Sermon Tone Analysis

Where Are You Headed?

November 1, 2009

MARK 10:32-34, 11:1-10

 

On January 20th, Henry Blackaby, in Experiencing God Day by Day, wrote about “Royal Priests”.

He began by quoting 1 Peter 2:9 /But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people.

You are a kingdom of priests, God's holy nation, his very own possession.

This is so you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.

/

If you are a Christian, you are a priest, chosen by God.

As a member of the royal priesthood you have constant access to the King.

If there is ever a need in your life, you don't have to find an intermediary or enlist another priest in order to gain a hearing from the King.

Your position as a royal priest allows you direct access.

This privilege describes your /position /as a priest.

However, priests also have a /function.

/It is the responsibility of a priest to work within a /priesthood.

/Scripture does not promote the practice of individual priests, each with a separate ministry.

Rather, priests function together (Lev.

9:1).

An unbiblical sense of individualism can isolate you from functioning within God's royal priesthood as He intended.

The priest represents God to the people, but he also takes the people's concerns to God.

Is there someone around you who desperately needs the intercession of one of God's priests?

Perhaps someone will only come to know God by seeing Him in your life.

Our world hungers for an expression of Christ as He really is, living out His life through His people.

It is dangerous to put our job above our calling by God.

We are called to be priests first, and to hold a job second.

When we get these out of order, everyone around us is denied access to the Father through us.

God may have called you into a secular job as a vocation, but more importantly He has appointed you to be one of His royal priests.

A few years ago, a neat movie came out that caught the imagina­tion of many who saw it.

City /Slickers, /starring Billy Crystal and Jack Palance among others, was about three middle-aged, upper-class guys who decided to work out some of their midlife crises by going to a dude ranch out West for a couple of weeks.

One of the three was Billy Crystal.

While he and his friends were on a cattle drive, he struck up a conversation with an old cowboy, played by Jack Palance.

This is the way the conversation went.

Palance said, "Yeah, you guys come out here every summer at about the same age and you have the very same problems.

You spend fifty weeks out of each year getting knots in your ropes, and then you think that two weeks out here will untie them for you.

None of you get it."

He pauses a long time and then says, "Do you know what the secret of life is?"

Billy Crystal says, "No, what is it?"

Palance holds up one finger, his index finger, and says, "This."

"Your finger?" exclaims Crystal.

Palance replies, "One thing, just one thing.

You stick to that and every-thing else doesn't mean a thing."

"One thing?"

Crystal says, "Well, that's great, but what is that one thing?"

Palance throws his head back and laughs out loud and then says with a little wry smile, "That's what you've got to figure out."

I'm not sure that "one thing" is the same thing for everybody at all.

In one sense it's a very different thing for each one of us.

Yet, when you look below the surface, the "one thing" is the same for each of us after all.

What is it, this one thing we've all got to figure out, this one thing that's the most important thing of all in each one of our lives?

It has to do with our pur­pose, our basic reason for being here in the world.

Unless and until we get that figured out, we don't have much of a life.

/"They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, Jesus leading the way; and the disciples were filled with awe"/ (Mark 10:32a).

Jesus got it figured out, didn't he? Jesus' life was enormously powerful.

Because he knew what his purpose was, his life made a huge difference in the world.

Let’s take a look at today’s Scripture; please turn to Mark, chapter 10, verses 32 – 34 and chapter 11, verses 1 – 10  /And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them.

And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid.

And taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, "See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles.

And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him.

And after three days he will rise."

/

/ \\ Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, "Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat.

Untie it and bring it.

If anyone says to you, 'Why are you doing this?' say, 'The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.'

" And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it.

And some of those standing there said to them, "What are you doing, untying the colt?"

And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go.

And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it.

And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields.

And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, "Hosanna!

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!

Hosanna in the highest!" /

Jesus made a decision when he was up in Galilee that he needed to go to Jerusalem.

And he did so, fully aware that going there would cost him his life, and yet also fully aware that that was the only way God's salvation would come to the whole world.

So he gathered his disciples together and off they went on the ninety-mile journey from the north shore of the Sea of Galilee down the Jordan Valley to the great city of Jerusalem.

The Gospel of Mark gives us a fascinating glimpse of this journey.

It says, /"They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, Jesus was leading the way; and the dis­ciples were filled with awe" (/10:32).

Other translations of the Bible say that his disciples were /amazed /or /astonished, /or in a /daze, /but I think the word /awe /best captures what the Greek word was really wanting to convey.

What is so significant about that?

I think the disciples were awed because Jesus wasn't holding back the slightest bit.

Rather, he was out in front of the pack!

He was walking way up ahead of all the others!

He was almost eager to get to Jerusalem, though he knew full well that he was going to be killed when he got there!

Why was he so eager?

Because of his basic purpose in life, his basic reason for being, the one thing for which he felt he had been put in the world — and he knew that if he didn't fulfill it, he really wouldn't have much of a life at all!

The same holds true for you and me.

There's a basic reason and pur­pose for which each one of us is here in the world.

Our lives are not an accident.

Maybe our parents thought that our coming was an accident, but no life is ever an accident.

Instead, our lives are an investment — a divine investment.

God made each one of us ever so carefully and ever so won­derfully and put us in the world at this precise time and in this precise place.

God had a reason for doing that, a deep reason that lies inside the heart and soul of each one of us in this room.

If we never discover that reason, never honor and live out that purpose, we really won't have much of a life!

Maybe you feel a little bit like Charlie Brown.

I mean, you hear these big and lofty ideas about having a reason and a purpose in your life, and you wonder what in the heck yours might be.

Charlie Brown went to see his friend Lucy.

She had her famous booth set up, the one that says "Psychiatrist" on the front.

Charlie pays her five cents for her expert advice.

"Lucy, I need your help," he says.

"I don't feel a sense of commitment to anything.

I can't seem to find my direction and my purpose in life."

Lucy looks at Charlie Brown and says, "Oh, don't worry, Charlie Brown.

It's like being on a big ocean liner out in the middle of the sea.

Some folks put their deck chairs to face the front of the ship, and others put theirs to face the side of the ship, and others put their chairs to face the back of the ship.