Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
We are coming to the close of our summer series about the Gospel
The Gospel is good news!
In this series, we have looked at how Jesus presented the Gospel in his interactions with people and then through his stories.
In the last few weeks of this series, we are going to look at a few elements of the Gospel that are very important
Last week we looked at repentance.
Sin is something that needs to be dealt with, but God is not interested in having us buck up and fight our will and force ourselves into righteousness.
Rather, Jesus wants our hearts, and through relationship with Him, align our lives to Him.
Today, we will be in Matthew 14:22-34
Pray
Main Topic
Today, we are talking about the topic of faith.
The world’s view of faith
Blind
Anti-logic/evidence
Sincerity
Blind
Faith is a hope.
It is directed at your wish and hoping it comes true…although it may not
Anti-logic/evidence
“People of faith”- Over here you have science, history and logic.
But some of you choose to go over here and become “people of faith” It’s like we are the fairy tale people and as long as we aren’t hurting anyone, what’s good for you is good for you.
Sincerity
Even trying to align good in the world to manifest into your life.
If I believe hard enough then good things will come to me
Indiana Jones faith bridge video.
The church view of faith
Salvation Faith
Circumstantial Faith
Confusion Faith
Salvation faith
We know from the Scriptures that it is by grace we are saved through faith.
Faith is involved in salvation.
This is true.
But we often leave faith just hanging and say, “It means believe”
Then we present that person with a series of facts.
It leads to the impression that faith is about believing a version of history and you are saved.
Circumstances faith
A separate type of faith that we see in the church is when things get difficult (sickness, conflict, money problems, etc.)
We believe that somehow faith will remove those problems from our lives.
It is rooted in this thought, “If I have enough faith, and remove enough doubt, God will be pleased with me (or my sincerity) and he will solve my problem.”
So we go around seeing people in their problems, real problems, and throw faith out as a solution.
And when it doesn’t seem to work, what do we say?
“You just need to have faith.”
Confusion faith
This leads to the last type of church faith (that I can think of.
There are probably more)
When we don’t understand something or something doesn’t align with our theology we simply say, “I don’t know, but I have faith”
I believe it hard enough to be true.
Will we understand everything?
No.
But oftentimes our theology is off base.
It is directed in the wrong areas.
We don’t want to learn what God is saying, we want to reinforce our views and we use faith as our excuse.
This is why I feel we need to take a serious look at this word and its usage.
It is a critical word for our approach to God, our approval before God and walking forward in our lives.
Critical in understanding the Gospel
Last week, we looked at repentance.
I don’t believe you can truly be repentant before God unless you have faith.
To understand this, we are going to look at this story with Peter.
Context to Story
Jesus had just finished one of the most incredible stories in the entire life of Jesus.
This was the feeding of the 5,000 people.
This mob of people had followed Jesus to the other side of the lake and they were hungry.
Jesus took 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish and multiplied it and fed the entire crowd.
This story was one of the few stories recorded in all four accounts of the life of Jesus.
Jesus dismissed the whole crowd and told them to go home.
He sent his disciples on a boat to go to the other side of the lake.
This bought Jesus a little bit of time to go up on the mountain to pray alone.
We don’t see much into this time with Jesus, but he was exhibiting a snapshot of something we need to keep in mind.
Jesus made it a regular habit to get away from everyone else and spend time with God.
This was not out of ritual or legalism.
This was out of relationship.
He loved the Father.
He knew the Father.
He wanted his disciples to know the Father.
That was the purpose of his time on Earth was so they could have a way to know the Father.
Think about this.
The guys set out for the other side of the lake.
Now depending on what part of the lake they were on, the lake could be as wide as 8 miles across.
They set out and it should have been a pretty simple sail across the lake, but a storm kicked up and the wind was blowing in the opposite direction of their destination.
Many of these guys were fishermen, so they knew the ways of the water here.
They were very skilled in their boats.
Very likely, this boat was one of the guys’ personal boats.
This passage says there was a storm raging and they were getting hit by all of the waves and the wind was blowing against them.
But they were making progress.
They were a considerable distance from the shore, but hanging on for dear life.
Now we get to the part of the story where we start to understand faith.
Jesus sets out on the lake walking toward them on the water.
This was shortly before dawn, so the guys had likely been toiling away all night long.
Now, when I picture this story, I often think of the guys in the dark, wind and rain and they were soaked and being thrashed about by the waves.
Then when I picture Jesus, He is walking on nice smooth water with the sun shining and everything seems good.
No, this was not the case.
Jesus was walking out on the lake as it was thrashing around with the wind blowing.
He was not only walking on the water, He was also walking through the storm.
If God had allowed a nice 6 foot circle of perfect weather for Jesus, one of the Gospels would have recorded this little tidbit.
But no one did.
Jesus was walking through the same storm they were walking through.
As the night turned into morning, the guys in the boat could start to better see the storm around them.
They may have been able to see the shore a long way off.
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