Sermon Tone Analysis
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Have you ever just barely missed the point?
But in barely missing the point, you completely miss the purpose.
We have a powerful illustration today in the parable we are looking at.
Matthew 9:14-17
Our context are Chapters 8 and 9. Jesus goes on this healing rampage throughout these two chapters and He is dominating disease.
He is healing people but He ruffles feathers along the way.
So He comes to this paralyzed man and He doesn’t just heal him but He forgives his sins.
And the crowd is wowed and the other half of the crowd is angry because they feel like He is a heretic.
Then He comes along and He calls the shunned of society to be with Him.
He is with the sinners and the tax collectors and the people that nobody else hangs out with.
And the Pharisees call him out and here is what He says in Matthew 9:12-13
Then Jesus goes out and He heals the mute and the blind and the bleeding woman and the demon possessed and He continues to reach out to those who nobody else does.
The context of this passage right here is Jesus turning the tables upside down and allowing anybody to come to Him.
And He uses his life as a model for new work in people who are ready to receive Him.
It starts in Matthew 9:14-15
Fasting was a common practice in ancient Israel.
It was normal for those who were seeking God to fast for a number of reasons.
They would fast to afflict one’s soul.
They would fast to gain God’s heart.
They would fast to grow closer to God.
So fasting was and is good.
In fact, Jesus affirms the benefits of fasting.
He calls out the timing in this moment right here.
Know this,
I. God does not want you to live by a formula.
And fasting in this case was a formula.
They would fast twice a week.
So the disciples asked Him why He wasn’t following the formula.
God does not push us to live in a formula.
He pushes us to live in relationship with Him.
A living and moving and active relationship.
We are not just called to do a series of good works but to enjoy a sampling of God moments.
Their duty was not to fast right here, their duty was to feast, to celebrate and enjoy.
But an intense effort of inflicting their bodies and afflicting their souls so that they could get closer to God, they missed the very end that they were pursuing.
They missed their goal.
The goal of their fasting was to bring them to this moment that they were glossing over.
Listen to this, the thing that has helped you seek out God can be the very thing that will halt you from experiencing his presence.
The very thing that has helped you seek out God can be the very thing that will halt you from experiencing his presence.
Live in the moment, not in memory.
What has made us good can hold us back from living in the fullness of God’s light and his grace.
Pastor Mark said it great last week when he said all of us know people who have been following Christ for 25 years but they don’t have 25 years’ worth of experience, they have one year of experience repeated 25 times.
Jesus is not putting down their practice, He is pushing against their blind tradition.
One generation’s revolution or revelation is the next generation’s tradition is the next generation’s rebellion.
We are not called to do exactly as our fathers did.
We are called to follow the Spirit that our fathers followed.
There are new wineskins that are given to us.
We are called to go after them.
You are here today because somebody got a new revelation of the Lord within their heart.
That is a good thing!
That is an awesome thing but it is their thing too.
Now the same God who gave them their new thing has something new for you.
But your goal is not to go through them.
Your goal is to meet the one who got something new in them.
He calls us out to something fresh.
He calls us to something new.
In the early 2000s, Home Depot was one of the largest companies in America.
When they hired a new CEO, their stock actually jumped when he took over.
Because he had this focus on efficiency and the bottom line.
So their stock took off.
A number of years later, it kinda did the opposite and they found themselves in a free fall in the stock market.
And it was the exact reason that had taken them upward was the same reason that was taking them downward.
So this bottom line focus has brought them to a place of lower sales.
They had laid off a bunch of their workers for bad customer service and low morale.
Then they hired a new CEO in 2007.
Lowes was outperforming Home Depot in almost every category including double their sales.
This new CEO stepped into an impossible task but within a couple of years, Home Depot had higher market shares under his leadership.
What did he do?
It was on day one that he addressed the 350,000 employees by showing them the inverted pyramid.
In the tradition business pyramid, you have someone at the top.
You have that CEO up at the top and then you have every level and layer of leadership that works down from that.
The idea is that it starts at the top and if you are doing well there, it will all trickle down to the rest of the organization.
But in one day, he turned the culture upside down at Home Depot.
It didn’t change their message but it changed the way they treated each other and the way they interacted with customers.
It changed the way they saw themselves.
It changed the purpose that they worked for.
It was a drastic change.
It put the leader at the bottom of the pyramid, effectively showing and modeling exactly what servant leadership is.
Whatever got you to this point, it might be a bad thing, it might be a good thing.
But you are here now.
What does God want to do in you today?
What is his fresh vision for this day?
Don’t live in memory, live in this moment right here right now.
What is the shift that you need to make to get back on track with God?
We can have good formulas/routines/plans but the Holy Spirit does not follow formulas/routines/plans!
He directs us into divine moments that He has set up in advance!
Are you living according to a plan?
Are you living according to a formula?
Or are you allowing the Spirit of God to direct you into divine moments that He has prepared in advance?
Are you fighting against the very thing that you are fighting for?
Do you hear what I’m saying?
The disciples were arguing for fasting so that they could get closer to God while they were right next to God.
Are you fighting for the very thing that you are fighting against?
Matthew 9:16
II.
Don’t patch what needs to be made new.
We all have our favorite pair of jeans, right?
It is like your Friday night jeans.
You don’t wear them hiking, you wear them when you are going out on a good night and you put those jeans on and you are feeling good.
And that pair of jeans happens to the world right?
You walk by a window and you look a little longer and you might say something like yep that’s right.
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