Sermon Tone Analysis

Communion serves as a remembrance of God’s passion, the penalty and price for sin, salvation’s prize, and the greatness of God’s plan.

Communion reminds us of God’s passion.

God acts for His namesake not for our sake.

Communion reminds us of sin’s penalty.

Labor and Heavy laden are both present tense verbs.

“Heavy-laden” means “to place a burden upon; to load as when placing a load upon the back of an ox.”

“Labor/Weary” means “to labor, toil, expend great effort in hard and disagreeable work,” “to grow weary, tired; labor to the point of exhaustion.”

It is in the present continuous tense, and undoubtedly describes man’s fruitless efforts to deal with sin, its guilt, and personal misery whether by some form of religious legalism, or by whatever method or human strategy he seeks to deal with the emptiness and frustrations of his soul.

“I” is the first person singular personal pronoun which again reminds us that our need is the person of Christ, and a personal relationship with Him.

“Rest” means “to refresh, rest up,” but also “to cease from labor.”

But how could Christ give rest?

His solution seems no solution at all.

After all, a yoke is a yoke.

Right?

No!

Communion reminds us of sin’s price.

Redemption is a financial term.

In the ancient marketplace it was used to describe the release of a slave by the payment of a ransom.

Later this became part of the Biblical law.

If an Israelite had to sell himself into slavery in order to pay a debt, his own family members would redeem him by paying the price for his freedom.

The price of the gospel is the death of Christ.

Verse 6: “Christ died for the ungodly.”

Verse 8: “Christ died for us.”

God loved us while we were sinners and paid a price so that we might have an infinite prize.

That price was the death of his Son.

And this price leads us to remember the prize that he bought for us when he paid that price?

Communion reminds us of salvation’s prize.

Heaven is more than a destination for Christ followers.

It is a dwelling place with their Father.

Communion reminds us of the greatness of salvation’s plan.

See, here is the point of the genealogy.

In spite of our past failures and present struggles, the work of God and the plan of God move inevitably forward through broken people.

I'm going to say it again.

In spite of our past failures and present struggles, the work of God and the plan of God move inevitably forward (it cannot, will not be stopped) through broken people.

That's what we see in this genealogy.

This is what is being taught to us in this long list of names.

Broken pasts and messy presents do not cut us out of God's big plan to seek, save, redeem, establish human flourishing.

In fact, it qualifies us for it because all there are are broken people.

There is no one whole.

There is no one righteous.

The Bible goes through an exhaustive length of effort to convince us that that is all there are, broken people.