Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Good evening and welcome back!

I hope everyone has had a blessed day.

This evening we are going to continue our Journey Through Matthew.

And tonight we are going to be looking at the subject of Where’s all the help?

And we are going to be doing so looking at if you would like to start finding that in your Bibles.

Now, this morning we went through a great deal of chapter 9, and looked at The Healer’s Touch and how people’s faith in just the touch of Jesus led to their healing.

And we also looked at how before we can be touched by Jesus, we must first get in touch with Jesus!

And we left off with Jesus healing the 12 year old daughter of the Synagogue ruler, but Jesus wasn’t done healing.

Immediately after this event, Jesus was going along his way and he was met by two blind men desiring to be healed.

And Matthew tells us that . . .

Matthew 9:28

But of course like everybody else so far that Jesus had touched, they went out and spread the news far and wide.

And even though they were being disobedient, in our own human mind, we really can’t blame them too much.

Think about it, if you were blind one minute and suddenly the one thing you had been praying and dreaming about your entire life came true, you’d be a little excited too.

So . . .

And Jesus is trying to keep things quiet because he realizes that he has a lot of work to do and with all of these people gathering around looking to be healed, they are literally hindering his ability to move around and do the work God has given him to do.

It’s not that Jesus wanted everything a secret, he just wanted to do his work.

But the droves kept coming wherever Jesus went, just like after Jesus healed these two blind men . . .

Matthew 9:32

So, it was just one event after another, and while the townspeople and regular folks like us would be amazed by it, the Jews didn’t really see things in the same light.

All this was doing was continuing to mount opposition and hatred toward Jesus.

The Pharisees had to come up with a plan and after this demon possessed man . . .

After this demon possessed man . . .

Basically saying that Jesus is an agent of Satan.

Scripture Focus

Which makes a lot of sense, because the most evil being ever created would send somebody to go around healing people and telling people to repent and put their trust in God.

Doing things and telling people things that are the complete opposite of what Satan is all about.

Makes a lot of sense.

But, they kept on and on and on, so we now have Jesus knowing that there is all of this work to be done.

He is being hindered by the people.

He is being hindered by the Jews.

And he has to move his ultimate plan to the next phase.

And that next phase is to spread the work out to his disciples.

They had been with him for a while and now they are ready.

Which is where we pick up for tonight.

So, if you have found in your Bible, I’d invite you to stand with me if you are able.

Again, I am going to be reading from .

Matthew writes this . . .

Scripture Focus

The Towns and Villages

So, things continue just the way they have been going.

Jesus and by extension the disciples being bombarded with people, who had serious needs.

Again, verse 35 tells us the mission . . .

And before we go on, I do want us to focus just a bit about what all is being said here.

We often get hung up on the miracles and the healing every disease and sickness part of Jesus’ ministry.

And the reason being because it is something that is amazing and something we don’t see very often.

I actually think we see it more than we think, we just don’t recognize WHO did the healing.

We give too much credit to humans and not enough to God.

But even today we get hung up on healing and miracles.

A perfect example was a commercial that Michelle and I saw just the other day.

There was some TV preacher selling “miracle spring water.”

And basically he had this little vile of spring water that he had supposedly blessed and it worked miracles one you received it.

And I was thinking “really?

Are people that naive?”

But the answer is really, “yes, they are.”

And the reason being is because for many people they have prayed and prayed and prayed and all of a sudden here comes somebody along that offers them some sort of hope.

False hope mind you, but hope none the less.

So, we really can’t blame the people here too much because Jesus is the REAL DEAL.

He’s not offering spring water.

He is offering LIVING WATER.

And we latch on to those things, and forget about the rest of that verse.

Because not only did Jesus go around healing everybody, he also went through all the towns and villages teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom.

And that good news was that THE MESSIAH HAS COME.

REPENT AND PUT YOUR FAITH IN HIM!

Because that was Jesus’ primary goal.

He healed people because he loved them and had compassion on them.

Look at the next verse . . .

Matthew

However, he was primarily concerned about their soul and their eternal situation.

The Work is Overwhelming

And with this concern, I can picture Jesus looking out over the crowd, surveying the situation before him.

And I can also picture him knowing that the amount of work in front of him is overwhelming.

All of these people.

All of this disease.

All of this hopelessness.

All of this sin.

Thinking, what have these people done with my Father’s creation?

How did they get to this place?

And I think when we look around us and see all of the things going on in the world today, we tend to get the same overwhelming sense.

Whenever you turn the television on, get on the internet, read a paper it is all death, destruction, and debauchery.

Evil and sin is all around us and it seems like there is really nothing we can do about it.

We want to do something.

We feel like we need to do something.

But it is so overwhelming.

There are so many people with so many different needs, we don’t even know where to start.

And, as a result we retreat into our nice, comfy, safe churches and close ourselves off to the outside world.

We stick our head in the sand and shut down.

We “take care of ourselves,” because we can’t help anybody else.

And, yes alone we can’t do much of anything.

We know all too well what Jesus said in . . .

We cannot do anything without Christ.

But what we often forget is the flip-side of that that Paul makes very clear to us . . .

You see, we are NOT meant to do this alone.

First and foremost Christ has to be involved.

But also we are supposed to be working together.

We are supposed to be working together as a church.

But we are supposed to also be working together as a group of churches in this community.

And we are supposed to be working together as community of churches in this nation.

And finally as a nation of churches in this world.