Sermon Tone Analysis

Announcement

Yard Team: sign up in the back or talk to Caleb

Newcomer Lunch May 22

Those who got baptized last week were taking a first step in their walk with Jesus.

And now the journey really begins.

The phrase first step, implies more

In the same way, choosing a church to attend is a first step, but I can promise that if you only attend, at some point you will wonder why you aren’t satisfied.

We were meant to be engaged in Christian Community, not observers, but participants.

The Newcomer lunch is a great beginning point to get a picture of what HCC believes and more importantly, what we do about it, and how you can be a part.

Sign up sheets will be available next week, or you can RSVP by emailing the office.

Childcare will be provided

Parent/Child Dedication May 15th

Oops

“Kris told me about a video earlier this week from Smarter Every Day

Destin is an engineer who makes videos of experiments and learning he is trying to do.

He begins this video telling us that he did something that undid his ability to ride a bike.

The back story is that the welders in his shop are really smart and enjoy embarrassing engineers.

One of them made a bicycle and wanted to see if he could ride it.

Only one change.

(Slide)

They added gearing that meant turning left…would go right…and right…would go left.

He could not do it.

Took it to conferences around the world where he speaks…no one could.

Everyone thought they could…but they couldn’t.

He spent 5 minutes a day working on it for 8 months.

As he describes it, one minute he couldn’t…and then he could.

A new pathway opened in his mind.

Though any distraction would get him back on to the old path.

After a little more time he was smooth and fast.

Thinking the experiment was over, he then tried one more thing on a visit to Amsterdam.

He could not do it.

“Just like riding a bike...”

He was trying to learn to ride two ways…instead he turned off his ability to ride naturally in favor of backwards.

After 20 minutes of work, there was another moment when the switch flipped and he could do it.

The crowd that was watching was sure he had faked not being able to ride, because it was so sudden.

He identified a couple lessons in this.

1. knowledge and understanding are not the same thing .

2. Truth is always true, so be careful how you interpret your reality

Ugh

We lock into biases and ruts in our thinking and in our hearts.

Our ideas about what is right and wrong

Our ideas about what church is supposed to look and feel like

What it means to be husband or wife and what we expect in return

Add, just in general, What we expect from others

I mentioned hearts…this is what PTSD is.

We have a learned response to something that was true in one case, but not universally, but we can’t help but react as if it were.

Hyper simplistic, but on the mark.

Certain phrases, actions, and attitudes I have found trigger certain generalized responses in me.

One time I even noted that I was having a negative reaction to someone that made zero sense until I noted the shape of their eyes…matched perfect with the eyes connected to some pretty bad memories.

You might be thinking, “Shaun needs to see a therapist” I do and I do.

Super helpful.

Why?

Because the farther along I go, the more I recognize that my biases and ruts are not necessarily born out of truth or understanding, but out of knowledge that may or may not be faulty.

Problem…how can we know if our bias is truth or a backwards bicycle?

As we return to our series on the life of Christ, we go back to a series of stories that happened shortly after his baptism.

Next week, Harley will share some eye opening truths about Evangelism and what it really takes from John’s account of the first disciples, and in a few weeks when I get back, we will look at the way Matthew Mark and Luke recall the first disciples coming along and what it was they were called “TO”.

I’m excited for the week in between, one of our supported missionaries, Dennis Fuqua will be coming and sharing a message with you.

There is no one I know more passionate about prayer and the church than Dennis.

I’m excited for you to hear from him and I’ll be tuning in from vacation land to hear him as well.

But today, we get a story unique to Luke, where we see him come face to face with heart level bias and ruts in thinking.

We will see how those ruts affect what:

we expect

we intend

we want

we will do to protect our perspective

Aha

Shortly after his baptism, he teaches around many multi cultural communities around the sea of Galilee and then comes home to Nazareth.

Let’s look at what Jesus does:

Luke 4:16-21 CSB “He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up.

As usual, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read.

The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him, and unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.

And the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him.

He began by saying to them, “Today as you listen, this Scripture has been fulfilled.””

The Truth:

Jesus came to bring good news to the poor

Jesus came to release those in captivity

Jesus came to make the blind see

Jesus came to end oppression

Jesus came to bring the year of the Lord’s favor

This last line is key and ties it all together.

This is a clear reference to a specific event that God had ordained for Israel…but that as far as we can tell from scripture or history…never happened.

Jubilee

Quick version:

Every seven days was the Sabbath.

What we call Saturday.

A day dedicated to rest.

Bunch of other annual festivals that tied to sevens, but no time for all that.

Every seven years every debt was to be forgiven and every slave was to be set free.

In the seventh year the land was not to be planted.

You eat what you stored and what grows on it’s own.

No work for the ground either.

Then, after seven of these seven year periods…the party got huge.

No one worked that year, the ground too.

Any property purchased in the time between went back to the family it had belonged to.

This was a reset of wealth, energy, property,

That’s a good way to think of it…as a push of a giant reset button.

Jesus stands up and declared that God has sent him to push the button.

To make it as it should be.