Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Some of you might know this, but I originally went to college seeking a degree in business.

Growing up in the blue collar home, finances were often tight so I decided that a college degree in business would be my ticket out of that way of life.

There was, however, more involved in this decision than just my desire to make a good living, I enjoyed what I saw as the inter workings of the world of business.

I looked forward to working together with a team to meet a challenge and figuring out how to accomplish our shared goal as we each brought one piece of the puzzle together.

Things like strategic planning, problem solving and managing a team was intriguing to me.

Of course anyone who has a degree in business can recognize how rare, idealistic and naive that perspective on the business world was, but I was 18 years old and figured the business world was just waiting for me to make it better.

I spent the summer before my freshman year working at the hobby store that I have told you about before, but now that I was a high school graduate heading for a business degree I was given more responsibility and more more freedoms.

I began in a managers role where I was responsible for the store all by myself.

Not only was I was in sales, but now I was ordering, purchasing, bookeeping and heading up our introduction to this new thing called “ebay”.

Having the opportunity in this role and watching the business owners life and the decisions that she had to make, I began to wonder if the world of business was really for me after all.

Then I went off to college and enrolled in required classes, business classes and one introduction to ministry class.

While the required classes were not of much interest to me, I was intriqued with both my business classes and my ministry class.

The thing that intrigued me the most was how similar many of the concepts were.

I was operating under the impression that getting a business degree was just about doing what you had to in this world to make money, and then you would go to Church, Bible Studies and or short/term mission trips for your ministry time.

This was not what I heard from the business professors in that class.

Men who had had been very successful in fortune 500 companies in the Chicagoland area.

Their testimony was that their Christian faith fundamentally influenced not only how they conducted business, but how successful they were at it.

They talked about opportunities that they had to point people to Jesus that they would never have had if they did not pursue Christ-centered business model.

And they were still making money.

This was news to me.

That spiritual disciplines like prayer, reading and sharing God’s Word were just as much a part of their success formula as a good business plan.

Tension

But I was just as surprised at what I found in my introduction to ministry class.

I figured ministry was just about spiritual disciplines like prayer and reading and sharing God’s Word, but I found that many of the practices that drew me to want to be a part of the business world were an essential part of what it took to be successful at full-time Church ministry.

Things like strategic planning, problem solving and managing teams were also vital to success in ministry.

Tension

So now I didn’t know what I would do now.

I knew that God had wired me to desire and go after these particular things, but then he showed me that they were available in two different directions.

I had to re-evaluate my decision to pursue a business degree because I was shown many variables that I never considered.

So I prayed, sought the counsel of professors in both the business and ministry departments and then followed through on the decision that I believed God was leading me towards.

Obviously, as I stand here today, you know that I chose the “full-time Church ministry” track, but I want to be clear that what I learned through this experience is that God could have used me in either direction and still fulfill his will in my life.

Transition Statement

The truth is that it is both the privilege and responsibility of every follower of Jesus Christ, to submit all our lives to the business of growing His Kingdom, no matter where we report for work on Monday morning.

In our text today we are going to read about how Jesus interacted with two different men at polar opposites of the spectrum when it comes to what the world calls success.

Despite this, Jesus’ business in their lives remained the same.

Not only will we learn from Jesus’ interaction with these two men, but we will hear Jesus using a parable to tell all of his disciples that when He returns, we will be held accountable for how we handled His Business while he was gone.

The Business of the Kingdom of God.

So if you haven’t already, open up with me to Luke chapter 18: 35, I’ll pray and we will get started.

Truth

The first thing that we are going to look at in this section is the very last verse.

The reason that we are going to start there is because in it Jesus gives us the essence of his Business Model.

After the demonstration of it’s work in these two men’s lives, Jesus again announces his mission.

He tells us why he has come:

Luke 19:

Jesus’ Business is to Seek and Save the Lost

We actually looked at this verse back in Chapter 15, when we encountered several parables about lost things.

A Lost Sheep.

A Lost Coin.

A Lost Son. and today we have worked our way up to it’s placement in Luke's Gospel.

So I invite you to look for the elements of this theme in these two stories of Jesus.

Lets return to Chapter 18:35 where Jesus encounters a blind beggar named Bartimaeus

Bartimaeus the blind beggar

Luke 18:35-3

Luke 18:

When we studied this story this past Easter, we learned from the book of John that this blind man’s name was Bartimaeus.

Being blind, we can deduce that his hearing was especially sensitive so when he heard the roar of the the crowd he knew that something special was happening, but he could not see what it was.

His disability kept him from seeing Jesus with his eyes, but it didn’t stop him from understanding Jesus to be the “Son of David”.

This is the first time in the book of Luke that anyone has used this title for Jesus.

It was a Messianic title, a Kingdom title, for the Son of King David would have been from his Kingly line.

Above all the crowd that day, this man was going to have his voice heard.

What did he have to lose.

He was already a poor beggar, was he afraid that people would look down on him?

He wanted Jesus to respond so he gave it all he had and Jesus did notice and called for him.

Luke 18:40

What a question that is isn’t it?

“What do you want me to do for you?”

It is a searching question isn’t it.

A probing one.

Any answer to this question will reveal something about the person who is being asked it.

What would you say if Jesus stood before you as he stood before Bartimaeus?

Whatever you answer, you will be revealing at least two things about yourself.

You have a need that you can’t handle on your own

You have faith that this Jesus can.

Luke 18:41-

You might remember that we talked about the Greek Word there for “well”.

It is the greek word σῴζω (sozo) and in some of the Bibles most familiar verses it is translated “to deliver or save”.

This gives us some indication that receiving his sight was not the only miraculous thing that happened to Bartimaeus that day.

Faith has made you well = has saved you.

It is possible that the faith that causes Bartimaeus to be able to see was a catalyst for a saving faith in Jesus Christ especially when we see his response: He followed Jesus.

He Glorified God.

And as His testimony of being made well, of being “delivered or saved” went out to the people, they too gave praise to God for his salvation.

His faith in Jesus has brought him salvation.

Jesus had accomplished his mission in It is possible that the faith that Bartimaeus’ displayed here not only brought him back his sight, but brought him into a right relationship with God.

What we do know for sure is what he did in response: He followed Jesus.

He Glorified God.

And as His testimony of salvation went out to the people, they too gave praise to God for his salvation.

Incidentally, the Greek word for “save” in our theme verse is the same word: “sozo”.

Jesus’ first encounter was with a Blind beggar named Bartimaeus, and his second is the somewhat familiar story of :

The second encounter of Jesus in our text today was with the familiar story of the :

The second encounter of Jesus in our text today was with the familiar story of the :

Zacchaeus the chief tax collector

Jesus said he needed to come to Zacchaeus house

If you grew up going to Sunday School like I did, then you might picture Zacchaeus as this cute and cuddly character “climbed up in a sycamore tree, for the Lord he wanted to see...”.

But that might not give you an accurate picture of Zacchaeus.

While we don’t know exactly what he looked liked, outside of his stature, but the role of the Tax Collector is one that we have often come across in the book of Luke.

Zacchaeus was not just another Tax Collector but he was a “Chief Tax Collector”.

In other words, he was very good at collecting taxes for the Roman oppressors of his own people.

You don’t maintain a grow a position like this with a light heart and “cute and cuddly” demeanor.

You would have to be a pretty ruthless, tough skinned and hard hearted person to be so successful in swindling your own people out of their money on behalf of their greatest enemy.