Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

Marguerite Higgins, Pulitzer Prize winner for international reporting, stood by a marine during the Korean War.

It was 42 below zero, and the soldier was weary and covered with frozen mud.

She asked him, " If I were God and could grant you anything you wished, what would you most like?"

He stood motionless for a moment and then raised his head and replied, "Give me tomorrow."

In a fear-filled world of uncertainty where there is a big question mark about whether or not man has the sanity to prevent a nuclear holocaust, this is a common choice-give me tomorrow.

On the other hand, Peter Bagdanovich, the well-known director of The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon, was asked why he makes all his movies of the past.

He replied, "I like any time better than now.

I just don't like what is happening today.

The music bores me, the cars are ugly, the people are dull.

So I retreat to the past."

In a decaying world where so much of what was once good is being lost by the modern mania for the new at any cost, this is the choice of millions-give me yesterday.

Each of us can identify with both choices, for they are the only two directions anybody can go to escape today.

Retreat to the past, or march forward into the future.

Each choice has its values that can be defended, but Jesus in the Sermon On The Mount rejects them both.

Instead, Jesus chooses to third alternative, the one the other two are trying avoid.

He says, don't escape to yesterday or tomorrow, but stand fast, and live for today.

Now is where its at.

The Lord's Prayer in chapter 6 is a now prayer.

Give us this day our daily bread.

All of its petitions are for now.

Hallowed be your name-now.

Thy kingdom come now.

Thy will be done on earth-now.

Forgive us and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, not eventually, but now, today.

The Christian life is a now life.

Jesus began this sermon with the beatitudes, and you will notice they are not past or future, they are present.

Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are the meek; blessed are the merciful, etc.

All of them deal with the now and not the some day.

Not, blessed will be, but blessed are.

The Christian life is to be a blessed life now.

The whole emphasis in this sermon on prevention is based on the now principle.

You do not wait until your anger becomes murderous hatred to deal with it.

You control it when it is developing right now.

You don't wait until lust is boiling passion to deal with it.

It is not, get them while they are hot when it comes to emotions, but get them while there warm, or even cool.

You don't give the germs of evil a chance to develop and create infection, but you go after them now.

Catch the disease in its early stages, and stop it before it progresses.

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country, and their souls as well.

Now is always the best time when it comes to prevention.

The best time to do anything is between yesterday and tomorrow.

In this passage Jesus gives some specific examples of how the now principle is applied.

The gist of them is this: Little problems don't tend to fade away, but tend to grow and become bigger, and so deal with them now when they are small, and not later.

If you have a bad relationship developing with someone, you don't wait until resentment has time to fester and make healing hard.

You don't say after I worship God on Sunday, I'll try to patch it up on Monday.

That is the give me tomorrow choice, and Jesus says don't make that choice.

Drop what you were doing, and settle the matter today.

Now is always the best time to do what prevents evil from building a stronger wall.

"Don't let the sun go down upon your wrath."

Why not?

Because you are choosing procrastination as a method of dealing with sin, and it is not a wise choice.

Deal with your anger today, and prevent all of the sorrow it can produce when you let it go another day.

In verse 25 Jesus says, don't wait until you get to court to settle a conflict.

This is obviously a case where the accused knows he is guilty.

Do the right thing now says Jesus.

Quickly agree with your accuser, and settle the issue out of court.

If you procrastinate and let the thing drag on into tomorrow, you will suffer the consequences tomorrow.

Get your punishment over today by settling the issue today.

This is the only wise choice.

There are endless court cases that waste years and millions of dollars, and magnify the miseries of everybody involved, that could have been settled in an hour if people were wise enough to choose the now way.

The whole point of Jesus in the radical statements of verses 29 and 30 about gouging out your eye, and cutting off your hand, is not to promote mutilation of the body, but to give emphasis to the importance of the now and prevention.

Don't wait for the future day of judgment to let God deal with your rebellious body.

Deal with it yourself, and do it now.

Bring it under your control, and choose to regulate its activities now.

It is folly to wait.

The wise are into the discipline of today.

In chapter 6 Jesus deals with all of the anxieties of life, and He says in verse 34, summing it all up, "Don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

Each day has enough troubles of its own."

Just seek God's kingdom and His righteousness today, and life will be okay.

One last illustration of this theme is in 7:12.

Jesus gives us the Golden Rule that sums up the Law and the Prophets.

"Do unto others what you would have them do to you."

That is the essence of the victorious life.

You live in the here and now, and you do today in your relationships with others what you want them to do to you.

The Golden Rule is golden because it is a rule as relevant as the golden sun that shines today, and each day.

It is a rule for living, not in the past, or in the future, but today.

The priest and the Levite, who walked by the wounded man on the road said, give me tomorrow.

Maybe tomorrow I will not be so busy, and I can get involved in such an inconvenience, but not today.

The Good Samaritan was good, and what Jesus expects the Christian to be, because he was a now man.

He responded in love now, because the need was now, and tomorrow would too late.

Jesus is not saying we can do everything at once, but He is saying we can do something at once, and it is this strategy of living in the now that will fulfill the past and enrich the future.

If the new year is to be a year of growth and progress, and a year of pleasing God by doing His will on earth as it is done in heaven, then it will have to be a year in which we grasp the importance of the now life.

When does a decaying world most need salt?

Now!

When does a dark world most need light?

Now!

The popular song of the 70's said, "What the world needs now is love sweet love."

If now is when I have lost my keys in the dark, now is when I need the light.

Tomorrow's light is of no value.

If now is when the road is icy, now is when we need the salt.

The point is, the need is always now, therefore, the solution, to be relevant, must also be always now, and so the Christian life must be a now life.

Christians fall into the same traps everybody else does.

The trap of the good old days, or of the glorious days of the future.

Both can rob us of the real, which is the now.

We tend to think of teaching and learning as preparation for the future.

It is that, to be sure, but we miss the best of what education is unless we see its value for the now.

All we can know of God and His will is for today.

It is like our daily bread.

It is not for the future only, it is for living today.

It is now food so we can live for God today, and enjoy our relationship to Him, and the more abundant life.