Sermon Tone Analysis

In the 1989 film /The Abyss/, directed by James Cameron, a diver is invited to use a special diving suit, in which he will breathe a special fluid, instead of air.

The argument was that the special diving suit replicates the conditions of the womb, in which prenatal babies breathe oxygen through the amniotic fluid, much like fish extract oxygen from water.

While this premise seems obvious enough, the scene shows the diver struggling to come to terms with the fluid.

His mind is telling his body that it is okay to breathe the fluid, but his brain is not so confident with the new paradigm.

\\ The struggle of the diver is not unlike the shift in thinking that we ask a person to adopt when we invite them to respond to Jesus and to live their life by faith in Him.

Now, we know that "faith is being /sure/ of what we hope for and /certain/ of what we do not see" (Hebrews 11:1, emphasis added); nevertheless, this paradigm of faith in Jesus calls into question all of a person's psychosocial presuppositions, whether they represent reality or not.

\\ To be honest, I'm pretty sure that the same level of struggle occurs when I teach that Christians can thrive over sin, as per God's expectations of us (Matthew 5:48).

In both cases, I am asking others to look at the world through a very different 'lens', and that can be a scary process.

\\ So, I would like to invite you to join me in exploring this process of paradigm-shift and to investigate what it actually looks like to thrive over sin.

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Jesus the troublemaker

\\ I love Jesus, but, I have to admit, He was not particularly subtle, and that can be rather annoying at times.

\\ Consider the following passage from /The Gospel of Matthew/:

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/From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

/

\\ /Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

“Never, Lord!” he said.

“This shall never happen to you!” /

\\ /Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!

You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” /

\\ /Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?

Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.

I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

/—Matthew 16:21-28

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In His teaching style, Jesus had a tendency to use quite bold language, which was meant to be confronting, and to juxtapose apparently contradicting ideas, in order to make His point.

In this passage, we see an example of the first of these aspects of His teaching style: He says to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!

You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

This scene is rather funny —to us, but not to Peter, at the time— funny because only moments before Jesus had declared that Peter was blessed, having been granted wisdom directly from God, as he confessed that Jesus was the Christ (Matthew 16:15-17).

But Peter's wisdom only extended so far, apparently, because now he is ignorantly thwarting the purposes of God by trying to keep Jesus safe from harm.

Poor Peter!

\\ It was Jesus' intention to allow the sin of the world to reach its fruition in His crucifixion, thus conquering sin and death and making reparation for our sin possible (John 3:16).

How could Peter have known and understood this mystery of the Kingdom of God (Romans 16:25)?

\\ One commentary had this to say about these verses:

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/Jesus’ sharp response to Peter, "Get behind me Satan", may seem at first glance to echo his dismissal of Satan in 4:10 ("Away from me, Satan").

The key phrase, however, is "behind me", which was part of Jesus’ first words to [Peter] when he called him (“come after me” in 4:19; cf.

10:38, 16:24).

Peter is recreating Satan’s part by trying to direct Jesus’ path with a vision of earthly triumph.

Instead of following behind in the way of Jesus, [Peter] tries to take the lead and plants himself firmly in Jesus’ way.

Because he thinks in terms of human aspirations, [Peter] stumbles over the ways of God (1 Corinthians 1:23; Galatians 5:11).

This blunder gives Jesus the opportunity to clarify further the role of the disciple.

—D.E.

Garland, /Reading Matthew: A literary and theological commentary on the first Gospel/, 2001./

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So Jesus very boldly and bluntly corrects Peter's ignorance as a method of teaching him something very important about the life of discipleship.

This then also provides an opportunity for a second aspect of Jesus' teaching style to become apparent: He brings together ideas which do not naturally go together, as a way to open up His disciples to learn something very important.

\\ What are the questionable ideas to which I am referring?

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/If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?

/—Matthew 16:24-26

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All of us want to gain the whole world, but certainly not at the expense of our soul!

But, in order to help us understand that our desire to gain the world is actually a path towards losing our soul, Jesus depicts following Him as similar to taking up a cross, saving our life as losing it, and losing our life for Him as finding it.

These juxtapositions create a cognitive dissonance within us as they are not expected patterns of comparison.

\\ Our brains are naturally wired to recognise patterns.

We are comfortable with patterns; they are easy to take.

But, to get into our mind, Jesus must challenge our expected patterns, so as to capture our attention and teach us something new.

\\ The problem is that this way of life should not be new to us.

We were created to be in relationship with God; to not be in relationship with Him is the abnormal state!

Yet, throughout history, humans rejected God and lost the abundant life that should always have been ours.

Therefore, Jesus is here challenging the death-dealing lies with which we have barricaded ourselves.

"If you want your life back", He is saying, "learn again to live with me!"

\\ This paradigm-shift is very much like being invited to breathe fluid rather than air: We are being challenged to understand our world in ways very different to the principles we have assumed since we were conscious.

The difference is that those principles, encouraged by the world, are false and only bring us death.

Jesus invites us to breathe, as if for the first time; our initial reaction will be to choke and gasp, but, if we can just relax and trust Him, we may discover that this new way of thinking and new mode of being is as life-giving as Jesus promised.

!

What is Real Life Anyway?

\\ So what is this way of life to which Jesus is both challenging and inviting us?

A glimpse of what this life looks like is found in /The Epistle of Paul to the Romans/:

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/Love must be sincere.

Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.

Honour one another above yourselves.

Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord.

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

Share with God’s people who are in need.

Practice hospitality.

/

\\ /Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.

Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.

Live in harmony with one another.

Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.

Do not be conceited.

/

\\ /Do not repay anyone evil for evil.

Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.

On the contrary: /

\\ /“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; \\ if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

\\ In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”/

\\ /Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

/—Romans 12:9-21

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Wow, eh?

What a picture of the life of the disciple of Jesus?

If we could even begin to live a little bit like this, how different our life would be?

Remember, though, that this is only a glimpse; it is not comprehensive.

\\ The question is: Is this an attractive way of life?

I’m not asking you if it’s possible, but does it seem attractive to you?

For the one who is truly and perfectly living in and with God, thriving over sin, this is the kind of life that he or she lives.

What tends to be the norm, unfortunately, is that even Christians fall onto and slide down the slippery slope of sin, away from God and the life that He intended for us.

But which life do you prefer?

\\ Before I tell you how this abundant life is possible, a life of thriving over sin rather than succumbing to it, let’s take another look at what this life looks like —not from the perspective of examples, but by going to the specific principles underlying these examples from the apostle Paul.

Those principles to which I am alluding are the Ten Commandments:

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/And God spoke all these words: /