Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
In January 2015 Ghanaian English journalist Afua Hirsch gave a TED talk in Tottenham, England.
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design.
When their conferences began in 1984 they were focused on the convergence of those three things.
However, today TED talks cover almost any conceivable topic.
They’re intended to be short powerful talks no longer than 18 minutes…Afua’s TED talk was titled, “Our Identity.”
Her father is English and her mother is Ghanaian.
In her talk, she relayed two personal encounters where people perceived her in different ways.
One encounter was with a former colleague.
The former colleague was attempting to flatter her with compliments on her professional qualifications.
But at some point in the conversation, he nervously said to her in a quiet tone, “And you’re…you’re Black.”
Afua said,
“I couldn’t help but laugh.
I tried not to let him see me laughing at that.
And I wondered why it is so awkward for him to say something to me that was so obvious?...I think on the one hand, he was unsure of whether that was an insulting thing to say.
And on the other hand, maybe he was unsure as to whether that was how I see myself.”
Then, she describes a separate encounter in another part of town where the image someone has of her is completely different.
This time, she’s with her boyfriend and his young nephew at a restaurant.
Her boyfriend decided to play a little trick on his nephew.
When the check came the boy asked if he could see it.
His uncle said, “It’s very expensive,” and told him it was some outrageously high amount.
The boy’s eyes got big and he said, “How are we ever going to pay it?”
The uncle said, “Let’s make a dash for the door!”
The boy says, “We can’t do that.”
Then his uncle replies, “I suppose you’re right.
It would be pretty conspicuous – the only three Black people in the restaurant making a dash for the door without paying.”
But then the boy said, “There’re not three Black people!
There’re two Black people!
She’s White!” Pointing at Afua.
Sometimes children have no filter.
They just call it like they see it.
She didn’t fit the image he had in his head of a Black person.
Image.
How do others see us?
How do we see ourselves?
Who gets to determine what the image is?
In some respects, image is everything.
Sprite had a commercial a few years back.
The tagline was, “Image is nothing.
Thirst is everything.
Obey your thirst.”
But the fact of the matter is image matters.
“We don’t know what to think of ourselves,” says theologian Richard Pratt.
“Some of us feel so worthless that we can hardly stand to live another minute.
Others are so full of self-importance that they lift hands in praise to their own divinity.
One says, ‘I am nothing.’
Another says, ‘I am God.’”
Let me tell you something.
Our text today, the 2nd commandment, , confirms the fact that image is everything.
Not in the sense that you need to improve your public image.
You might.
But that isn’t what I’m talking about.
Image is everything where God is concerned, which means that image is everything where we’re concerned to.
You’ll see what I’m talking about as we work through this message.
Le have three L’s today, Liberty, Life, and Likeness.
Liberty
There are a couple of things that I mean when I use the word liberty here in reference to the second commandment.
The first thing is this.
We need to have this indelible impression in our minds when it comes to God’s Law.
The Law of God is given particularly to people who are free.
These folk have been liberated from bondage.
The Law applies to everybody.
Nobody is able to say, “I’m exempt from God’s Law.”
If I travel to another country and do something to violate their laws, I can’t just say, “We don’t have that law where I come from.
You should give me a pass.”
Ignorance of their laws might not keep my behind out of jail.
I’m in their land, so I’m subject to their law.
Well, if God is God, then this is his world.
And his commandments are binding for every person.
There’s no escape clause.
But it’s so important to remember that when God gives it, he gives it to people whom he has liberated.
This is why we find James telling his hearers in ch.
2:12 of his NT letter to speak and act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty.
To belong to the Lord is to be set free from bondage.
The question now is how shall we live?
What are we to do?
How are we to govern our lives as his people.
These are questions that the children of Israel needed answered.
The Lord didn’t free them from slavery and say, “Now go figure it out for yourself.”
No.
When they were set free, the point of God setting them free was so that he could bring them to himself.
“Let my people go,” was the message to Pharaoh.
Why? “So that they may worship me.”
The Lord brings us out to bring us in.
He brings us out of our enslavement to sin, out of our enslavement to thinking that we’re running the show, that we’re the masters even of our own lives.
And he brings us to himself, showing us his beauty, his power, his glory, saying, “You’re mine.
I’m your God, and you’re my people.
Here’s how my people live.”
The second thing I mean by liberty flows out of the first.
The commandments are connected.
The Lord kicks the commandments off by saying to his people, “You shall have no other gods before me.”
As newly liberated people, let’s be clear on where your allegiance lies.
Let’s be clear on who always, at every point of the day, throughout every day of the year, must be your first love.
We get that.
Whether you’re married right now, have been married in the past, or hope to be married in the future, you know that it’s not OK for one spouse to start loving somebody else more than they love their spouse.
It’s not OK for a husband or a wife to start to be more devoted to another person than they are to their own spouse.
That’s a problem.
That part of the wedding vow when you say, “forsaking all others, and keeping myself only to you as long as we both shall live,” that ain’t no joke.
That’s a commitment to exclusive devotion, and that’s the commitment in the first commandment.
Where the first commandment demands exclusive loyalty, the second commandment says you’re liberated, but you’re not free to do things in regard this relationship however you want to do them.
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