Sermon Tone Analysis

Greek: perissos > Extraordinary

The Greek perisson means “that which goes way beyond necessity.”

John wanted all his readers to know that the gift of Jesus is life beyond our wildest dreams.

The journey of abundant life begins when you raise the bar.

We need to raise the bar of our standards of our faith, of our sacrifice, of our expectations of ourselves, of our belief of the goodness and generosity of God.

The journey of abundant life begins when you raise the bar.

We need to raise the bar of our standards of our faith, of our sacrifice, of our expectations of ourselves, of our belief of the goodness and generosity of God.

We can refuse to be average.

We must refuse to be average.

We must war against the temptation to settle for less.

Average is always a safe choice, and it is the most dangerous choice we can make.

Average protects us from the risk of failure, and it also separates us from futures of greatness.

The Abundant Life is for those who decide they will never settle.

I have never found a way around failure and so I cannot teach you how not to fail, but I can guide you to the place where you will never quit.

McManus, Erwin Raphael.

The Last Arrow: Save Nothing for the Next Life (p. 5).

The Crown Publishing Group.

Kindle Edition.

McManus, Erwin Raphael.

The Last Arrow: Save Nothing for the Next Life (pp.

5-6).

The Crown Publishing Group.

Kindle Edition.

And I am equally certain that most of us underestimate how much God actually wants to do in our lives and through our lives.

The abundant life is about leaving nothing undone that was ours to do.

It is squeezing the marrow out of life.

This journey is about ensuring that when we come to the end of our lives, we will arrive at our final moments with no regret.

In this story, Jehoash is the king of Israel when the kingdoms of Israel and Judah are divided and at war against one another.

His kingdom is being threatened by the armies of Amaziah, king of Judah.

The one great advantage Jehoash has is that the prophet Elisha is with them, but now Elisha is suffering from an illness that will lead to his death.

Jehoash goes and weeps over him, less because of his sorrow for the loss of the prophet and more because of his fear of the loss of Elisha’s protection.

Jehoash calls out to Elisha, who has been a symbol and source of God’s strength and power, but now is clearly at the end of his life.

Elisha then gives him a somewhat unusual series of instructions.

Elisha says, “Get a bow and some arrows,” and he does so.

Then he tells him, “Take the bow in your hands.”

When Elisha commands Jehoash to do this, the king immediately complies.

When the king raises the bow and arrow, Elisha puts his hands on the king’s hands.

“Open the east window,” he says, and the king opens it.

“Shoot!” Elisha says, and Jehoash shoots.

“The LORD’s arrow of victory, the arrow of victory over Aram!” Elisha declares.

“You will completely destroy the Arameans at Aphek.”

Then he says, “Take the arrows,” and the king takes them.

Elisha tells him, “Strike the ground.”

He strikes it three times and stops.

Then the Scriptures tell us something that is quite unexpected: “The man of God was angry with him and said, ‘You should have struck the ground five or six times; then you would have defeated Aram and completely destroyed it.

But now you will defeat it only three times.’

” Right after he says this, the story tells us, “Elisha died and was buried.”

Much of what happens here doesn’t make any sense to our modern minds.

How could the king’s future be so affected by whether he struck an arrow three times or five or six times?

Why didn’t Elisha explain to him what was required before holding him to its consequences?

How could the king have known that six is the magic number and that three would leave him wanting?

Up to that moment, he had done everything Elisha instructed him.

But when Elisha told him to strike the ground with the arrows, the prophet left the instruction open ended.

.

7-8).

The Crown Publishing Group.

Kindle Edition.

McManus, Erwin Raphael.

The Last Arrow: Save Nothing for the Next Life (p. 6).

The Crown Publishing Group.

Kindle Edition. is about leaving nothing undone that was ours to do.

It is squeezing the marrow out of life.

This journey is about ensuring that when we come to the end of our lives, we will arrive at our final moments with no regret.

It is not insignificant that the text says, “The man of God was angry with him.”

Clearly much more was happening here than meets the eye.

This was no small mistake.

The king began with the promise of a complete victory and afterward was the recipient of much less.

And it all centers around one decision: he struck the ground three times and then stopped.

Putting it another way: he quit.

The Bible doesn’t tell us why he quit.

Maybe he was tired, maybe he felt ridiculous, maybe he thought it was beneath him, or perhaps he sensed it was an act of futility.

But it is clear that, for Elisha, the fact that the king stopped striking the arrow was connected to his determination to receive the full measure of God’s intention for him.

He quit and the victory was lost.

He just didn’t want it badly enough.

McManus, Erwin Raphael.

The Last Arrow: Save Nothing for the Next Life (p. 7).

The Crown Publishing Group.

Kindle Edition.

McManus, Erwin Raphael.

The Last Arrow: Save Nothing for the Next Life (pp.

7-8).

The Crown Publishing Group.

Kindle Edition.

McManus, Erwin Raphael.

The Last Arrow: Save Nothing for the Next Life (p.

8).

The Crown Publishing Group.

Kindle Edition.

McManus, Erwin Raphael.

The Last Arrow: Save Nothing for the Next Life (pp.

8-9).

The Crown Publishing Group.

Kindle Edition.

DON’T STOP UNTIL YOU ARE FINISHED

McManus, Erwin Raphael.

The Last Arrow: Save Nothing for the Next Life (p. 6).

The Crown Publishing Group.

Kindle Edition.

I wonder how many victories are lost before the battle has even begun.

I wonder how much more good God desires to usher into the world that has been thwarted by our own lack of ambition.

I wonder how many times in my own life I thought I failed but actually the only thing that happened was that I quit.

McManus, Erwin Raphael.

The Last Arrow: Save Nothing for the Next Life (p. 6).

The Crown Publishing Group.

Kindle Edition.

Edition.