Sermon Tone Analysis

Are you a skeptical person by nature?

The other day my wife ordered some supplements for our oldest son.

He has crone’s disease and we try to supplement the medicine he gets from the hospital with vitamins and supplements.

One of the things that you can take to help with digestive issues is turmeric.

But apparently any old turmeric will not do.

My wife wanted to order a special kind that is supposedly easier to absorb into your blood stream thus more beneficial.

It also happens to be 2-3x’s the price of the stuff you can buy over the counter at any drug store.

“Why can’t we just use the cheap stuff,” I asked?

I then said something like, “You are paying double the price just for some fancy wording on the outside of the packaging, I bet it is just the same as the cheap stuff.”

It reminds me of the latest craze in grocery stores.

The hottest word for food right now is “organic.”

But what does “organic” even mean?

Apparently, it means at least 3 dollars extra per item, that’s what it means.

Anyway, as I am arguing with my wife about the expensive supplements, she made the comment, “Boy, you are skeptically/cynical aren’t you?”

And I had to stop and admit, that yes, yes I am.

Are you a skeptical person?

What are you skeptical about?

Food, medicine, doctors, banks, government, family?

Are you skeptical about God? Are you skeptical about the identity of God’s Son, Jesus Christ?

Well if you are, then you are in good company.

Even some of Jesus’ own disciples were skeptical of His identity.

One of those guys was named Nathanael, and we read about his skepticism in John 1 beginning in v. 43.

As we read the account of Nathanael I want us to think broadly about two questions.

I.

Is there a difference between good and bad skepticism?

(John 1:43-46)

In the last paragraph we saw Jesus calling three disciples to follow Him, one unnamed, Andrew, and Peter.

How did Jesus convince them of His identity in vv.

35-42?

He built a relationship with them.

He personally got to know them, and they got to know Him.

And after experiencing Jesus for themselves- they believed.

Jesus didn’t require of them blind faith.

Instead He invited them to “Come and See.”

And after spending the day personally with Jesus, they followed Him.

Now, Jesus continues calling disciples.

In v. 43 Jesus determines to go into Galilee and along the way He finds Philip.

How does Jesus convince Philip as to His identity?

Well, all the text says is, “He said unto him, Follow me.”

We are not told any other part of the conversation, but apparently Philip personally experienced Jesus for himself, and he too decided to follow Jesus as His disciple.

Before Philip follows Jesus, he goes and he finds a guy named Nathanael.

And Philip tells Nathanael, “Guess what?

You will never believe this!!

We have found Him!

The One whom Moses wrote about in the Law, and the One that the Prophets wrote about as well!

We found Him!!” And I can imagine Nathanael’s response to eager, excited Philip, “Calm down, calm down, who is He?”

And Philip replies, “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph!”

And instantly Nathanael’s face falls, and his guard goes up, and with a smirk on his face he replies, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”

Can you hear the skepticism in his voice?

Do we really need the expensive supplements?

Do you really think the government will get its act together?

You don’t really believe the Bible do you?

People who believe in Jesus Christ are crazy.

Now at the beginning of this section we asked the question, is there such a thing as good skepticism and bad skepticism?

I just recently planted my garden, and the evening after I had planted the tomato plants I am sitting around the dinner table eating hot dogs with my 6 boys, and I said perfectly normally and with complete seriousness, “You know, with as much food as you 6 boys eat, we should plant a few hot dog trees.”

One of my boys answered, again in with complete seriousness, “Are there hot dog trees?”

Then he thought about his question for a second and turned slight red in the face.

My boys have learned that dad likes to tell jokes, and so they have learned that a healthy dose of skepticism is a good thing if they don’t want to stick their foot in their mouth too much.

When the son of the Nigerian king emails you and tells you he needs several hundred dollars so that He can give you millions of dollars of his inheritance money, a healthy dose of skepticism is a good thing.

Is there such a thing as bad skepticism?

Look at the example of Nathanael again.

What was Philip’s answer to his question?

Nathanael made the skeptical comment, “Nothing good can come out of Nazareth can it?”

And Philip simply says, “Come and see.”

What is Philip saying?

Come and see for…yourself.

What if Nathanael never took Philip up on his offer?

Can you imagine that?

Nathanael had been waiting with all Israel for the Messiah to come.

They have been waiting for hundreds of years for this event to happen.

You can understand why he was skeptical.

But, what if Nathanael said, “No way- I have already made up my mind from what you have said- I don’t need to see for myself”?

“This event, that we have all been waiting for for hundreds of years to happen, now you are telling me that it is here, but I am not going to see for myself if this is true or not.

I am going to assume based on no evidence whatsoever, that your claim is false.”

Do people treat Christianity like that sometimes?

Do they treat the Bible like that?

Have you ever heard someone say, “You can’t trust the Bible, it is completely outdated”?

When you ask them, “Have you ever read the Bible?”

They get really quiet because they have never read the Bible for themselves.

Or if they have read the Bible they have read one verse, completely out of context, and because they couldn’t understand it, they stopped reading it.

Schneider, Floyd.

Evangelism For the Fainthearted (pp.

84-85).

Kindle Edition.

“Gerhard, have you read the Bible?”

“No, I’ve been working on my doctorate in philosophy and haven’t had the time.”

“Then how do you know that the Bible is not trustworthy when you haven’t even read it?”

“I read a verse somewhere once,” Gerhard said, defending himself, “where Jesus said that the Christians have to drink blood.

What do you have to say about that?”

He obviously did not want to know the truth.

He just wanted to put me on the defense.

So much for using the polite approach, I thought.

If he is going to act like a Pharisee, then he should be treated like a Pharisee.

“You said you were working in your doctorate,” I said.

He nodded.

“I assume you have to do research.”

He nodded again.

“I wonder what your thesis is going to look like when you are finished.

If you treat your sources like you treat the Bible, your thesis will be a jumble of run-together quotes, ripped out of their contexts and stuck together to make everything say what you want it to say, with no thought or concern for what the various authors really meant.”

Gerhard’s expression indicated that no one had ever returned his attack so blatantly.

“No one,” I continued, “reads any kind of literature in the same way that you just misquoted a part of one verse out of the Bible.

You pick up a book that you have never read before, open it to page 167, run your finger halfway down the page, pick out half of one sentence, misquote that half, and then claim that you can’t understand the book!