Sermon Tone Analysis

*The Power of Story*

John 5:24 ~/ Luke 5:12-15 ~/ 1 Corinthians 14:6-12

*Introduction*:

            I want to do an activity this morning and I need your help.

What I want to do is to show a word on the screen behind me and then I want you to turn to your neighbor and say the first word that comes to your mind.

Your response can be /anything/, … absolutely anything that comes to mind.

But the key is to say it fast.

You can’t give this too much thought.

Are you ready?

All right, here’s the first word … *Mono.

*Any “Lisas” out there?

Okay, so some of you are catching on, at least.

Ready for the next one?

How about … *Vacation*.

Anybody think of a warm place?

Ok…here’s the next word… *Diet*.

Ok…the next word is…President.

Ok here is the last word.

It’s the word … *Born-again Christian*.

Okay, let’s stop there for a moment.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if we could electronically tabulate all the words that floated throughout the room after “Born-again Christian” flashed across the screen?

I think the results would be fascinating.

Let’s take it a step further.

What do you think would happen if we did the same thing to a hundred people who are living far from God?

If we said, “Do you know any /born-again Christians/?”

What do think the response would be?  Do you think that we might get quite an earful?

What if somebody said, “I’ve come across a few Christians, and the ones I know are … hmmm, how do I describe them … they’re just so … uptight … narrow … and rigid.”

Or what if somebody said, “I went to school with one once … he was pretty isolated.

Kept to himself all the time.”

Or what if somebody said, “I don’t know any of them very well.

They hang with their own type … certainly don’t rub shoulders with people like me.”

Or what if somebody said, “I know a born-again Christian … what a turnoff!

I feel judged if I even breath wrong.”

I think that we would all hope these perceptions aren’t out there.

Unfortunately, statistics suggest that they are.

It’s sad thing because that’s not what we believe about the Christian faith.

That’s not what the church is called to be.

I don’t know about you, but I wish that whenever I struck up a conversation with people and asked them to tell me what they think of the Christians they know, the first thought that would come to mind would be something like, “Hmmm … Christians?

The ones I know are /chock full/ of integrity.

That’s what impresses me about them…their integrity … and their moral courage.”

Or maybe they would say, “Christians?

The ones I’ve come across are filled with compassion.

They just love other people…even people who are hard to love.”

Or maybe they would say, “Christians?

They’re /humble/ people, they’re honest … they have this incredible inner strength.

It’s amazing!

They’re always taking walks across rooms.

Whenever somebody needs encouragement or friendship, /Christians/ are the first ones to make the move.”

I think that we would /all/ like people to describe the Christian life in these words…words that reflect a radical love, a passionate hope, and a heart touching surrender…because these are the words that describe the life of Jesus.

Time and time again, Jesus was known to take the walk across the room.

His was willing to take the step of faith and reach into the lives of people all around Him.

He reached out with unending compassion to children, to women, to the sick, and to the lost.

That’s what we see in the gospel of Luke.

In Luke chapter 5, we read about an occasion where Jesus came across a man who was very sick.

Luke tells us, “While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy.

When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man.

“I am willing,” he said.

“Be clean!”

And immediately the leprosy left him.

Then Jesus ordered him, “Don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”

Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses.”

The man in this story was touched in a powerful way.

It was so powerful, that he couldn’t even keep quiet about it.

The gospel of Mark’s version of the same story tells us that Jesus asked him to lay low and keep things quiet but that “Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news.”

He didn’t do what Jesus asked him to do…but how can you blame him?

This man had a powerful story to tell.

Scripture doesn’t give a lot of details about his life and what having leprosy was like.

But we don’t have to imagine.

Leprosy was a terrible disease that had a physical, emotion and even spiritual cost.

The man in this story was probably very healthy at one time in his life, but leprosy comes up on you pretty quick.

Author Max Lucado suggests that it could have been during an ordinary day when he noticed that his grip seemed a little weak.

And shortly after that, the tips of his fingers started to numb.

First one finger and then another.

Within a short time he could grip the tool but couldn’t feel it in his hand.

By the end of the season, he felt nothing at all.

The hand grasping the handle might as well have belonged to someone else – because the feeling was completely gone.

It’s not too hard to imagine that this man might have had a wife.

She knew nothing of the circumstances at first.

But then one day, while he was washing up from working out in the field there was blood.

She notices that there was blood everywhere.

And worst of all, she notices that he wasn’t aware.

In that day and age, it was a clear sign.

In one heartbreaking glance, they both knew that life would never be the same.

“You need to go to the priest,” she says.

Standing next to her was their three-year-old daughter.

He gazes into her face and strokes her cheek, saying absolutely nothing.

What could he say?

The wife reaches out to touch his shoulder.

It would be their final touch.

The priest wouldn’t touch him at all.

That was the law in those days.

He looked at the man’s hand, wrapped in a rag.

He looked at his face, shadowed in sorrow.

He covers his mouth and shouts “You are unclean.”

And with that single pronouncement this man loses his family, his farm, his future.

The days began to grow long after that moment.

Each day and week worse than the one before.

Soon the leprosy causes his hands to become gnarled.

The tips of his fingers become missing as do portions of his ear and nose.