Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

So it’s a New Year!

Is it a New You?

It’s a cliche now, the idea of reinventing yourself for a new chapter of life.

Taking on resolutions for the next year.

Or perhaps just hoping that this year will be better than the last.

This time of year brings those reflections about the year that is past, and consideration about what comes next.

What I want to help you with today, is to frame your thoughts about your next steps.

Perhaps you have not even thought about the coming year, not making any plans or any changes for the future.

Perhaps you’re a compulsive planner and you already have the whole year mapped out to perfection!

Either way, I want to help you to frame your thoughts about your next steps.

This is a guide for responsible disciples of Jesus facing an uncertain future.

Now I don’t mean uncertain as-in “we don’t know how things will turn out in the end” (Jesus will sort everything out!), but I mean uncertain in the way that we don’t know what will happen next.

We don’t know the future like God does.

We don’t know when Jesus is coming back.

So as we face the future,

not knowing when our master Jesus is returning,

not knowing the length of our own life,

not knowing if things will get better or worse,

what are we to do?

This is your guide.

A Guide for Responsible disciples, for New Beginnings and fresh start in a New Year.

There are 4 parts to this guide, and you will find the outline of it in the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25.

So we’ll step our way through it as see the four elements.

1. Be a Slave of Jesus

This is the first step.

Now you might wonder, why pick this passage in Matthew to talk about fresh starts and facing the future?

Well this parable, this metaphorical story is part of Jesus’ last teaching in Matthew’s Gospel.

This is the last opportunity Jesus has to teach his disciples before he is killed.

In this series of speeches and stories, Jesus set expectations about the future.

He told them what to look out for, how disciples should live in these times of waiting and what is going to go down in the future.

Jesus paints a picture of discipleship lived after he has gone away, and what to expect when he returns.

This is where we find ourselves in history.

We’re disciples living after Jesus has gone to the right hand of the Father, and we’re anticipating his return.

We’re living in this in-between time of the Kingdom of God being inaugurated, but not yet consummated with Christ’s return.

This passage speaks directly to how we should live as faithful servants, and not only that, Jesus spoke these words to disciples who were about to undergo a life changing transition to a new chapter of their life.

They were about to enter embark on a life changing journey that would hinge on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Now, I’m not suggesting that the changing date from 2022 to 2023 is anywhere near as cataclysmic as the death and Resurrection of Jesus but we often find ourselves at junctures in life that create fertile ground for new beginning,

whether it be the birth of a child,

or recovery from illness,

or even the diagnosis of an illness,

perhaps it’s a new job, or moving to a new town,

maybe it’s reaching an age milestone like 18, or 30 or 80.

Or the start of a new year...

As we mark these changes in the seasons of our life I believe the are the grace of God to us to make us take stock and take up the opportunity for new beginnings where we may have wandered off the path of faithfulness, or perhaps grown complacent in our faith.

Perhaps in these moments we are being led into a new chapter of spiritual formation.

It may mean a time of trial and suffering, it may mean a time of great happiness.

Whatever the LORD has in store for you, you have the opportunity laid out before you to face it on God’s terms or your own terms.

And as we see time and again across the pages of the Bible, trying to face the future on your own terms is a sure-bet on failure.

I’s a loosing battle.

That’s why the first step in taking hold of those new opportunities and facing the future is to be a slave of Jesus.

In this parable we will get the results of undermining the master, and what happens when the slaves are faithful.

It is only as true slaves of Jesus that we can have any hope in an uncertain future.

But lets look at the story to see how it gets this message across:

Matthew 25:14 (ESV)

“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his [slaves] and entrusted to them his property.

Here we have a master over a household.

Obviously a very wealthy man to have several live-in helpers.

These are slaves.

I know your translation probably says “servants” but it’s wrong.

And anybody who can look up a Greek dictionary knows it’s wrong too.

People, even as far back as the 16th century got ansi about translating the word as slave and so they dulled it to “servant”.

This started a tradition that has continued to this day in English bibles, although there are an increasing number of new translations that are making this right.

I’m not going to get into slavery here, and how it worked in the 1st century as opposed to the north american slavers, how it fits with the Bible and all that.

I’m happy to talk later about that, but all we need to know here is that the picture in this story is one of a master and his slaves.

A master and people who belong to him and serve him.

Just like you can have a good boss or a bad boss, a good parent or a bad parent, you could have a good master or a bad master.

In this scenario, there is a master who’s going away for some time and he entrusts his estate to his slaves.

He obviously trusts them to look after it, and is happy to give them this responsibility.

As we will soon see, he gives them each a monetary portion for them to invest.

What is the meaning of this?

This is a picture of Jesus and his disciples.

Jesus, when he is telling this story, was the master who was about to go away on a long journey.

And he gives his disciples great responsibilities and gave them the wealth/resources to do it.

But here’s the thing, they needed to be slaves in the first place.

They were HIS slaves, in HIS household, who would be doing HIS bidding.

They were bound to the Master to bring him honour and increase.

If you are to have any hope of fruitfulness or blessing from God you need to be a slave of Jesus.

You need to submit to him and serve him.

You must call him Lord of your life, Lord of the Church and Lord of the world.

This is he place we must start as we face this uncertain future.

We face it on Jesus terms, with Jesus calling the shots.

Not as lone rangers making up our own version of the good life.

Jesus must be out master.

Peter, Paul, James and Jude all called themselves slaves of Jesus.

They understood their relationship to Jesus Christ in this way.

So how do we become slaves of Jesus?

Well, it’s not by default.

It’s not by natural causes.

Jesus has to buy you.

You need to be purchased, redeemed.

You are a slave to sin.

Sin is the other master, and an evil abusive master at that!

You need to be bought, and the price was the blood of Jesus.

He died as payment, for your sin.

You might have read these words around Christmas time, the prophecy of Zechariah

Jesus buys his people with his blood.

He freed us from slavery to sin, to become slaves of Righteousness.

Slaves of Jesus.

The question is not whether you are a slave, it is what are you enslaved to?