Sermon Tone Analysis

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/**/A Sermon Gone South/*

 

John, chapter 6 contains the story of Jesus feeding the multitude on the hillside.

Five thousand people with 5 barley loaves and two fish.

It was miraculous beyond our imaginations.

When the people realized the miracle they wanted to make him king, “by force”, the scripture says.

Jesus avoids them and heads for the hills, verse 15.

The disciples cross the lake to Capernaum and get caught in a storm, Jesus walks on water, they reach the other side safely.

The crowd follows Jesus the following day.

He questions their motives and challenges them to believe

/ /

/At this point, Jesus challenges their motives for following him and " When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.

Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.

On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

/

 

And then they make the most incredible request.

They ask for a miracle to validate his claims.

They’ve just sat through one and missed it.

It is possible for people to sit through miracles oblivious to what is happening.

I believe that in churches, perhaps our own church, people can miss what God is doing in plain sight, right in front of them.

Perhaps like some who sat through the feeding of the 5000 and missed it, we are blinded by the base nature of our own needs and wants.

Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love Him as they love their cow—for the milk and cheese and profit it brings them.

This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of outward wealth or inward comfort.

They do not rightly love God, when they love Him for their own advantage.

Indeed, I tell you the truth, any object you have in your mind, however good, will be a barrier between you and the inmost Truth.

... Meister Eckhart (1260?-1327?)

We don’t want God so much as we want something from God.

We want what He can do for us.

So we miss the miracle.

Or perhaps we are blinded by skepticism or sour attitudes, whatever.

And then Jesus talks to them about the “bread of life”

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/So they asked him, “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you?

What will you do?

Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.

For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

“Sir,” they said, “from now on give us this bread.”

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life.

He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty."

(John 6:25-35, NIV) *[1]* /

 

And the whole sermon went south from there.

They began to object all over the place because they knew that Jesus agenda was not to satisfy their own.

It went so far south that many turned away at that point.

/ /

/" On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching.

Who can accept it?”

Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you?

What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before!

The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.

The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.

Yet there are some of you who do not believe.”

For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him.

He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.”

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

“You do not want to leave too, do you?”

Jesus asked the Twelve.

Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go?

You have the words of eternal life.

We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”" (John 6:60-69, NIV) *[2]* /

 

There’s not a preacher alive who doesn’t know what this is like.

You deliver something that you understand as being from God and people want to eat you alive over what you have to say.

Jeremiah wrestled with the assignment of preaching God’s word.

Look at his frustration expressed in the 20th chapter of his book:

 

/"Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction.

So the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long.

But if I say, “I will not mention him or speak any more in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones.

I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot."

(Jeremiah 20:8-9, NIV)*[3]* /

 

*The word of God is not palatable in a whole sale manner to people who have their own personal agenda for life*, because my friend God has His own design for you.

It will bring your more than you will gather for yourself but it requires that you surrender yourself and your plans into His hands and trust Him for the end result.

That’s the hard part isn’t it

 

I remember one Christmas sermon conscious in particular of a man who sat in the for the first Christmas without his recently deceased wife.

I preached words that I prayed over, trusting that God would bring comfort to his heart and a challenge in his wife’s memory to find joy in what Christmas is always about, not our losses or our gains but heaven’s greatest gift.

He approached me the week following.

I anticipated that he would have expressed somehow that God ministered to his spirit.

Instead, he told me that he felt that I was insensitive.

I swallowed real hard and real deep, choking back the hurt of my own failure to meet his need and the surprise that he was offended at what was meant to heal.

Our relationship was never the same from that day forward.

The hard truth is that it doesn’t always work.

It didn’t for Jesus.

Did you get the reference on the verse that records the desertion of a large majority of Christ’s followers?

/"From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him."

(John 6:66, NIV) *[4]* /

 

I never noticed before the process of putting this sermon together.

John 6:66?

Beastly.

The sin of rebellion, the one unforgivable sin, final and ultimate rejection of Christ.

Anyway, they were there because they wanted a free lunch.

They had received it on the other side of the lake hours earlier and they were hungry again so they wanted Jesus.

Funny how the acute nature of our need accentuates our sense of need for Jesus.

But it’s not really for Jesus, is it?

It’s just simply that we want what we want and when we don’t get it, watch out.

When the spiritual implications of the gospel become clear to us that’s when we have to make a choice and it has little to do with what we want and a lot to do with what God wants.

It has little to do with what we think we need and a lot to do with what God knows that we need.

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/**/A Sacrament Gone to Seed/*

 

The same problem persisted in the fledgling church.

The Corinthian flock was particularly concerning to Paul.

The verses that precede the familiar passage that we read for chapter 11, beginning at verse 17 read like this:

 

/" In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good.

In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it.

No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval.

When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else.