Sermon Tone Analysis

A college student started a summer job as a porter at a resort hotel.

He was a little nervous, and a experienced worker was kind enough to give him some friendly advice.

“You’ll get good tips if you chat with the guests and especially call them by name.”

“Um, how do I find out their names?”

asked the young worker.

“Should I ask a desk clerk or just come right out and ask them?”

“Oh, no, no, no,” said the older man.

“You just have to glance at the name on the tag of their luggage.”

The student, with a surge of confidence, approached a well-dressed couple and offered to escort them to their suite.

As he reached down to pick up a suitcase, he slyly read the tag hanging from the handle.

"It’s wonderful to have you visiting with us, Mr. and Mrs. Samsonite!”

This joke is especially bad today, but you know what?

They can’t all be winners.

Today is the Sunday after veterans day and I want to start by honoring the veterans in our church.

If you have served in the armed services please stand.

Let’s give them a hand.

Please stay standing while we pray for you.

In the kingdom of God we should be known as people of service.

People who put others needs before our own.

My hope for today is that we think on those people who have served us as a nation, we think on how God has served us, and that we would consider how we are to serve others each and every day.

I have one verse for us today - it’s a goodie!

I want to tell you the story of a man named Joe Foss.

Joe Foss

A year after his father died (electrocuted), Joe Foss dropped out of college.

Holding down a couple of odd jobs, running the family farm and attending college was just too much for him-something had to give, so he quit school.

When his younger brother was old enough to take over the farm, Joe returned to Sioux Falls College and later the University of South Dakota.

Along the way, he was able to save up enough cash to take flying lessons and in his Senior year he joined the Marines.

He was an old man of 26 by then, though he’d earned his wings, the military thought he was too old to be a fighter pilot.

Eventually he worked his way up into a carrier group and a few months after Pearl Harbor he got his first combat assignment—Guadalcanal.

In six weeks he shot down 23 Japanese planes, within a few more months he’d shot down his 26th plane and was presented with the Medal of Honor.

Malaria forced him to leave the Pacific in 1944 and the next year he left the military.

Foss was a hero in anybody’s book.

But there’s more to his story.

He worked several jobs in the private sector before running for public office for the first time.

He served as a member of the South Dakota House from 1949–50 and 53–54, before becoming the governor of South Dakota in 1955 for two, two-year terms.

Sounds like a lot of accomplishments for just one man, doesn’t it?

But there’s more.

After leaving public life, he became the first Commissioner of the AFL and served in that capacity before the AFL & NFL merged and the creation of the Super Bowl.

He went on to serve as the host for ABC’s The American Sportsman and the host of his own syndicated series, “The Outdoorsman: Joe Foss.”

He passed away in 2002.

Before he passed he never stopped traveling giving speeches about “leadership, patriotism and his enduring faith in God.”

He was an impressive man.

A veteran we should honor and thank God for because of his service.

But that’s not the only reason I’m telling you his story.

There’s something more than all of that which impresses me about Joe Foss.

If you search the internet for information on Joe Foss, you’ll come across an article written by Dave Beckwith for “South Dakota Magazine”.

I want to read the article to you today:

For a 9-year-old newspaper boy in Pierre, balancing 50 to 100 papers on a bike was a challenge.

One day in 1956 I hit a rut and crashed into the pavement.

Newspapers scattered across the highway.

With a badly skinned knee and embarrassed, I saw a black limousine coming straight at me.

I scrambled to get out of harm’s way as the car screeched to a halt.

A man in a suit stepped out of the limousine and began picking up newspapers.

I didn’t know he had been a fighter pilot in World War II or that he scored 26 personal aerial victories against the Japanese.

I didn’t know he had been shot down over the Pacific or had received the Bronze Star, the Silver Star, the Purple Heart and the Congressional Medal of Honor.

I didn’t know that in 1941, he was the Officer of the Day, in charge of base security at Pensacola, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

He rode around its perimeter defending against Japanese invaders on the only transportation available…a bicycle.

Was this on his mind as he saw me take a spill in the middle of the airport highway?

When he said, “Let me help pick up your papers,” I was in awe.

Without fanfare, Joe Foss, the governor with a state to manage and a plane to catch, took a few minutes to help a kid with a skinned knee.

What an incredible story.

If you find the article online, you’ll be able to read all the comments people posted of what a servant hearted man Joe Foss was.

It’s incredible.

I was overwhelmed thinking of how this man served his family, his country, and his God.

He showed this 9 year old boy an intentional act of kindness.

That boy grew up and became a Pastor.

He tells this story because it impacted his life and ministry.

Kindness is really a simple thing, it doesn’t take much to be kind to one another, it is a principle that even a child can grasp.

It’s not a tough concept.

It is as simple as getting out of a limo and helping a nine-year-old boy pick up Newspapers.

It is getting someone else a glass of Ice Tea when you’re up or calling your loved one in the middle of the day just to say, “I love you.”

It is treating your parents like “people” being home by your curfew or picking up your room without being asked.

Its just small stuff.

If it is so small, why can’t we get it right?

Let’s think a little bit about Moses this morning.

Moses is journeying with his family back toward Egypt to deliver the people of God out of Pharaoh ‘s hands.

But God wasn’t going to let him go until he circumcised his son.

How could God let a deliverer rescue the people of the covenant who wasn’t keeping the covenant himself.

We don’t know exactly how it happened, it could have been sickness or a direct confrontation, but God was going to kill Moses if he didn’t circumcise his son.

Let me read the text to you, and as I do, pay close attention to how Zipporah, Moses’ wife intervenes to save Moses’ life, but also notice the attitude she does it with:

This episode is rarely more than a footnote in the amazing story of how God used Moses to deliver his people.

A footnote that is easy to overlook.

But today I want us to think about Zipporah’s actions.

Zipporah only appears three times in Scripture: the first time at the well (Exodus 2), the second time while on the journey to Egypt (Exodus 4), and finally in the wilderness when Moses met her father Jethro who was accompanied by Zipporah and her sons (Exodus 18).

Of her three appearances in the text, she only speaks one time, in Exodus 4.

The long donkey ride on the way to Egypt left Zipporah, Moses, and their two children wanting for a good night’s rest.

During the night, God’s hand of death came against Moses and “tried to kill him” (Exodus 4:24).

Wait.

What?

God had just given Moses an assignment to return to Egypt and demand that Pharaoh free the Hebrews from bondage.

What’s more, God had just revealed himself to Moses and demonstrated great power in and through him.

Why would God want to kill Moses?

Moses had failed to honor the covenant established in Genesis 21:4

Moses had raised his children as Midianites who weren’t circumcised until before marriage.

Zipporah is now in the situation with her husband incapacitated and she has to figure our what to do.

She somehow knew that this was happening because Moses disobedience to the covenant.

Zipporah had to think and act quickly in order to save her husband’s life.

Her response to her husband’s impending death is to perform a circumcision on her son and toss the foreskin at her husband Moses.

In order to understand this scene, some background information is in order.

Let’s go back.