Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Intro
As we sit here today, it is totally appropriate we find ourselves in a funeral home.
The funeral homes a half a world away in Ukraine are busy today.
On our TV screens and computer screens and mobile phones we have seen the images of tanks and missiles and people in misery.
We’ve seen housewives making Molotov cocktails, preparing to use them against tanks and trucks and those carrying machine guns and grenades.
Images of war in Europe.
One of the most memorable lines in the last couple of days came from the Ukranian president, who, when offered a flight to safety, responded “please send me your ammo.
I don’t need a ride.”
"Please send ammo.”
If there’s one theme we heard over the past 72 hours, it’s this: please send help.
We need saving.
Many of the images we saw long lines of Ukrainians outside their military offices attempting to sign up.
Salvation is the need.
Effort and determination are the response.
That kind of response in military conflict is commendable.
We applaud their bravery.
However, there is another warfare that we are all involved with.
Not to minimize what the Ukranians face, but this warfare is war over our souls.
There is a war we cannot see.
And the last big ask in the big prayer Jesus gave to the crowd on the side of the mountain is all about that war.
War is the right word to use.
We heard it used in the passages we read this morning.
From the beginning, when Adam and Eve sinned, there’s been a war.
The war between good and evil.
The war between heaven and hell.
The war between the serpent and God.
That war is every bit as real as what we’ve seen on our phones in the past four days.
It’s every bit as deadly.
If anything, those stark images help us understand the war that rages in our own lives.
A different kind of salvation
We heard appeals for salvation this week.
The salvation we are talking about here is of a different kind.
This salvation is spiritual.
It is supernatural.
There’s nothing mythological about it.
It involves real persons.
Before we say anything more, because we live in a world in which there’s all sorts of misinformation, there are some statements to be made.
A word about Christian warfare fiction: It’s fiction.
The first is that all those books you can buy that are exciting fiction and drama about angels and spiritual warfare: it’s fiction.
Very little, if any of the Christian fiction about spiritual warfare you read can be substantiated from the Bible.
It’s not in there.
Read the books.
Enjoy them for the good fiction that they are.
But the descriptions and accounts of how spiritual warfare all goes down… it’s as real as Wrestle Mania.
I know, that comes as a shock to some of you wrestling fans.
A word about the prosperity gospel: God is not a vending machine.
There’s also a lot of fiction out there that’s not based on the Bible about spiritual warfare and prosperity.
None of it is true.
Again, based on a bad reading of the Bible.
Getting a spiritual victory over Satan is never promised.
And it’s certainly not the case that getting the upper hand on Satan is necessary to have a great bank account.
You go down that road and you’ll either end up in despair and totally broke, or you’ll end up being totally self-righteous and not truthful about your sin.
God is not a vending machine.
You don’t give him a sacrifice today so that he will be nice to you tomorrow.
God gives you and me grace in spite of the way you and I are.
A word about superstition: God is not karma.
Finally, God doesn’t operate like karma.
God gives us grace when we deserve his punishment.
Again, a quote -unquote spiritual victory doesn’t guarantee great financial or personal blessing.
Nor does a supposed spiritual loss bring about a bankrupt bank account and personal loss.
God doesn’t operate that way.
If somebody is telling you that, ask them where they find that in the Bible.
Do not bring us into temptation
All that being said, spiritual warfare is very real.
Temptation is at the heart of spiritual warfare.
At the heart of every sin is unbelief.
Not believing God’s way is the best way.
Not having faith in Jesus to be our savior at any given time is a sin.
And temptation is always about getting you to not trust Jesus.
Unbelief.
Acting as if God doesn’t exist.
Acting as if God doesn’t matter.
Functional atheism.
Temptation, no matter where it comes from, is aimed at getting you to not believe Jesus.
It’s been this way since the serpent showed up in the garden and said to Eve: Did God really say you couldn’t eat of that one tree?
Temptation.
It’s all around us.
It’s always present.
We live in it.
We can’t get out of being around it.
We live in a fallen world, and there are always forces in play attempting to get us to disbelieve Jesus.
Do not bring us into temptation.
This may be the most controversial of the big asks, at least in our day.
We’ve already said… the one that the original crowd that was there that day with Jesus was “forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors”.
They had a tough time with that one.
We have a tough time with this one.
We don’t like the idea of a God who might lead us into temptation.
Jesus says that, right?
A couple of things need to be said.
First,
The word is temptation, not trial.
Pick up any devotional on the sermon on the mount and almost all of them will say that this word temptation means trial.
There’s a good reason why we would want to read it that way.
There’s a verse in James that states what the rest of the Bible implies in many places:
James 1:13 “No one undergoing a trial should say, “I am being tempted by God,” since God is not tempted by evil, and he himself doesn’t tempt anyone.”
God does not tempt people.
Since God doesn’t tempt people, we’re inclined to say that this word here in Matthew 6:13 is really “trial”.
That it’s really about a difficult circumstance.
Do not bring me into things that are hard or more than I can bear.
However, that’s not the word.
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