Sermon Tone Analysis
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There are certain topics that maybe just seem to make us uncomfortable, so we don’t talk about it much.
Today is one of those days.
Week after week we come to church and declare our belief in God.
We affirm our faith in the saving actions of Jesus who came into this world, lived among his people, was executed on a Roman cross, and was raised from the tomb.
We believe and declare that those events are very real—that it all actually happened just as the Bible says it did.
But just as the Bible talks about God’s love and his mercy and his grace, the Bible also talks about a spiritual enemy at work in our world who is also very real.
The devil first shows up in Genesis by coming into the garden of Eden and tempting Eve and Adam to disobey God.
At various points throughout scripture the devil shows up in the story.
We see him in the story of Job, and he shows up in the gospels to try his best to bring down Jesus.
The apostle Paul occasionally makes reference to the spiritual battle at work on our world between spiritual forces that mostly go unseen.
And the apostle John gets a glimpse in Revelation of the spiritual battle taking place in the heavens at the end of time.
But let’s admit that for the most part we completely ignore the devil.
C.S. Lewis recognized this trend as well.
One of his books—The Screwtape Letters—brings this out.
In this story, Lewis writes about an imaginary correspondence going back and forth between two demons, Screwtape and Wormwood.
It is Screwtape who is giving advice to Wormwood about how it is he can be the most demonic evil spirit possible.
At one point in the book, Screwtape urges his young protégé to keep a low profile and remain hidden in the dark shadows.
His advice is that the devil and his forces of evil do their most destructive work when the demons go completely ignored and unnoticed in all the evil and destruction they instigate in the world.
And as for us in the church, we often talk about things like “God-sightings” or moments of notice in which we see God at work in our lives and in the world.
But it is not very often that we ever pay attention to what the devil might be up to in this world.
Now, to be fair, it would not be the best thing for us in the church to have an unhealthy obsession with the devil and demonic forces.
It may not be helpful for us to spend every waking moment peeking under every rock and around every corner trying to spy the devil.
However, can we consider today what it looks like for us to at least have an appropriate response to the devil and his schemes at work in our world?
Life in Prison
times when we have experienced the full and abundant life
This story about John the Baptist in Matthew 11 gives us a good glimpse into what our own lives might look like from time-to-time.
John is the cousin of Jesus.
John is the one who is set up by God to prepare the way for Jesus.
John is given the task of being the new Elijah.
And in the time when Jesus was just beginning his ministry, John the Baptist is something of a rock star in the area of Judah.
His popularity is spreading, and people are flocking out to the desert by the Jordan River to see him.
His ministry is taking off and he is seeing results.
People are repenting and turning to God.
His message is getting through.
To cap it all off, Jesus himself comes to see John as the first step of his earthly ministry.
Jesus receives baptism by John.
And John is there to witness the display of the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—in the moment when Jesus comes out of the water.
The voice of the Father is heard from the heavens.
And the presence of the Spirit comes as a dove.
John is there at this moment.
John recognizes the importance of this event.
John knows that God’s promised Messiah is here—the one God’s people have been waiting for.
times when the full and abundant life has been taken from us
But this is not the way we encounter John in Matthew 11.
At this point John has made enemies with the local rulers and has been arrested and put in prison.
All the momentum of his ministry has come to a grinding halt.
It seems that he still has his following of those who responded to his message.
But none of that helps John get out of prison.
His life is stuck in a dead-end.
questioning Jesus: are you the one?
And it is from this place of being stuck in prison that John sends his messengers to Jesus with a question: Are you the one, or not?
It was all so clear back when we stood together in the shallows of the Jordan River at the baptism scene.
We were waiting our whole lives for the moment of God’s Messiah.
It was go-time.
But now John is in prison.
This is not what he envisioned go-time being.
All he sees is the inside of a prison cell with no possibility of parole.
The question he sends to Jesus seems loaded.
It looks to me like John is second-guessing himself.
It seemed so clear when things were all going his way.
And now that things are no longer going his way, John faces a crisis moment in his faith.
He questions whether Jesus is the real-deal.
We’ve all been there too.
Those of us here who have been part of the church for some time know what it is like to face moments of crisis in our faith too.
Every now-and-then we have lives that feel locked inside a prison cell.
And sooner or later every one of us has a moment when we ask the same question that John asks: Jesus, are you the one, or not?
Life to the Full
It is not uncommon for people to have a favorite passage from the Bible.
Even people who are not Christians maybe know of a particular verse or saying from the Bible that means something special to them.
And I am struck by how often people choose favorite verses that don’t mean what they think it means because it is pulled completely out from context.
John 10:10 is one of those verses.
There are people who like to quote the words of Jesus in John 10:10.
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
What an awesome promise from Jesus.
Who wouldn’t want a full and abundant life?
Prosperity gospel preachers like to quote this as a basis for their message of health and wealth.
We love to think of God as the one who is there to fulfil our every wish of goodness.
This is John at the Jordan River wrapping himself in all the full and abundant things that God was bringing about through his ministry and message.
People’s live were being changed and turning back to God.
what happens when full abundant life is taken away?
blame God
blame myself
So, what happens to these words of Jesus when John ends up in prison?
Where is the full and abundant life while shackled inside that cell?
Either Jesus is not the one he says he is, or John did something wrong to lose his grip on that full and abundant life.
This is so very true of our world yet today.
We love the full and abundant life when it is right there in front of us for the taking.
We praise and thank God for his generous blessings when everything is going right.
And when life is not full and abundant we stew in the thoughts of doubt; either Jesus is not who he claims to be, or I must be doing something wrong.
What other possible explanation could there be?
And this is where we are left.
I blame God for not being who I think he should be—or not doing what I think he should do.
Or I blame myself for not doing whatever I should have done to avert myself from whatever distress I find myself facing.
Either way, we find ourselves stopped by a roadblock cutting us off from the full and abundant life we were expecting.
And most of the time we either throw the blame at God or at ourselves.
But here’s the problem.
We don’t have a good understanding of John 10:10.
We don’t have a clear picture of everything Jesus means by a full and abundant life.
In fact, we aren’t even looking at the whole verse.
John 10:10 – I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
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