Sermon Tone Analysis

intro

Have you

One time my family was getting ready to go on a trip, and my dad had asked me to load the van.

He said load the suitcases that are out by the door.

There were 4 of us leaving together.

So I saw 2 large suitcases, two duffle bags, and a smaller travel bag.

So stacked the rolling suitcases, and grabbed the other bags and smaller bag, and in one trip to the car had loaded what I thought to be atleast half of the family’s bags, unfortunately when I got back to the door there were several more suitcases waiting for me.

I asked Dad, was there someone else traveling with us, I thought I had just loaded atleast most of the suitcases.

He replied, “no son, the ones you grabbed first were just your mother’s alone!”

My mother is notorious for many things, but one thing, that stands out to me, is that on trips, whether you are driving, or flying, she is going to have lots and lots of luggage.

If your heading to FLORIDA, still need to pack sweaters, and if you are headed skiing in colorado, still need lots of hair care and make up.

It is not that she uses everything she brings, but she wants to be prepared.

This morning, it is my desire to prepare us for a trip, but instead of packing all your belonging, I’m going to talk about doing just the opposite.

I want to encourage you to prepare to leave it all behind!

There will be No Luggage in Heaven.

Prayer

Its recorded in that Jesus is approached by a young wealthy man who was asked, “teacher what must I do to have eternal life.”

Isn’t that a question we seem to always be asking.

Lord what hoop do I need to jump through?

What busy work do I need to do to pass the class?

Is there any extra credit that I can earn more favor?

Teacher what must I do?

When we are asking that question, we are asking the wrong question.

Lord what must I do to earn your love?

Lord how can I do set myself a part.

I wonder how often God gets prayers such as this.

Now don’t hear me wrong, I am not suggesting how we live and how we respond to Christ’s calling in our lives does indeed matter and is a reflection of the Holy Spirit dwelling in you.

I am a believer, that what lives in you shines out of you.

So with this understanding, I still believe, asking what good deed do I need to complete to earn eternal life is the wrong question.

As I often have in the past, I want to present to you two ditches, we as Christians, specifically SDA Christians can find ourselves falling into.

There is the crowd, who say “Because of the grace Jesus has extended to me, I can continue living in my sin, and none of you can judge me for it.”

This is an unfortunate ditch to fall into because we completely miss the point of Christ’s sacrifice.

When we claim, Christ’s grace and saving power, we pledge ourselves to live for him BECAUSE of what He did for us.

Claiming his grace, and forgiveness is our acknowledgment of falling short and our need for his redemptive power.

When we live in open sin, especially what we have been convicted of as sin, we are saying, I like the idea of Jesus loving me no matter what, but don’t embrace the change in our hearts Jesus is calling us to.....so ditch number 1 is believing we don’t need to embrace a Jesus filled changed life style.

ditch #2

There is also the crowd out there who believes at least to some degree that God’s love and salvation are in some way earned.

This is a misunderstanding of sinful nature.

While the earth has not been rid of sin, we cannot hide from that sinful nature that we are inclined to.

If we could, why would the Bible tell us to die daily?

We are to die away from that sin and embrace Jesus as our Lord and savior every single day.

They may not know it or even admit, but when we think we have in some way earned our ticket to Heaven, by our deeds, your saying, “Jesus, what you did at the cross wasn’t necessary for me....maybe for the others, but not for me.’’

It’s falling for the same lie that Eve fell for, that “you can be like God.”

The problem of falling into these ditches, is most I encounter don’t believe they are in such a ditch don’t feel a need to make changes.

That is what the devil wants.

He wants us in ditches stuck there, not moving forward to Jesus.

Ecc. 7

other translations say, come out of both “extremes.”

When we say, “Lord, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”

We are guilty one of two things, we are ignorant to baggage we are currently carrying with us, OR, We are desperately clinging to the baggage we are holding, afraid to give it up.

The rich young man, says “Lord what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”

Jesus knowing which ditch this man belongs to, says “If you would enter life, keep the commandments.”

He was referring of course to the law of God as expressed in the ten commandments and the commandment to love your neighbor as you love yourself.

the young man responds, “all of these I have kept, what do I still lack?”

I keep saying his question was a bad one from the start.

See although he came to the one who had all answers, he misunderstood that it wasn’t simply a matter of solving a problem or receiving directions.

He came looking for an answer.

He was talking to the answer.

He was looking for an action verb, he needed a noun.

He needed Jesus.

You see when I picture this scene, I picture a well dressed man, maybe accompanied by a servant or two carrying his luggage, or his personal acquired belongings.

He’s clean cut.

He is probably well liked.

By the disciples own standards, they are probably thinking this young guy might add some class and sophistication to the group.

He fits the mold.

This may have been their thinking, when they pushed for Judas to walk as one of the 12. Judas also held similar credentials, but he also had issues of taking matters into his own hands and trusting his own instincts and emotions more than his master Jesus.

So when the wealthy young man, asks Jesus what good deed must i do to receive eternal life, Jesus knows the desires of this man’s heart much more than he knows himself.

You see this man had a lot of luggage and baggage.

Luggage in his hands and baggage in his spirit.

Have you ever met someone, and over time, you realize that person is carrying a lot of personal baggage?

Maybe it is they are stricken with grief, maybe its guilt or shame, maybe it is being worn out from trying to appear perfect, maybe its anger, or bitterness, maybe it is lust or addiction.

When we have unhealthy baggage in our lives, Jesus has already given us the prescription.

See, I believe the problem is even once we have identified our baggage, we treat it as indispensable luggage that we need to take with us.

We rationalize with God, “Is it really necessary that I give this up or I leave this behind?”

Its like exercising.

We say, I want to get in shape, but then rationalize why we can spend thirty minutes working up a sweat.

Its when we say, Lord I need a break from all the noise in our lives and yet we can’t put our phones down long enough to have an intimate moment with the Lord in prayer or reading in the Bible.

Sometimes we remove some baggage only to replace it with other baggage.

A few years ago I was in Alabama, visiting my teacher girlfriend (at the time) now my wife.

She had to teach all day so while she was at her school I was with my grandmother who also conveniently lived in the area.

My grandmother is a wonderful lady, and I love spending time with her.

Since her husband, my grandfather had recently passed away she had not known what to do with all of his things, his clothes, and other such things.

She also had a lot of clutter in her little house.

So I volunteered to her that I could spend the next couple days helping her clean out the clutter.

She enthusiastically agreed!

And thus began a very tedious couple days.

For two days, it was “no no you can’t throw that away” “no no not that” And everything I dug up of my grandfather’s, if I didn’t want it or have use for it personally, She did not want to part with it.

My grandmother, I call her Nanna, loved the idea of decluttering her home, but mostly fought me to the nail as we removed item after item that had collected over the decades.

Once we were done, we accomplished a lot!

There was actual walking around room!

The goodwill and the dumpster received quite the deposit.

But wouldn’t you know on my next visit, only a month or two later, all that space that had been created had gotten filled back up with more clutter.

I basically looked at it and said, okay Nanna, have it your way! ;)

Jesus says let me chisel away that clutter in your life.

Let me remove the anchors in your life and let me fill that void that is left.

He says, rather than cling to your things, or better yet, rather than cling to your sin, He says cling to me, he says follow me!

Jesus responds to the young man,

In other words, Jesus is saying, if its perfection you are really desiring, you haven’t achieved that, see that luggage you carry everywhere, go sell that away and give the money to the poor, and then come follow me!

Jesus is saying you have learned to live well on your own, but you have also learned to depend on yourself.

I want you to come with me and I want you to depend on me!