Sermon Tone Analysis

The Kingdom of Heaven

Do you see that the Kingdom is the mustard seed?

It began as something small and insignificant.

The mustard seed develops into a majestic tree much like the Kingdom has been growing with each new Christian.

#1 What do you think the leaven is representing?

Leaven is representing the kingdom and it’s righteousness that gets put into raw material which is a non-believer and transforms the whole raw material into one with the same values as the Kingdom.

People who profess to be Christian will grow in numbers.

The Jews believed that the Kingdom was public and for all, but we learned from the Hidden Treasure parable that the Kingdom is hidden and is something that needed to be purchased by Christ but each individual purchases by giving up the old.

The priceless pearl, such a valued item that all other valuables were sold off.

#2 What does this parable of the pearl tell you?

It tells me that the Kingdom demands abandonment of all other things that are considered to be more valuable.

There is no other thing that is more valuable than the Kingdom of God, that is why Christ gave HIs life for the church.

The last of the 7 parables ends with a question: “Have you understood all these things?”

All the disciples said they did understand…were they afraid to say no?

Because in yesterday’s readings they asked Jesus to explain one.

They could not have understood all the implications of these parables at the time of His ministry.

I think that Jesus was presenting some truths that they were all aware of as well as some new truths .

Jesus the Teacher was delivering truth in a variety of ways, with some new revelations as well as ancient truths.

As Jesus prepares his disciples to teach God’s will we see increasingly more rejection of Christ.

Story telling makes lessons much more vivid and is so much better then just listing facts.

Stories draw people in.

When stories are told hard subjects can be communicated in a non-threatening way.

#3 How can you use story telling to teach?

When we share our story of how a believing faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior and more importantly how it has changed our lives in some way enables the listener to consider God’s message of hope and salvation.