Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
Over the last couple of years, I’ve gotten into photography.
I’m no Matt Robertson; I don’t have the really nice mirrorless dslr cameras.
All I have is my iPhone.
But I have this attachment that gives me three four different lenses.
One of them is telescopic so I can zoom in from far away.
The problem that I have though, is that the closer I zoom in, the more shaky the phone seems.
It’s kind of like driving and looking out a window.
Perspective makes things close up seem to be zooming by, all the while that electric pole way out in the distance is taking its sweet old time going by.
So long as my phone has no telescopic lens attached, I can keep that far away object in view and focused, but the moment I attach it, that object is hard to keep in the shot.
The slightest move and the object is gone or blurry.
But if everything goes right, I can focus on a shot, and capture something I could never get from the phone alone.
As we look at the text this morning, zeroes in on three people and gives us three snapshots.
The first snapshot is an unfocused snapshot.
The second is a focused snapshot.
The third is a misfocused snapshot.
An Unfocused Snapshot
A Focused Snapshot
A Misfocused Snapshot
An Unfocused Snapshot
The first snapshot that Luke presents us with in this passage is unfocused.
The people are a bit fuzzy as to who John is.
There was this sense of excitement and expectation.
Things were happening.
A prophet was on the scene again after 400 years of silence.
People were coming out to the wilderness to hear him preach.
They were getting baptized.
Lives were changing.
The hearts of children were to their fathers and the fathers to their children just like it was said in Malachi.
This was unlike any other time that these people had ever known.
They were in suspense but they were also in state of confusion; they were fuzzy, unsure, unfocused.
They didn’t really know who this John guy was.
Was he some prophet or was he the Christ that they had been waiting for?
Luke states that they were questioning in their hearts.
In other words, they weren’t saying a word; they weren’t voicing their thoughts.
They weren’t asking John himself.
They were keeping their questions to themselves.
Perhaps some were concerned that he might not be the Christ.
What then?
What would that mean for them?
Would that mean that their hope was in vain?
Would it mean that life wasn’t going to change?
That this was just another bump in the road of life that would soon be forgotten?
Perhaps some were concerned that he might be the Christ.
What then?
Wouldn’t that mean that things were going to change?
Didn’t that mean that this wasn’t just some fervor, some exciting few weeks, but a lasting difference that everyone is going to have to work through?
Wouldn’t that mean that life was never going to be the same again?
Whatever the reason, in this season of suspense, no one was brave enough to ask.
You know what I do when I take a fuzzy picture?
I delete it or at least keep it to myself.
When I printed out Kassandra’s senior pictures, I only printed the good ones.
I had dozens of fuzzy ones that didn’t make the cut.
No one wanted to hold up their picture and admit that it was a bit hazy, a little unfocused.
No one wants to admit they don’t understand.
We can probably relate can’t we?
Most of us have had moments of expectations, haven’t we? Something unexpected happened.
Someone unexpected showed up.
What are we to think about these happenings?
How are we to interpret such a such a person coming into our lives so unexpectedly?
What is God up to?
Is he about to turn my world upside down or is this just another moment in time that will pass by? We’re a bit fuzzy and unfocused.
We were expecting “x” to happen, but all we’re getting is “y”.
It’s confusing.
It’s frustrating.
We want focus.
We want clarity.
While there are many times we won’t receive the clarity that we’d like, plenty of other times it will be if we are willing to listen.
A Focused Snapshot
While the people were a bit fuzzy as to who John was and what he was all about, John was perfectly focused about who he was and what he was doing.
So we come to the second snapshot.
The first being the unfocused snapshot of the people and the second being the focused snapshot of John.
John focuses the people on his ministry as he compares it to the ministry of the Christ.
And he makes clear his might as compared to the might of the Christ.
His ministry is about water baptism.
It is certainly a baptism that is to represent repentance and forgiveness of sins as we saw in Luke 3:3, but it is only a representation of something greater.
He is unable to do the greater; he can only focus in on the greater reality.
And he was content with that.
Back in the 18th century, there was a man by the name of William Carey.
Today, he is known as the Father of Modern Missions.
He wanted to go and send others to India as missionaries, but the English Baptists were unconcerned for the lost in that nation.
Carey delivered a message to pastors at a conference in which he stated his most famous words, which have been whittled down to, “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.”
I understand where Carey is coming from, but I believe that we have been given fuzzy snapshots as to what it means to do “great things for God.” It’s not enough to be a banker.
It’s not enough to drive a taxi.
It’s not enough to be a homemaker.
It’s not enough to be a baggage handler.
But beloved, if we are fulfilling the ministry that God has given to us in those places, it is enough.
Certainly God will call some of us into the mission field.
Certainly he will call some to the pastorate.
But if we concern ourselves with a ministry that we aren’t called to, we end up with an unfocused, fuzzy ministry with which we become frustrated.
Like those blurry pictures, we just want to delete them, rather than share them so all can see what God is doing.
We become so concerned with the size of our ministry, but God isn’t.
God is concerned about the size of our faithfulness.
Will we take the task we’ve been given and be faithful to it—whether we’ve been given 1 talent, 5 talents, or 10 talents; will we be faithful with what we’ve been given?
John was, even though he knew that in very short order, his ministry would be eclipsed by the Messiah’s.
His was a ministry of water baptism.
Jesus’s ministry was one of Spirit baptism and fire baptism.
We’ve seen what we mean by water baptism.
It’s a sign of something greater.
It’s a sign of repentance and forgiveness.
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