Sermon Tone Analysis

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This morning we return to the Gospel of Matthew.

Now remember that Matthew is only one of the gospels we find in the New Testament.

If you were here on Tuesday Night, you remember that the first 5 books of the New Testament are historical books.

In other words that are a narrative....they tell a story.

And this story is the greatest story even told.

This story is what the Old Testament was pointing to for thousands of years.

When the prophets spoke..they were pointing to this story.

When the judges judged, they were pointing to this story.

Everything in the Old Testament from the time that Adam and Eve sinned in the garden began to point to what we see in this story.

On Tuesday we also learned that each gospel....Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John…had the same story, the coming of the Redeemer who would repair what was broken in the garden, but they wrote each a different way.

Same story, but highlighting and emphasizing different aspects of the life, teachings, miracles, death, and resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Matthew’s focus was presenting Jesus to a Jewish audience.

So it was important for him to show that this Jesus was the Messiah that the Old Testament Scriptures said would come.

If you were a Jewish person in that day, you knew the words of the prophet Isaiah.

Isaiah 7:14

Isaiah 7:14 (ESV)

14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

This was written 700 years before Jesus was born to the virgin Mary.

Also if you were a Jew in that day you knew life of David.

And you knew the prophecies of Samuel.

This is what Samuel said: 2 Samuel 7:12-13

2 Samuel 7:12–13 (ESV)

12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.

13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

As as Matthew is writing, under the inspiration (remember that meant that the Holy Spirit was carrying him along as he wrote) as he is writing his gospel now about 30 years after Jesus had gone back to heaven, he was writing so that his Jewish people would understand and accept that this was the Messiah, this was Emmanuel, this was Jesus…the Christ.

And as we come to the end of Chapter 13, we need to remember what we have seen so far.

As Jesus began to talk about the coming Kingdom of Heaven there were different reactions to what he said.

When people heard his teachings and saw his miracles as the people went away they reacted differently, they had different responses.

And I think that this is best seen in one of the parables we looked at two weeks ago.

So before we move on, lets take a moment to see the reactions to Jesus.

Now I told you before that my favorite parable was the one with the Sower and the Seed.

Jesus tells this parable in the beginning of Matthew 13 (Matt 13:3-9)

Now let me just give you a summary of what he said:

A sower went into the field and he threw out seed

Some of the seed landed on the path and the birds picked it up

Some of the seed landed on a place with rocks, so it could not grow and the sun burned it and the wind blew it away

Other seed landed with the thorns and weeds, and as the seed tried to grow, the weeds and thorns to it over and would nit let it grow

Then there was seed that fell on the good soil, and it rooted very well and grew and produced much fruit.

Now open your Bibles to Matthew 13.

This is were Jesus explains what this all means.

There is a purpose here, and lets discover the purpose together.

So the sower is the preacher (anyone who shares the gospel) and the seed is the Word of God.

The soil represents how they recieved the word of God into their lives from the Sower who was speaking it.

Jesus said there were three different reactions:

(Path) They heard the word, but it means nothing

(Rock & Dirt) They hear the word, but it doesn’t take root.

(Weeds & Thorns) They heard the word, but the cares of the world were more important.

(Good Soil) They accepted the word.

It grew in them and they began to follow God and tell others about Him.

That was the fruit of their belief.

So even though there were three different reactions, three different responses, in truth, there was only two responses:

Belief and Unbelief

They either believed or they did not believe.

I told you last week when we talked about John 3:16 “16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

That world believe is not just something that you know, it is a way that you now live your life, because you know.

Believing changes you.

It changes everything about you.

Believing makes you look at your life, this world, the thing that you want…all differently.

Believing changes how you see things.

(Glasses)

Believing changes how you live your life once you have believed in Him.

That word believe in the Greek language is pisteuo and it means to trust.

When you trust in something you have confidence in that, you trust in that and it changes the way that you live your life.

That is what it means to believe.

When someone says they believe in Jesus… it changes how they live their life.

It changes them deeply, and it shows, just like the good soil produced fruit.

it show in their life.

So when someone hears the good news of Jesus Christ, there are only two responses: Belief and Unbelief.

Now let’s continue in Matthew.

Matthew 13:53-58

Jesus is getting closer and closer to the cross.

His mission is clear and Matthew said it after Jesus came out of the wilderness: Matthew 4:17

For the next three and a half years this would be his message.

Repent, turn around, believe, trust, and you will have eternal life.

Life that begins now on earth, and is fully seen when you enter into heaven at your death.

But as the parable has said, not everyone will believe.

No everyone will accept the word from the sower.

For many the word will fall but will not be accepted.

Not everyone will accept the message of Jesus Christ.

Two verses after Jesus words in John 3:16, he said this: John 3:18

John 3:18 (ESV)

18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

(believed = trusted) Verb that means action.

So as Jesus finished these parables, Matthew shows us that he moves away from there, and he ends up in his own hometown.

Now Matthew doesn’t call his place by name, but from Luke’s gospel we know that it is Nazareth.

This is the place where he lived growing up.

The Bible doesn’t tell us much about Jesus as a child, only the time that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus went to the temple.

Jesus as a 12-year old boy went into the synagogue (which was the Jewish church) and they were amazed and what he said about the Scriptures.

But outside of that story, God did not think it was important for us to know anything else about his childhood.

Now while we are hear, let me saw something.

It is easy to look at the Bible and ask questions that don’t matter.

What if Eve never took the fruit?

Is Satan a boy or a girl?

Why do these things not matter?

Because God chose not to tell us.

If God told us everything and we knew everything, then we would not need him.

We would be our own god.

But God chose to tell us what we needed to know now, outside of that we don’t need to know.