Sermon Tone Analysis

Questions that Matter!

ccEOT-People were divided and asking a lot of questions to try and figure out who Jesus was.

EOS-We can love God with all our minds:

By embracing these questions and answers.

Tension-People who do not know what they believe or why they believe.

Kids walking away from the faith at such a high rate that the generation we are dealing with many will not even raise their kids in Christ.

Intro:

I was 18 years old and I had my life figured out.

I mean I was going to the NBA (At least in my own mind).

It was my first year of playing basketball in college.

Then all the sudden I was confronted with a question: 0-100%-How sure are you that you are going to heaven when you die and why?

I was in a dilema.

Not that I could not answer the question but I did not know the right answer and I knew that I did not know the right answer deep in my guy.

But I tried to answer it: ”I am 100% sure I am going to heaven because I am a good person.”

At this point in my life I thought I was a Christian even though I did not even really know what a Christian was.

I had been confirmed by two different churches and this was still the best answer I could give.

But here is what I have seen since then.

Most people do not know what they believe or why they believe.

But what is even crazy is this is also true in the church.

Most in the church do not even know why believe and now we have many who do not even know what they believe.

In the passage we see that some people reject Jesus completely while others believe in him.

The Jews wanted to kill him (7:1)

His brothers did not even believe him.

While others believed in him.

Now as much as any time in history it is essential that we know what we believe and why we believe it, that we love God with all of our mind.

Two-thirds (66 percent) of American young adults who attended a Protestant church regularly for at least a year as a teenager say they also dropped out for at least a year between the ages of 18 and 22, according to a new study from Nashville-based Lifeway Research.

Thirty-four percent say they continued to attend twice a month or more.

This means that if I were to bring in 10 of our kids and line them up the probability is that only 3 would stay in the church after they left your home.

What if we encouraged our kids to ask the tough questions about the faith and life in our home instead of when they go off to college?

The Bible tells us to love God with all of our heart, soul and Mind.

Today I want to challenge us to love God with our mind.

The mind is often the most neglected part of loving God.

As Christians we are to have a faith that is seeking understanding.

Yes we have put our faith in the Bible and what Jesus has done for us but in that we can use our minds.

Romans 12:2 “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

As a matter of fact I can tell you case after case of people who challenged the Bible and through that they came to faith in Christ.

C.S. Lewis-We all know about his skepticism that led to faith.

Josh McDowell-Now has a book that has sold 15 million copies

Lee Strobel-He did an investigation into Christianity and through it came to faith.

J. Werner-Investigative Cop

As believers God wants us to know what we believe and why we believe it.

He wants us to pursue him, and we need to dig deep in his word so we can know that.

Today I want to look at questions that matter so that we can love God with everything we have.

I want us to know what we believe and why we believe it.

The first question we must dig into so we can love God with our mind is:

1.

What is man’s problem?

Man is evil.

In chapter 7 over 20 questions are asked.

Man was created perfect in the image of God.

When Adam and Even sinned against God it set of a rebellion, man and women were now born with original sin.

Original sin-Look at DTS Paper.

The Jews literally wanted to Kill Jesus.

Setting: Festival of shelters.

The Jewish people celebrated what God had done in the past.

Last week we saw the celebration for the Passover.

This was like a big camping trip.

Last week Andy took Levi on a camping trip.

Could you picture if once a year we all went up to downtown Houston and pitched a tent to celebrate our great city.

It would be fun, chaotic and I am sure some crazy stories would come out.

Could you picture 7-10 million people being in downtown Houston?

Could you picture the stories that would come out of this.

People living in rural areas built makeshift structures of light branches and leaves to live in for the week (hence ‘booths’ or ‘tabernacles’; cf.

Lv. 23:42); town dwellers put up similar structures on their flat roofs or in their courtyards.

The Feast was known for a water-drawing rite and a lamp-lighting rite to which Jesus quite clearly refers (cf.

7:37ff.; 8:12).

Jesus own brothers rejected!

Now before we are too hard on his brothers lets remember how awkward it would be to be the brother or sister of Jesus.

Be more like your brother.

Jesus you need to go where everyone is going to be to prove that you are legit.

You know how weird it is to be related to you.

Go where everyone is and prove once and for all: we are tired of this whole charade.

The brothers had ulterior motives to wanting Jesus to go.

The scripture said not even a prophet is welcome in his hometown.

Jesus brothers a lot like us prefer telling God what to do instead of asking him what to do.

Jesus contrasts them to him, if you go to the festival or not it is inconsequential, If I go or not it is the difference between life and death for the world.

He knew why he came his whole life was leading up to his hour where he would die for the sins of sinful man while bringing tons of glory to God.

Ironic that his brothers wanted him to go to Jerusalem and do some magic tricks, little did they know that he would eventually go to Jerusalem, the biggest stage not to do magic tricks but to die on a cross once and for all and defeat DEATH!

But we must realize that Jesus brothers like the crowds were not understanding the significance of his miracles.

Jesus goes straight to the heart!

If you asked our culture what is man’s problem you would get a ton of different answers.

Some might say the problem is:

Democrats

republicans

Racism

But Jesus goes straight for the jugular.

Why do people hate Jesus so much.

We don’t like to hear the truth when it is hard.

But Jesus clearly diagnoses the problem:

Jesus calls people out.

Why did the Jews want to kill him, why did his brothers not believe him because he speaks the truth: Your deeds are evil.

Now I don’t think we have a problem with saying I am a sinner.

But saying I am evil we don’t like that as much.

We are proper at sinning.

I am not as bad as Hitler.

I want you to picture for a second taking the worst 5 minutes of your life and putting that all on a movie to see.

Who would want their movie shown.

Because deep down we know that our hearts are turned towards evil.

And Jesus calls it out right here.

Why do my brothers not believe, why do the Jews want to kill me, because they have a problem that they do not want to deal with right now.

Who likes to be called out?