Sermon Tone Analysis

The weather last week surprised me, the weather said we would get rain, but instead I awoke to a couple inches of sleet.

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This meant the Rasmussen family played outside in the snow, going out freezing and then coming back in getting warm and going back out again.

We made a snow man, or an ice man and we also stayed inside and read books.

And I read a book called the twits by Roald Dahl to my oldest Hollis.

And it is about this terrible couple Mr. and Mrs. Twit, who are cruel to one another as well as to everyone and everything else in their lives.

Mrs. Twit was described as being once beautiful, but because of her horrible thoughts over the years she became uglier and uglier.

The story is about their disintegration.

From former beauty to ugliness.

The Twits had trained monkeys that they tortured.

Eventually the trained monkeys managed to escape.

And the monkeys played a trick on the twits.

They went into their house and glued all their furniture to the ceiling so that when the twits walked in to their house they thought they were upside down, so they stood on their heads to be right side up.

But what they didn’t know was that before they went into their house glue was placed on their heads so when they stood on their heads they got stuck upside down.

They began berated one another and being nasty to one another as they had the whole story and eventually began to shrink and shrink their head into disintegrated into the floor and their neck and then legs and then feet until they were completely disintegrated.

and as they berated one another they eventually began to shrink and shrink until they were completely disintegrated.

Needless to say, this was not one of those children books where the antagonist was just misunderstood and everyone became friends in the end.

No it was as if the life the twits, their cruel and nasty lives slowly ate them alive until they were no more.

What the twits needed was to repent, they need to turn from their way living that led to disintegration, and turn to life.

In our passage we read this morning, John is calling people to repentance.

Out of a way of life that leads to a disintegrated self, and society, and to the one who is life, who brings life.

FCF: We don’t like the idea of repentance, it has a striking negative connotation, who one has the right to demand change,

FCF: But when we hear the word repentance, we usually don’t think positive thoughts, we might have more negative connotations with it.

Or maybe we think it is somewhat irrelevant or antiquated, or something that street preachers yell at the intersection.

Repentance that sings:

We don’t like the idea of repentance, it has a striking negative connotation, who one has the right to demand change,

There is not a lot of room in our society for repentance: As one supreme court justice said “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”

If individual humans get to define what is true and real, what room does that leave for repentance?

Well not much, but if Jesus is the son of God, if he is the truth, if he created reality, if he created life, then there is room for a call to repentance, a call out of a disintegrated life and back to life, to life in the full.

Well

So if Jesus is the life it means we should repent and turn to his life.

Because Jesus brings life we should

and turn to him.

What we must do:

Look with me at verse 7 and 8.

John the baptizer comes preaching repentance.

And yes, with some intensity, and urgency.

And he tells them to bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

Let’s unpack this phrase a little, because it is important to get this.

Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

These are separate things, but linked together.

Repentance and bearing fruit.

Bearing fruit in Scripture is the expression of a changed life; virtuous behavior and attitudes.

The legs of repentance.

Bearing fruit in Scripture is associated with the outward conduct of an individual.

So

Repentance is not a change in behavior, it is an internal change.

That is the fruit that is in keeping with repentance.

Repentance literally means change of mind, but it is more than just a simple decision, like oh I was going to wear brown shoes today, but I changed my mind so I am going to wear black shoes.

It is It is a change of ones inner disposition, or orientation.

Bear fruit in keeping with repentance

It is a change in your perceived source of life.

Or another way of thinking about it would be repentance is as a paradigm shift.

A fundamental change of your assumptions about life, about what is the good life, about who is the source of your life and meaning.

Illustration:

The movie the Truman show is about a show and a city that is built around the man Truman Burbank, except Truman does know know he is in a show, for him it is just the way things are.

It is just life for him.

But then there are these things that happen to him things that just don’t fit.

There is this once scene where Truman is driving his car and the radio malfunctions and he starts to hear chatter that is all about him.

He is truing on to Elm right now, and que the pedestrian.

He is pulling up to the office now.

Application:

Disoriented he gets out of the car and walks into his office, but then quickly leaves and instead of going to his job, he goes into another office building one that he never goes in and he heads to the elevator and behind the elevator doors he doe sent see an elevator, but people sitting in a dressing room, he is then grabbed by some security guards and shuffled out of the door.

He takes his briefcase and hits someone and they don’t respond.

Life around him seems fake, and eventually he finds out the truth.

And his paradigm for truth and life are completely altered.

And toward the end before he leaves, he is given the option to stay in this manufactured un-real life, or he can leave.

Truman had a shift in his thinking, about what was real and true, he repented of the false world that was the Truman show.

and in keeping with that repentance, bears fruit,

he leaves the Truman show, and taking a bow saying his famous line, in case I don’t see you, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.

Application:

God calls us to repentance, and to bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

Repentance is an internal paradigm shift in our perceived source of life.

Repentance means we see sin and death for what it is an Jesus for who he is.

To repent, is not to beat yourself up, but to see sin as it truly is disintegrating and a journey toward death.

Repentance sees the life of pornography, that it brings relational death, and is an attempt to kill real intimacy.

It means that

Repentance sees the escape that substance abuse brings as it really is an escape into the grave.

Repentance sees that pornography is a lie, alcohol abuse is an escape into the grave, and that your bank account will never be big enough to give you security you desire.

Repentance is about seeing reality as it is, like the Truman show, it looked great in so many ways, but it was not real life.

alcohol abuse is an escape into the grave, and that your bank account will never be big enough to give you security you desire.

Where

Repentance leads us to come alive so that we can give to others and give glory to God.

Repentance is a bold move that leads us to come alive not only for the sake of others, but also for the glory of God.

Where that phrase Glory of God is not just a word, but you actually care about his name, his reputation and honor in this world, you feel his weight in this world.

So often sin, may look enticing, but it only brings death.

Repentance is a refusal to live a disintegrating life, and is a turn toward the only true source of life.

is a refusal of all that brings death, and an acceptance and dependence on the life of Jesus.

But if this is repentance is turning from death to life,

why don’t we repent?

What prevents us from repenting?

We need someone outside ourselves to call it out to us.

Look with me at verse 8

Look with me at verse 8

What keeps us from repentance is dishonesty.

The difficulty with repentance is that it requires honesty.

In our passage John anticipates their response, and cuts them off at the pass.

They would have called their heritage to their defence, so that they would not need to repent.

We don’t need to repent, because we are in the same family as Abraham.

Maybe those others out there need to repent, but not us.