Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity gave a famous apologetic defense arguing for the person and deity of Christ.

His famous Trilema argument goes like this: Lord, Liar, or Lunatic.

You cannot be indifferent to Jesus.

How you respond to Jesus will determine your eternal fate.

He said this:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.

That is the one thing we must not say.

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.

He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell.

You must make your choice.

Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.

You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher.

He has not left that open to us.

He did not intend to.”

In this passage we are studying this morning, Jesus is accused of both being a liar and lunatic.

He is accused of being a lunatic by his own family and accused of being a liar being demon-possessed man by the religious leaders.

In this passage we are studying this morning, Jesus is accused of being a liar and lunatic.

He is accused of being a lunatic by his own family and accused of being a liar and demon-possessed man by the religious leaders.

In , we will look at three ways you can oppose Jesus.

And these three ways to oppose Jesus will lead one to eternal destruction.

Eternity depends on how you respond to Jesus: whether you submit to Him as Lord in faith and trust, or whether you reject him either through willful unbelief.

It really boils down to two options saving faith or unbelief.

Scripture Reading:

The first way people oppose Jesus today is through simple unbelief.

In other words, not really believe who Jesus actually is or what he came to do.

I. Unbelief (vv.

20-21)

This is probably his home in Capernaum.

And the bandwagon followers crowd the house again that there is not even room to eat.

It is a packed house.

As in the story of the healing of the paralytic, the house is so crowded that Jesus and the disciples are “not even able to eat.”

The crowd is again an obstacle rather than an asset to Jesus’ mission.

When his family heard it, this probably refers to Jesus half-brothers and sisters.

Even close kin.

They knew that Jesus ministry was growing in popularity, but not Jesus was taking it too far.

Notice they tried to seize Him.

The word can also be translated “arrested, take possession” of him.

They wanted to stop Jesus from doing ministry.

The word for “seize” (Gk.

kratein) is regularly used by Mark in the sense of attempting to bind Jesus and deprive him of freedom, which is its sense here.

They thought that Jesus ministry was getting out of hand.

And that’s why they said,

“He is out of his mind.”

You’re crazy Jesus.

You need to cool it.

You are being radicalized.

This ministry thing is just too much.

You are becoming a religious fanatic.

He is gone off the deep end.

A. You can still be close to Jesus, and still oppose Him.

In this case his family.

His family was trying to limit his obedience to God.

You can be in church and not really believe He makes any difference in your life.

The very ambiguity of Mark’s wording, “the ones of him,” is a calculated reminder that those closest to Jesus may indeed oppose him, and that proximity to Jesus—even blood relationship or being called by Jesus—is no substitute for allegiance to Jesus in faith and following.

B. Physical family can prevent one from following Jesus.

And the family of Jesus wanted to prevent Jesus from accomplishing His mission.

It could be parents preventing one to be baptized or committed to a local church.

It could be family who prevents one from going to the mission field.

It can be family members saying that you are spending too much time serving Jesus at church and you need to spend more time with the family or spend more time focusing on your study.

Maybe a young man feels the call of God upon his life to serve in ministry, but his parents discourage because pastors don’t make money.

Now, please take what I say with discernment here.

You need discernment on when to obey your parents, but you need discernment on when Jesus is more of a priority than what parents are urging.

Sometimes it is family that prevents one from truly obeying the Lord.

Our allegiance must ultimately be to the Lord as we will see later.

Matthew 10:34-

C. If you follow Jesus, you may experience insult and persecution.

They were saying “He is out of his mind”.

Your a fanatic.

You are crazy.

When I began following Jesus.

People were saying I was getting to serious with this religion stuff.

They would laugh at me.

They would think I was getting brainwashed by the church.

I would skip practices on Sundays to attend church and they were beginning to say I was getting to involved with this stuff.

Has anyone ever said that to you?

You follow Jesus so closely that they say you are crazy?

You are too extreme?

You are out of your mind?

It is interesting to note that when someone falls in love and devotes all their time to a person, we just say they are in love.

When someone pursues a career with everything they have neglecting other priorities in their lives, we say they are just trying to make it or be an entrepreneur.

Or when devotes all their time to their sports team, they are just a fan.

But when one devotes all of his time to following Jesus, people say they are crazy or being radicalized or they are religious fanatics or they are too extreme.

We need to be so identified with Jesus that people are willing to say we is too extreme.

Not in a way that necessarily offends and pushes people away, although follow Jesus will offend and push people away, but in a way that we follow Jesus so closely that our lives seem odd to their own lifestyle.

D. Shame on the Preachers who water down the hard sayings of Jesus

As in the story of the healing of the paralytic, the house is so crowded that Jesus and the disciples are “not even able to eat.”

The crowd is again an obstacle rather than an asset to Jesus’ mission.

Whenever a preacher does not say the hard things, or waters down the direct teaching of Jesus, a pastor can create unbelief in his people.

Whenever a pastor only emphasizes the easy sayings of Jesus, but not the hard sayings of Jesus, he is trying to muzzle what Jesus says.

That is why expository preaching is helpful to me as a pastor and you as a congregation because we really have to deal with the hard sayings of Jesus.

And this is one of the hard sayings of Jesus which we will turn to next: the eternal sin or what people have called the unforgivable sin.

Transition: Not only can you oppose Christ by simple unbelief, but a more serious form of unbelief is a deliberate willful unbelief.

It is a deliberate rejection and refusal to believe who He is and even slander Him.

II.

Deliberate Rejection (vv.

22-30)

What is the eternal sin?

This text has been misunderstood by many Christians and has caused great anxiety among believers regarding whether or not they have committed this sin.

Some think they have committed this sin because they had an abortion.

Or they had sex outside of marriage.

Or they committed murder.