Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

I’d like to tell you two stories this morning:

The first story is about a time when Christian Herter was governor of Massachusetts, and he was running hard for a second term in office.

One day, after a busy morning chasing votes (and no lunch) he arrived at a church barbecue.

It was late afternoon and Herter was famished.

As Herter moved down the serving line, he held out his plate to the woman serving chicken.

She put a piece on his plate and turned to the next person in line.

"Excuse me," Governor Herter said, "do you mind if I have another piece of chicken?"

"Sorry," the woman told him.

"I'm supposed to give one piece of chicken to each person."

"But I'm starved," the governor said.

"Sorry," the woman said again.

"Only one to a customer."

Governor Herter was a modest and unassuming man, but he decided that this time he would throw a little weight around.

"Do you know who I am?" he said.

"I am the governor of this state."

"Do you know who I am?" the woman said.

"I'm the lady in charge of the chicken.

Move along, mister."

The second story is about C. H. Spurgeon,who, in his young days, got a 'penny-farthing' cycle, new and silver-plated, and was very proud of it.

One day, riding along the road, he met another cyclist on a boneshaker.

`Difficult to ride a machine like that, isn't it?' said Spurgeon.

`Not a bit!' said the man, and off he started.

Spurgeon did his best to follow, but was soon left far behind.

Spurgeon had the machine, the man had the power.

These two stories demonstrate the importance of two things: Power and Authority.

And while they are two different things, when it comes to social structures, it is key that we have both.

Power without authority is tyranny.

Authority without power is ineffective.

In our passage today in the gospel of Mark, Jesus demonstrates that he has both and that his power and authority are life-changing for us.

Pray.

This passage has so many spiritual truths buried in it but there are there three things that I want to draw your attention to this morning.

The first thing to notice is how the whole scene is fuelled by friendship and faith.

Founded on Friendship

22 years ago, or so, I, a somewhat recent convert to Christianity, volunteered as a youth leader at a baptist church in Vernon, BC.

Back then, we strived for bigger and bigger in youth ministry so we played these extravagantly huge games.

One game, and forgive me because the title of it dates me considerably, was called the KGB run.

We would run all over the city in 40 min chunks while leaders drove in cars and would chase us down.

The police loved it when we played this game!!

One time, we had so many leaders that I decided to run with the youth.

I was with a few guys and then over time, it was just me and one other guy who I considered a friend and who eventually become my roommate in college.

We were walking along, chatting casually when all of a sudden, we heard the screeching of tires sliding on the cement and then we heard a sound that terrified us.

It was the clip clip clip of cowboy boots hitting the pavement and getting faster and faster and we both knew what that meant.

We knew which leader was coming for us and we knew how fast of a runner he was so Dan and I started running as fast as we could and that’s when I realized that winning was more important to me than solidarity because although I knew I couldn’t outrun the other leader who was almost upon us, I could outrun Dan and that’s what I did.

I abandoned him to get caught and kept going.

Because I’m a good friend.

Being a good friend is, by no means, the exclusive domain of Christians.

But I think we should be better at it than we sometimes are because the Bible, the functional foundation of our faith, says so much about it.

There are dozens more passages that help us shape the kind of friend we are going to be.

In our passage in the book of Mark, four people saw the need of their friend who was paralyzed, and decided to do something about it - they took him to Jesus.

They were being good friends to this man.

And one of the marks of being a good friend is taking them to Jesus.

Of being aware of someone’s joys, pains, worries and hopes and bringing that person to Jesus in prayer.

What is the law of Christ?

Jesus says in John 13:34 NLT, “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other.

Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.”

The law of Christ is to love one another like God loves us.

So when you bring your friends to Jesus, like these four guys did, you are living out the love of God.

So here’s two big questions for us to think about:

How good of a friend are you?

Are you carrying your friends to Jesus in prayer?

Who’s got you?

Sometimes we are the friends carrying the paralytic on the mat and sometimes we are the paralytic.

Who knows you enough to carry to you Jesus?

Who’s in your life who knows your sin, who knows your pain, who knows your joys and takes it all to Jesus for you?

Fuelled by Faith

While friendship is the foundation for this event, it’s fuelled by faith.

What is faith?

- Faith is the beautiful convergence of belief and action.

It’s the intellectual agreement paired with corresponding action.

Our scriptures don’t just call us to agree that Jesus died, but to allow that truth to transform our lives.

Faith is when Noah built a giant ark because God told him too.

Faith is when Abraham moved to another country because spoke to him.

Faith is when David refused to assassinate Saul when the opportunity was in front of him because he knew that it would be wrong.

Faith is Esther going to the King on behalf of her people.

Faith is when the midwives of Egypt refused to kill the Hebrew children under the order of Pharoah.

Faith is when the woman who bled for 12 years touched the hem of Jesus’ robe.

Faith is always belief accompanied by action, otherwise, it’s not real faith.

This paralyzed man and his friends had a deep faith.

They must have heard about Jesus’ mini ministry tour around Galilee where Jesus travelled around for a week preaching about the kingdom, casting out demons, and healing people.

They believed that Jesus could heal this paralyzed man and so they grabbed some ropes and made a makeshift litter to carry him and his mat and walked like that through town to get to Jesus.

Our passage says “Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “My child, your sins are forgiven.”

- Their faith, which delighted Jesus, resulted in spiritual transformation of their friend.

Their faith was manifest in action.

For too many Christians today, our faith is, in actuality, mere intellectual agreement.

We aren’t living by what we believe about.

American Author and Franciscan priest Brennan Manning said, “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle.

That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”

― Brennan Manning

And I believe that this hypocrisy manifests in two distinct ways:

It manifests by what we don’t do - when we fail to care for the poor, or advocate for justice.

When our Christianity is only about going (or watching) church on Sunday.

When our faith makes no difference whatsoever to our family, our friends or our community, we are living in hypocrisy.

It manifests when we live opposite to Jesus.

- When our nationalism supersedes our Christ-likeness, when we pursue gaining power instead of humble service, when we are more focused on proving we are right than we are of loving others.

The world is tired of this hypocrisy.

It’s time for us to put our money where our mouth is and actually live out this faith that we claim to believe.

God calls us to be people who live by faith, not by sight.

So what’s that going to look like in your life?

Is it time for you to live by faith, not by sight, with your finances?