Sermon Tone Analysis

BY PASTOR GLENN PEASE

Robert Fulghum, who became famous for his book All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, has written another funny book titled, It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It.

He has officiated at over 1000 weddings and knows by experience that they are the events that bring out the ding dong in most everyone involved.

They are the comedies of life, and he writes, "Not that they are intended as such.

But since weddings are high state occasions involving amateurs under pressure, everything NEVER goes right.

Weddings seem to be magnets for mishap and for whatever craziness lures in family closets."

He begins his book with this example.

When the bride announced her wedding day the mother literally went bezerk.

She was so delighted she was going to make this the wedding of the century.

It would be a royal wedding fit for a princess.

She had the money and 7 months to work toward her grandiose goal.

I won't bore you with the details, but everything was engraved, and an 18 piece brass and wind ensemble was engaged.

Cecil B. DeMille could not have planned a bigger scene.

The final hour arrived with a church packed with people in formal attire.

The orchestra was in place, and candle power equivalent to the Northern Lights filled the sanctuary.

The mother of the bride glowed as she took her place.

Nine chiffon-draped bridesmaids stepped down the isle, and finally the wedding march thundered, and all stood to watch the bride.

The bride who was a nervous wreck because of all this preparation had slipped to the reception hall to eat something to calm her nerves.

She started popping pink, yellow, and green mints and mixed nuts, and a couple of shrimp blanketed in bacon, and a cracker piled with liver pate.

When people looked at her they saw a face as white as her dress.

As she walked down the isle she was a living grenade with the pin pulled out.

She was ready to explode, and that is what she did.

There is no nice way to describe it.

She threw up and shot used gourmet goodies all over the front of the church, hosing two bridesmaids, the groom, a ring bearer, and the pastor.

The bride went limp in her father's arms, and the groom was so stunned that he sat on the floor.

The mother of the bride fainted.

Bridesmaids and groomsmen with weak stomachs ran for the exits.

In the chaos Fulghum says he is not sure of many details, but the mother of the bride thought of everything.

She had three video cameras going so that all would be preserved.

Guests were invited to adjourn to the reception hall until all was cleaned up, and the bride could change into one of the bridesmaid dresses.

Then the wedding was continued.

The mother of the bride wanted it to be a memorable occasion, and it was.

Nobody there will ever forget it.

But the bottom line is, they have been married for 12 years now, and have three lovely children.

This true story illustrates the need for determination to achieve a goal.

There are all kinds of things that can go wrong in any plan, and you have to be determined to overcome these obstacles, or you will not arrive at the goal for which you are aiming.

Our text begins with the announcement that the time had come for Jesus to be taken up to heaven.

He was to finish His mission on earth and come home to the Father.

Unlike the Prodigal Son who went into the far country to waste his substance in riotous living, here was a Son who had come into the far country to save it from riotous living, and to restore it to the kingdom of God, His Father.

It was now time to achieve this goal, and that meant the cross.

The cross was the only way back to heaven for Jesus that would open the door to heaven for His bride to follow.

If He chose another route the door would be closed to man, and Jesus would fail in His mission to be their Savior.

The way of the cross leads home for Christ and His people, and no other way does.

The cross was not one of several options.

It was the only way.

As Jesus is the only way to the Father, so the cross was His only way to the Father that would fulfill His plan.

The cross was the single most important goal Jesus had to get to in order to be the Savior of the world.

The entire plan of God for man's salvation depended upon Jesus reaching this goal.

Thus, we see the absolutely determined face of Jesus.

I like the KJV here which says, "He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem."

Thank God for a stubbornly determined Savior.

Nothing could stop Jesus from the cross.

It was a rough road with pot holes galore, and obstacles everywhere, but He plowed ahead not looking back.

He said that no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.

He set the example, even though His plow would take him to the hill of Golgotha.

It was an uphill road all the way.

Jerusalem is up in the mountains, and Golgotha was a hill up there, and so the road to our redemption was literally and psychologically a climb.

Just look at the obstacles Jesus had to face in the few verses of our text.

The people of the Samaritan village where He wanted to stay the night were prejudiced against the Jews, and they did not want Jesus to stay there, for He was headed for the Jewish capital.

They were petty and prejudice people.

Most of us would have sided with the hot heads James and John, and vote to call fire down from heaven to roast these rotten rebels.

These disciples did not even know Jesus was going to Jerusalem to die for these very sinners who rejected Him.

All they knew was that Jesus was a perfect and loving man, and He deserved respect.

They could not tolerate the blind prejudice of these people, and they wanted to eliminate them from the earth.

Jesus had just pointed His face in the direction of the cross, and already He was facing two obstacles to His goal: Prejudice and intolerance.

The prejudice that rejected Him could have made Jesus question His goal.

Why should I bother to go to the cross to save the likes of these people who will not even let me stay in their town because they hate Jews?

They are so unworthy of my love.

They chose to hate people who are different.

This is the cause of the wars and man's inhumanity to man all through history.

Why should I die for them?

I could take a short cut back to heaven and escape the cross, and men like this would be lost forever, and justly so.

But if such thoughts ever entered the mind of Jesus, He did not let them change His mind, or the direction He was determined to go.

The unworthiness of man could not stop Jesus from going to the cross.

His own disciples are urging Him to destroy these scum of the earth people, but Jesus has set His face to go to the cross and die for them.

He would not be pulled off course by their wickedness.

The love of God and the Gospel of grace is great when you are the object of it, and you are forgiven and accepted into the family of God.

But when the Gospel is offered to people you can't stand, because of their wickedness, that is so disgusting, it is hard to swallow.

It was hard for James and John.

They were so repulsed by the injustice of prejudice against Jesus that they became equally prejudiced against Samaritans.

They wanted nothing short of capital punishment for this sin of prejudice.

If these two were permitted to make the laws, a large proportion of mankind would be executed, for prejudice is almost universal.

Jesus rebuked these hot heads of His own disciples, for they did not grasp at all that if you fight evil with evil, you are part of the problem and not part of the solution.

Here is another obstacle to the cross.

His own followers did not grasp His spirit.

If just getting rid of evil people was the goal, He could have wiped out the Samaritans long ago, as well as the Jews, and every other race.

The solution of violent elimination of the sinner is an abuse of power that James and John would have used, and many in history have used.

It is one of the obstacles to the cross, for Jesus could have said, "Why should I die for men when they will often in my name kill people and think they are doing me a favor?

Is man worth dying for when he is so unloving toward others?"

He wants to solve the problem of evil, but not by killing evil people.

His whole plan is to solve the problem of evil by saving evil people and making them righteous people.

The Savior's solution to every sin problem is the cross.

Atone for sin and make it possible for every sinner to be forgiven and restored to fellowship with God where he can become a godly person.

Man's way is revenge, but God's way is redemption.

Paul states it in a way that is shocking in Rom.

4:5 where he says, "However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness."

Paul says God justifies the wicked.

This often makes good people mad, as it did James and John on this occasion.

Whose side is God on anyway?

He should be justifying the good people and not the wicked.