Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Advent: Taking time to commemorate the coming of Christ.

This Sunday the prophecy candle and hope.

Christmas can be a time of year where there is much joy and celebration, but it can also be filled with challenges that often go unspoken or unattended.

Main Idea: Captives Hope to be Set Free

With Christmas time comes other Christmas classics, including one of my favorites by Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol”.

In this story lies one of the most challenging characters.

Ebenezer Scrooge.

Looking at the man, you would think that he would never change his ways.

He is an old curmudgeon.

“Bah!

Humbug!” Scrooge would proclaim if you suggest anything pleasant or kind.

In Dickens’ own words,

“Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!

Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.

The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice.

A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin.

He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days, and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.”

It seemed as if Scrooge was a man set in his ways.

Very unpleasant, unloving.

A lover of self and not of others.

It wasn’t until the appearing of the ghost of Scrooge’s deceased partner, Marley, that Scrooge would even consider changing.

Marley, after being judged by the powers of the beyond, is cursed to walk around as a ghost, carrying with him the chains that he forged in life, link by link, according to his own free will.

And upon seeing Marley, Scrooge thinks upon his own life, upon the fathoms of chains that he would be doomed to lug around were he to die that very moment.

His own life, his own desires, were forging the very chains of his captivity.

A captivity from which his soul would never have a change to leave upon death.

And in that moment Scrooge was afraid.

He was advanced in years and there was no comfort to be had in any of his works.

He seemed destined to wander as a ghost, carrying the weight of the chains from his sins.

There seemed to be no hope left for him.

And from many of the outsider’s perspective, he seemed to be a man beyond hope.

And we all know the type.

Maybe it’s one of your neighbors.

Maybe it’s a relative or a coworker or someone you serve at work.

It’s the man or woman so frozen in their own ways that they refuse to listen to anyone who talks to them.

'Bah!

Humbug!'

They say when you speak to them.

They insist on their own way.

And it seems that the best answer to them is to let them be because no matter how hard you try you won’t be able to move them.

They are as stubborn as an ox.

Their fate is one of bondage.

Their destiny like that of scrooge, held captive by sin.

And if we spend any amount of time in introspection, we would find the same attitude within ourselves.

We love ourselves.

We love the things which make us feel good, even when we know they are wrong.

We pursue them and chase after them because so often we’re hooked on a feeling.

And the desires of your heartly flesh speak to you.

They say, “Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to listen to your nagging mother-in-law or children, but just be able to speak your mind?” “Wouldn’t it be nice to run this business your way instead of working for someone else?” “A little taste of the cake isn’t going to harm anyone.”

The sinful heart of humans has been there from the beginning.

“A little bite of the forbidden fruit isn’t going to do you any harm.”

Like Scrooge, we are all held captive by our own vices.

And without hope, there is no chance of freedom from our chains.

Captives

And God loves us enough to tell us this.

He speaks the hard truth that we need to hear about our destiny under sin.

and then Romans 3:23

All humans are captive to their own passions and flesh, headed toward ruin and misery.

And looking at history, we see this is the case for every single person.

Even in Israel, the holy nation which God called out of Egypt for himself, turned away to pursue their own passions.

It was for their sin that Israel, the covenant people of God, were sent into exile.

The natural state of sin is toil and futility.

It has been from the beginning.

Bitterness awaits all mankind.

Captivity is the consequence for sin.

And it might seem that there’s no hope.

You can’t break the cycle of sin that you are in.

You are feeding the passions of your flesh and like a dog returns to its vomit so you are returning to your sin.

(Pause)

But the story’s not over.

There’s hope for you, Scrooge.

There’s hope for you to shun the path of sin and eternal punishment.

Hope

Despite where you’re at right now, there is hope.

And what is hope?

Hope is something that allows you to keep holding on despite your circumstances.

(pause)

There was an article yesterday about a man who was rescued after falling off a cruise ship.

He floated in the ocean 19 hours before he was found off the coast of Florida.

The coast guard was saying usually the longest a person can survive on their own in the ocean is 10 hours at best.

But this man had hope of being rescued.

He held on to the hope of being found, so he persevered through the cold, through his tiredness, through his exhaustion.

And after 19 hours he was rescued.

How long are you willing to hold onto hope so that you may be rescued?

(pause) If we lose sight of hope, and we give into the waters of our sin and we are brought to the depths because of it, there will be no new life.

There are many who lose sight of hope in this life, and they give up.

They give into the results of sin.

They delve headfirst into endless drugs or passions because they have no hope of being rescued.

They are content to sink because they don’t think anyone else cares.

They themselves no longer care.

So they’ve given up.

But what does the Lord say?

For those who hope for rescue from sin, a way of rescue has been given.

God is a good and gracious God.

He is a God of second chances.

Even when we fail him and we are chasing after our own selves and are building more chains to our bonds of sin, God makes a way.

He provides an answer to the bondage.

A hope.

A Hope.

And this hope came as a person.