Sermon Tone Analysis

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Recently, I heard a friend tell a story about trapping monkeys in the jungle.

***Now, if you ever find yourself at a dinner party and someone opens with that line, then you know whatever is about to follow will be good.

So… recently, a friend told me a story about trapping monkeys in the jungle.

Now, it wasn’t him who was trapping them, but he heard about an ancient way of trapping monkeys that struck him as peculiar..

Apparently, tribes would tie a gourd to a tree limb, cut a hole just large enough for a monkey to fit its hand, and then place a piece of fruit inside to bait the monkey.

Then, when the monkey would reach inside to grab the fruit, it wouldn’t be able to pull its hand out with the bait, so its hand would remain stuck inside the gourd.

Here’s a short video from 1912 that depicts the trap at work…

[[[Play Video]]] 33-45… 55-60 (speaking over silent video)

The monkey places his hand inside the gourd, grabs onto the bait, but then gets stuck in the gourd for one reason and one reason only… because it refuses to let go of the bait.

Even when big scary human beings walk over to it, grab it, secure it, and tie it, the monkey never lets go of the bait.

When I heard my friend tell this story, it struck me as odd.

How could such an intelligent animal let itself become captured simply because it wouldn’t let go of something that it wanted?

*** [slowly] Didn’t it know that it needed to let go to find freedom?

Oh wait… that’s us, that’s me, that’s you, that’s every person.

We do the very same thing, don’t we?

The bait of luxury, the bait of pleasure, the bait of glory, the bait of… you name it… each appear on the surface so accessible and within the reach of our grasp.

That is, until we latch onto it and become stuck in the gourd.

Sometimes, we feel the entrapment right away - like, oh man, I just fell for it and got myself into a world of hurt.

Other times, it might take years before you realize that you’re stuck.

Every situation is different.

Every person is different.

Oftentimes, our motivation for why we even grabbed onto the bait and kept hold of it can be complicated and hard to understand, but what is true is that at some point in our lives, all of us will grab onto the bait and refuse to let go.

Once this becomes apparent, the question becomes: who’s holding onto who?

Is the bait holding onto you?

Or, are you holding onto the bait, and depending on how you answer this question will determine whether or not you find freedom or live trapped.

But here’s the good news: you get to decide!

In our current series, “He Gets Us,” we’re exploring the biblical basis for the 12 steps and inviting Jesus to meet us as a healer and coach in whatever part of our lives that need wholeness and forever freedom.

Navigating these 12 steps is tough.

In fact, finding forever freedom from the hurts, habits, and hang ups that hinder us from the good life that Jesus promised us may be the toughest thing some of us ever do.

But what a mighty God we serve!

Nothing is too hard for God!

***Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm.

Nothing is too hard for you.

Jeremiah 32:17

His power and outstretched arm is mighty to save and able to restore through his merciful touch!

Jesus helps us face things that aren’t easy to face in this life because he gets us at every level of our lives.

In the first step, we admitted we were powerless over some part of our lives — that our lives have become unmanageable.

We said: Jesus understands that I am not ok, so I admit that I need help.

In the second step, We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.

We said: Jesus believes that I matter, no matter what, so I believe God can help.

Today, we turn our attention to the third step, which declares: “We are making a decision to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him.”

Today, we are saying, “Jesus treats me like a healer and coach, so I decide for God.”

The freedom to choose rests in your hands.

You get to decide either to invite Jesus into your life - into your hurts, habits, and hang ups - as healer and coach or to remain trapped in your sin.

You get to decide.

God has graciously given you the power of free will to decide.

In Luke chapter 15, toward the end of Jesus’ life, the teachers of the law complained that people of questionable reputations followed Jesus and listened intently to him.

They grabbed onto the bait of self-righteousness and pride - like many of us often do - and not only refused to let go, but felt justified in their accusations and alienation against others.

They were blind to see just how blind they really were, but their complaints didn’t stop Jesus from teaching those who recognized and admitted their need.

Luke tells us that Jesus even ate with them.

Jesus loves to dignify those who others tossed aside, and this deeply troubled the ones who tossed them aside, so when the religious leaders once more made trouble for Jesus and showed themselves ignorant to Jesus’ true purpose and identity as Servant King and Messiah, Jesus told them three stories: one about a lost sheep, one about a lost coin, and one about a lost son.

At the end of the stories about the lost sheep and lost coin, Jesus concludes by saying, essentially, that heaven rejoices over the one sinner who repents.

Luke 15:7, 10.

Then, Jesus tells another story about a younger son.

One day, Jesus says, he approached his father and said, “Father, give me my share of the estate,” (Luke 15:12), which means, ‘I wish you were dead, give me what’s mine.’

As a father, I couldn’t imagine ever hearing those words from my boys.

Nothing would break a father’s heart more than hearing those words.

Yet, everytime we grab onto the bait, that’s what we say to our Heavenly Father.

I don’t need you.I want to live life my way.

At some point in this young man’s life, he reached for the bait of greed, selfishness, rage, pleasure, pride, idolatry, who knows - insert your favorite bait here - anyone of these or others could fit the bill.

Jesus doesn’t specify what led up to that moment between the Father and the younger son because, quite frankly, he didn’t need to.

Rather, the genius of how Jesus told this story invites all of us to find ourselves in it.

Jesus creates space in this parable for all of us to see ourselves in the younger son because all of us, like the younger son, at some point in our lives, have placed our trust in the bait to fulfill us rather than in the promises of our Heavenly Father.

Whatever that young man grabbed onto [make a grab fist in one hand], he gave his whole life over to it at the cost of letting go of his Father [make a let go motion in the other hand].

He set off to a place that wasn’t his home and lost everything, Jesus says, in wild living.

It got so bad for this young man that “He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything (Luke 15:16).”

He was on his own.

No one cared about him.

No one loved him.

No one showed him any grace or mercy.

He was isolated in a place that he didn’t belong.

He was lower than the pigs and longed for their slop to fill his hunger.

***In that moment, Jesus says, “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!

I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’

So he got up and went to his father.

Luke 15:17-20

In the Greek text, the most literal translation of ‘to his senses’ is the reflexive pronoun ‘to himself.’

In his darkest, most shameful moment, the young man came to himself through the following ways:

Through the:

realization about the severity of his consequences.

He wasted everything and now risked losing his own life to starvation and disease.

His own emotional health dropped so low that he suffered the most shameful disregard to want the slop of pigs.

He went from the palace to the pig pen and came to himself by coming to the end of himself.

He came to the end of his pride to see himself as he truly is.

In the pig pen, nothing was hidden.

He was found out and realized who he truly was: a man in need of someone to save him.

Which led him to the…

recognition of his true identity as one made in the image of his Father, as his Father’s son.

When he came to himself, he discovered that he wasn’t his own.

He couldn’t live his own life by himself however he wanted without consequence to himself and others.

He belonged to his Creator, His Father, who made him in his own image and calls him good and calls him his son.

Now, this young man needed his father’s merciful salvation.

You have been made in God’s image, too.

Did you know that you share His likeness?

So God created mankind in his own image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:27