’m all for spiritual practices, but now do you see the problem?

Are you really growing or are you just doing what you “have-to-do”?

Or I’ll put it this way.

Would the people who know you best say that, increasingly, you’re becoming a harder and harder person to discourage because you’re getting happier, and you’re becoming a harder and harder person to tempt to disobedience because you’re getting more and more faithful, and you’re becoming a harder and harder person to embitter because you’re becoming humbler?

Do the people around you say, “Oh, you’re a lot humbler, happier, faithful, more patient, more peaceful, less anxious person than you were two years ago”?

Is anybody going to say that about you?

Maybe you’re not growing, because you are just trying do the “have-to’s” wihout the “will-to.”

But those who are led by the Spirit are growing because internally their affections are changing.

They have both the “will-to” and the “have-to.”

The internal restructuring of the affections is not so that you can be free from the Law; rather, it is so that you can have the “will-to” do what the Law says you “have-to.”

And the Holy Spirit does this by restructuring the whole of our internal affections so that now we have the will-to-do what God has for us to do.

This one simple idea is what keeps you from becoming a legalist on the one hand and sloppy agape on the other hand.

That means something important that we cannot overlook.

The real antagaonist to the Spirit is not the Torah but the sinful nature inside of each and everyone of us.

This is not some “churchianity” idea.

One of my favorite books in Judaism is called “Duties of the Heart” by Rabbi Bachya Ibn Pakuda and was written in 1156 A.D. Rabbi Bahya took upon himself the task of writing a book in order to stimulate constant awareness of G‑d and of His commandments.

He was hoping by doing this it would lead to fear of the Almighty (Yiras Hashem), and love of the Almighty (Ahavas Hashem), and thereby to perfect service to the Almighty.

In his book, he has an entire section some 50+ pages detailing how the evil inclination, the sinful nature, is the antagonist of the soul and will take every opportunity to slay the heart from pure devotion to God.

While the book is one of the best manuals on what you “have-to-do” to discern the voice of the flesh (aka, the evil inclination or sinful nature), the Rabbi offers no hope that the “will-to-do” can change.

Rabbi Paul gives what Rabby Bahya lacks: a real way to overcome the antagonist of the Spirit, the flesh.

The Antagonist of the Spirit

The flesh works against the Spirit in direction opposition to the Kingdom of God.

The flesh is a way of speaking about the affections being under the control of sin and not the Spirit.

The flesh’s desire is for self-fulfillment and indulgence ()

First Three: Self-Gratification - My desires are the only ones that matter.

Middle 10: Self-Sovereignty - My will is the only will that matters.

Last Three: Self-Glory - My honor is the only honor that matters.