Sermon Tone Analysis

*Intro* – I’ll bet anyone who has a computer has done this.

I was working away on a large work document a few years ago when I selected a portion to delete.

I failed to notice the computer selected the whole doc.

A second later, I was looking at the loss of several days’ work that was not backed up and could not be retrieved.

Please tell me I’m not alone!

It was devastating and I learned a valuable lesson about the power of the delete key and the need for backups.

Well, Beloved, God has equipped all of us with a powerful “delete” key.

It can be used for good, but can also do great personal harm.

We can destroy ourselves with this gift.

The gift is free will.

It has extreme power because its effects are eternal.

And in the end it either leads to God or away from Him.

Notice Lu 7:30: “But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves.”

That phrase strikes terror in my heart.

“Rejected the purpose of God.”

They took God’s gift of free will and shot themselves right between the eyes.

They rejected the purpose of God for themselves.

It’s a tragic phrase.

The word “rejected” can also be translated to “nullify” or “erase.”

They erased the purpose of God “for themselves.”

That’s personal, and thus painfully tragic.

It pictures God saying, “I’ve got a purpose for you – to forgive your sin and cleanse your heart based on Jesus’ death.

Life will be hard, but you’ll have a happy, productive, glorious forever.”

Then He gives them a gift.

They ask, “What’s this?”

He says, “It’s Free Will.

It includes a “delete” key.

You don’t have to take My plan.

You can make your own.

You can chase your own dreams, make your own happiness, write your own script, wring all you can out of this life.

But know this.

In that case, you go into eternity on your own – fully accountable, but without help from Me.

Just hit “delete” and you are your own boss.”

Got the picture?

God offers eternal life, but He also gives us the ability to destroy ourselves by choosing “delete the purpose of God for ourselves.

That’s what the Pharisees did.

Free will is great, but it is like having your finger on a grenade.

It’s easy to blow yourself up.

Now – please realize that in the end, no person, no group of people, no event, no plan of man can ever upset the ultimate purposes of God.

We’re not big enough for that.

History is God’s story – aimed at showing His power and glory.

Paul pulls back the curtain a bit in Eph 1:9-10 to say that God has a . . .

“purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”

When the time is right, God will bring all things together in conformity to His One perfect will.

Sin alienates.

God unites – reversing all the effects of the fall.

That purpose will prevail!

Isa 46:9-10 reminds us, “I am God, and there is none like me, 10) declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.”

Nothing can overtake God’s ultimate purposes.

Nothing.

He even turns evil on its head!

Peter tells his Pentecost audience in Acts 2:23, “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”

The most horrendous act in history – the killing of Christ, was in God’s eternal plan and purpose – but the people who did it will pay.

By their free will they forwarded God’s eternal plan to pay for sin through the death of Christ – but they condemned themselves up in the process.

Free will and God’s sovereignty always work together in ways we will never fully understand in this life.

So, while we may delete God’s heartfelt desire for us personally, He will still get glory by whatever decision we make.

Man can never ultimately frustrate God’s purposes.

It’s a bit like young love.

He spots her, falls in love, wants her more than anything.

The desire of his heart is that she would accept him.

She turns him down flat and deletes his love.

But at his deepest level, in his heart of hearts, he only wants her if she returns his love in equal measure.

That is us and God.

We can break His heart for us, but we can never thwart his ultimate purposes – we can only nullify His purpose for our blessing to our own detriment.

Let’s see how the Pharisees did exactly that.

*I.

God’s Purpose for Our Person is Our Blessing*

Remember John developed gnawing doubts as he sat in prison.

Jesus answered by demonstrating His messianic powers in fulfillment of Scripture.

Then, He affirmed John’s ministry because it pointed to Him.

Now Luke highlights 2 polar opposite reactions to John’s ministry.

Lu 7:29-30, “(When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared God just, having been baptized with the baptism of John, 30 but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him.).”

By rejecting John’s message, they erased God’s purpose for them.

What purpose?

Lu 3: 3) “And he [John] went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

God’s personal and saving purpose for all people all time is that they turn from sin to Him.

Why did He want that for them?

Just to humiliate them?

NO!

He wanted to forgive them – make them right with God.

Many experienced that.

Lu 7:29: “When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too [for crying out loud], they declared God just.”

What blessing!

In repenting of their own sin, people were declaring God righteous and themselves sinful.

Rejecters did just the opposite – declaring themselves righteous and God unjust.

I told you free will is a hand grenade waiting for the pin to be pulled.

Can you imagine declaring God unjust?

That’s what people do when they reject Christ.

They are saying “I am right and God is wrong.”

Repentant people say, “God is right and I am wrong.”

And when that happens, blessing flows.

John’s own father prophesied in Lu 1:76-77) “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, 77) to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins.”

Repentance brings forgiveness and release from guilt.

There is no greater blessing the world than that.

God’s purpose is our blessing.

God always has our best at heart.

In C. S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters the senior devil tells his understudy, Wormwood: "Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal form, we are, in a sense, on the Enemy’s ground.

I know we have won many a soul through Pleasure.

All the same, it is His invention, not ours.

He made the pleasures.