Sermon Tone Analysis

5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”

Interruptions!

It seems at time that life just interrupts, you are on your way somewhere or on your way to do something; and seemingly from nowhere an interruption comes.

Most of the time, it is for a waste of time.

But every now and then, your life is changed for the better.

Isn’t that how every good love story begins.

Once there was this handsome, young man, about 16 years old.

He had started at a new school, his life had been interrupted from its previous course.

At this new school he met a young lady during their lunch period.

She instantly fell hopelessly in love with him.

She was consumed by his exotic latino flare and absurdly good looks.

But they were soon separated (another interruption).

After many months, while this young man was being a faithful wingman to his friend, he was stood up by his date.

But yet again the young lady found her prince, and filled with passion she seized the moment and expressed her undying love for this young man.

Love interrupted the life of this young man.

In time, the course of his life changed.

The young woman filled his life with joy, love, compassion.

She completed him.

Now there’s another little prince and princess running around the house (life interrupted again by love).

Now the young man lives determined to ward off all the boyfriends!!!

Love seems to interrupt the life of the most unsuspecting people.

Folks who never thought love would reach out to them.

Then seemingly from nowhere, their life course is transformed.

I know I just told you a compelling love story.

But there is a love story that has been interrupting the life of man from the beginning of time.

The First Interruption: Seeking Interruption

9 But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

Ask yourself, Why would the omniscient God ask “Where are you?”? That’s because this love story is two fold, there is a call and a response.

God CALLS OUT to Adam.

“MAN WHERE ARE YOU?”

Adam had done wrong!

His life was now on a different trajectory from the one purposed for him.

Adam found himself separated; separated from himself, from creation, from Eve, FROM GOD

But God Interrupts.

HE Calls out to separated and scared Adam.

He Calls out to the shame filled MAN.

WHERE ARE YOU?

Adam/ man responds..

I WAS AFRAID!

Afraid because I heard your steps, I heard you walking into my life, I heard you coming for relationship from a distance but my shame was too great.

I was too afraid.

In despair I made these garments from these leaves on that tree, but they could not cover the shame.

So I hid, I ran, covered in guilt, I attempted to hide from you.

Adams response is His confession!

Covered in guilt, and shame, with a sprinkle of anger.

But a confession nonetheless.

GOD ANSWERS

While God does deliver punishment for the transgression, he also delivers the promise of victory.

In God’s rebuke, love was shown, mercy was given, redemption was made, and a promise was made.

Not only does God redeem Adam there, by clothing them them; but He promises his son, a man to be born of a woman, one who would bruise the head of the serpent!

Continued Interruption

Moses: The Fire interruption!

Moses, plucked from the waters into the Pharaohs house.

Now finds himself in dessert caring for the sheep of his father in law.

There in the shame of his past.

While in hiding from the mistakes of His past, on a mountain, working for someone else..

There God calls out to Moses and interrupts his daily scheduled life.

2 And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.

He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.

3 And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.”

4 When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!”

And he said, “Here I am.”

Call: Moses, Moses!

Response: Here I Am

The murderer, the adopted rescued son, the Shepard… this man God called out to from an unconsumed burning bush.

This man God turned from coward to anointed leader and deliverer.

This is the man that God backed with a pillar of fire a pillar of cloud.

It was this man whom God instructed to speak to a rock so that water would come from it, TWICE!

This man, God interrupts his life, to anoint him to lead with great wonders

The Samaritan Woman: The Water Interuption

A woman, from a rejected class.

A reject of society, from an unclean line.

Even worse, 5 husbands and the current one wasn’t even hers.

Jesus interrupts into the life of THIS woman, to make of her a spring of living water.

7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water.

Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”

8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.)

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

It was necessary for Jesus to come to this well.

To Jacob’s Well.

There he would wipe away the shame of a rejected woman and make her a spring of living water.

This woman heads to the call, give me a drink.

But her response is one of a battered self.

“ Who me?

Don’t you know your kind isn’t supposed to mix with mine?”

At the well, Jesus breaks the system.

He breaks the bondage of a societal class system to call upon a woman who could be considered the most unclean of these.

Here in a woman who was but worthy of being stoned, Here He interrupts the direction of her life to make of her an Evangelist.

So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did.

Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.

So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did.

Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.

The Tree Interruptions

Zaccheus: The unmerited interruption

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

(2016).

().

Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

The sycamore:

6 So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully.

7 And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.”

8 And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor.