Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Intro:
Today, I want to continue our series about Heaven.
We will answer various questions about heaven, including,
We answered, What is Heaven?
We discovered Where is Heaven?
Next week we will see Why we need a New Heaven?
Today, I will answer the question, [Who Goes to Heaven?]
I love to read.
I especially enjoy true stories or biographies.
Throughout school, I never minded book reports because I like to relay what I have learned.
There is one genre of literature that I have struggled with— poetry.
I enjoy hearing a good poem and will work to memorize a poem if it makes a point.
But I have never been able to sit and read poetry for hours.
I also struggled whenever our teacher would make us write a poem.
This happened in the fifth grade.
The assignment was simple— write a poem about Thanksgiving.
It sounded simple enough, except I am not poetic.
I grappled with composing a thought-provoking and intellectual stimulating poem about a wonderful holiday.
And I got nothing.
Until one day I was in the attic, getting something for my mom, and there it was.
The previous owners left randoms items, among those was a large poster with a poem about thanksgiving.
It was fantastic.
I read it and decided to steal it and call it my own.
I had never heard it before, it was succinct, culturally relevant, and perfect for Thanksgiving.
It almost seemed to good to be true.
I still have it memorized:
One little, two little, three little Indians.
Four little, five little, six little Indians.
Seven little, eight little nine little Indians.
Ten little Indian boys.
Something rose up within me.
But the more I thought about it, I decided if I submitted that, it might sound plagiarized.
But my fifth grade teacher never stopped in trying to get us to like poetry.
One of the poems we had to memorize and recite to the class was written by Robert Frost entitled, “The Road Not Taken.”
I still remember it:
Two roads diverged in the wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same
And being that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden back
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
Two roads diverged in the woods.
Frost was not the first to center a poem on two options.
In fact, generally, life is filled with a decision:
Two choices
true or false
yes or no
chicken or fish
left or right
right or wrong
I thought about this poem and the reality in life that we often have to pick between two options as I read through Matthew 7 in preparation for this message.
Matthew 5-7 deals with Jesus’s sermon on the mount.
By this point in His ministry, He developed a large following.
Many who sought Him were intrigued by His ability to perform miracles, signs, and wonders.
Jesus, in His great compassion, looked at the crowd as sheep not having a Shepherd.
Therefore, He was very prayerful in how He dealt with them.
He prayed for them, because He knew the weight of what it meant to truly follow Him.
He knew the expectations of a disciple and He wanted them to know what to expect.
What was the gist of the Sermon on the Mount?
He taught how to be a citizen of the Kingdom of God.
He explained to those who entered His Kingdom what was expected of them.
The Sermon on the Mount takes a RIGHT NOW and NOT YET approach.
Much of what He taught effected their life in the present.
We might think of the beatitudes, or His instructions on prayer, giving, and fasting.
But at the end of His sermon, He focused on the future.
What awaited His followers.
We know the answer, heaven.
But how can one get into heaven?
He wanted them to see WHO goes to heaven.
What type of person will get to enjoy an eternity with God?
To answer this question, Jesus makes a distinction between those who WILL go to heaven and those who will not go to heaven.
He describes the difference between, [Two Paths], [Two Products], [Two People], and [Two Preparations].
Let’s begin
1.
Two Paths
After whetting the appetite of the crowd to the blessings of being in His Kingdom, Jesus gave them good news, but it might not have been what they wanted to hear— following Him is not always easy.
He made this point over and over, not to discourage them, but to explain to them what awaited them.
Jesus knew what they did not, He planned to lay down everything for the fallen race, including His life.
His death, burial and resurrection would make the way for ANYONE to enjoy the blessings of God in this life and in the next.
To receive all He has, though, required full sacrifice of our life for His.
Jesus presents two paths, that we enter by passing through a gate— a wide gate and a narrow gate.
Jesus built on the Old Testament as the foundation for this truth, there are ALWAYS options, for God will never FORCE someone to follow Him.
The concept of choice was not new to Jesus’s audience.
Jesus wanted to make the risks and rewards of both paths clear.
Anyone can follow the wide path.
Many will do so, for it will be the path of least resistance.
It will be the path where people can do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want.
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