Sermon Tone Analysis
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Your Future Self
Luke 13:31-35
Wayne Gretzky, one of the most famous hockey players from Canada, once said, “Most players skate to
where the puck is.
I skate to where the puck will be.”
That’s why he was so great.
He played to the future.
Jesus’ ministry reminds us that we should align ourselves with God’s future, and put our future selves in charge.
Now what do I mean by putting our future selves in charge?
Imagine yourself 10, 20, 30 pounds thinner.
Imagine having no debt.
Or imagine having the ability to speak a foreign language.
I’ve always wanted to
learn sign language.
Your current self, the person you are right here, right now, cannot achieve these goals.
I
can’t lose 30 pounds by tomorrow.
I can’t be entirely debt free by Tuesday and be a sign language interpreter
by Wednesday.
But my future self could very well do it, if I applied myself.
Your future self can do what you
might like to do.
We as a church would like to have had 50 people in church, today.
Well that didn’t happen,
but it could in the future, and the not too distant future at that, if we really wanted to do what was necessary to
get there.
So why not put our future self in charge?
Why not play to the future.
That is what Jesus was doing.
Katherine Milkman is a behavioral economist.
She looked at how daily decisions are affected by
whether the current self or the future self is making those choices.
For instance, Milkman explored how people
buy groceries online.
Has anybody done that over the last couple of years?
We make orders from Sam’s Club
quite regularly.
Specifically, she has looked at what people order when they buy for next-day delivery,
compared with what they order for delivery three days in advance.
The current self buys for next-day delivery.
The future self buys for three days in the future.
She found that people spend much more money when they
buy for immediate consumption, and they tend to purchase less nutritious food.
“If you buy for rush,” she says,
“you buy junk.”
Your future self, on the other hand, buys whole grains and raw vegetables.
When you make a
plan to eat better in the future, you tend to buy food that will support a nutritious diet.
We can decide to make
choices with a focus either on the current day … or a future day.
Put your future self in charge!
Make a
grocery list and stick to it.
Pay down your debt each and every month.
Spend 30 minutes a day exercising.
Start learning something new.
Some of us have been studying CS Lewis.
It’s been quite a learning curve for
us, but one we are sticking to, and learning.
2
The more certain the future is, the more determined you are to succeed, the more power it has.
So, make
the future certain.
Give it power in your life.
Put your future self in charge of your current, daily decisions!
Jesus had an amazing ability to make choices from the perspective of His future self.
When He was traveling
toward Jerusalem, some Pharisees said to Him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you!”
Why these
Pharisees were warning Jesus, we don’t know.
But regardless of their motivation, they are speaking to His
current self.
“Get away from here,” NOW! “Herod wants to kill you,” TODAY!
That would make most anyone panic if we heard such a message.
We would drop everything and run
for our lives.
But Jesus put His future self in charge.
“Go and tell that fox for Me,” He says, “Listen, I am
casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish My work.”
Jesus
has an agenda for what He is doing: today and tomorrow and the next day; cast out demons and perform cures.
In three days, He’ll finish His work.
Jesus has put His future self in control, not Herod.
Jesus moves forward because He knows that His future has to align with God’s future.
“I must be on
My way,” He says to the Pharisees, “because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.”
Jerusalem is a holy city, the site of Israel’s temple, but it is also a city with a history of violence toward
prophets: Uriah and Zechariah were killed there, and maybe even Isaiah.
Jesus knew that He, too, would die in
Jerusalem.
Soon after Peter made the bold statement that Jesus was the Messiah, Jesus told him and the other
disciples that He must “undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be
killed, and on the third day be raised” (Luke 9:22).
For Jesus, the future self was always in control.
Remember,
the more certain the future is, the more power it has.
Jesus knew that He must suffer and be killed, and on the
third day be raised.
His power was only growing.
His future was all the more certain.
After stating His intention to travel to Jerusalem, Jesus offered a lament over the city, a passionate
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