Sermon Tone Analysis

I’m so grateful to be able to worship with you all in person again.

It was just almost three years ago when we worshipping virtually.

What a weird time that was, and likely we will continue to talk think about it for years to come.

It was so funny to me that just last year my son had a school spirit day, one of those days where you get to dress up, crazy hair whatever, there’s was come as you dressed in distance learning.

Even though we can reminisce we can also think about what it was like to be on the edge of the end of the world as we know it.

You know just a little bit of what “The end” can feel like.

And for some reason people’s

The most important resource at the end is toilet paper.

This is ridiculous, because toilet paper represented our panic.

Our fears.

Our ability to forget all that is important and only care about ourselves.

And I was tempted too.

Today we gather to change, to be the people we were created to be, to take on the mind of Christ Jesus, and as followers of Jesus we know what Jesus told us, when he talked about the End of Days

Jesus says, He is preparing a place for us.

God is working for us and He is coming back.

When he comes back it will be the end of all things, not like Covid lock down but a real end to all things.

How many of you have seen on TV , read a book, seen a movie, or even maybe in church about the end of days and it scared you?

Like it was delivered as a horror movie.

A Facebook friend, a professor I followed posted this picture of these books from Christian authors all trying and of course failing to predict the end.

I want to tell you what the Bible says about the End Times and ask you to

Think about your feelings as you hear me see the End of All Things.

Why?

What must you do differently?

I have grown up hearing so many say that every negative thing is the end of all that there is, today since so many in Los Angeles and New York don’t follow Jesus the new scare tactic is the real threat of Global Warming.

Yes our world has to deal with environmental disaster, and Jesus really is coming back, there are terrorists, natural disasters everywhere but today more people are trying to scare you into watching their movie, their news program, reading their book or going to hear them talk then giving you something that God actually told you.

We who are followers of Jesus should be different than everyone else.

Instead of running out to stand in lines for toilet paper, having anxiety, freaking out, and ignoring truths lets hear what Jesus actually told us.

Look at the person to your right and your left and say God got this.

God’s got this.

End of Days?

God got this.

We say that about the things in our life that overwhelm us, and underwhelm us.

God is real.

He works.

He is working and he works for the lose who are called by Him.

So yes God can heal you, yes God can be with you to get the job, and yes God can save your soul, but God also will be working at the End of Days.

God’s got that too.

But my friends

what do you got?

What are you supposed to be doing while the game clock of this world is ticking to zeros?

By the way that’s usually how I answer, if a person is actually listening, when they ask me if we are in the end of days, I say we are closer than we were yesterday, because that’s how time works you know.

So the end is coming, and what are you supposed to do about it?

What you are supposed to do about it might be the main thing that is freaking you out right?

Remember the lock-down and all the screwed up instructions on what we should do.

From the person who created a plastic wrapped their whole house, wiping down all the groceries, I did that once, to the person who it seemed like they were licking door knobs they didn’t care enough, we know that we responded to Covid in not the greatest way.

What are we supposed to do about Jesus return?

1 Peter 4:7–11 (HCSB)

7 Now the end of all things is near; therefore, be serious and disciplined for prayer.

8 Above all, maintain an intense love for each other, since love covers a multitude of sins.

9 Be hospitable to one another without complaining.

10 Based on the gift each one has received, use it to serve others, as good managers of the varied grace of God.

11 If anyone speaks, it should be as one who speaks God’s words; if anyone serves, it should be from the strength God provides, so that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ in everything.

To Him belong the glory and the power forever and ever.

Amen.

Wow, nothing in here about taking back your country, no directions to build a bunker, or getting as much Lysol as possible.

These aren’t words of fear or of stopping anything but they are words of action.

These are verbs.

Instead of fear we are told to be serious.

That’s God’s words.

Be serious.

If there is an emergency those who panic die.

If it is trouble that goes on for a very long time, those who panic wear out, there message stops getting heard.

Instead we need to have the cool steady hand but did you listen also to what God says through Peter.

We are to pray, love, be hospitable, and serve.

That’s our response.

Honestly my friends let’s follow Jesus, believe the end of days is coming and actually do what He tells us.

Peter tells us what that looks like, I want to give this to you in an easier to read version

Work at praying!! Spend time talking with God in your prayers.

You know when the end of going out was coming on and people were talking about Marshall Law the first thing people started doing was buying toilet paper, something so ordinary but useful everyday.

What do you got?

What do you need to do? Pray

My friends, if God is coming back today, tomorrow, or even centuries from now, we need to be disciplined in prayer and not just the kind of prayer people pray when they ride with me as I drive.

Gratitude, health, these are all wonderful aspects of prayer, but prayer is also power.

My friends I need to tell you that life is very, very hard for me right now.

There is a lot of work that needs to be done at the church but the work I do at school is not allowing me to leave the work at school!

This devotional I invited many of you to join was on prayer.

Praying in the times when it seems like God isn’t giving what I want.

In the hard times.

Now is a hard time.

My classroom is supposed to have me, and two district employee aides that we call paras.

Then I am supposed to have a behavior technician, another aide who assists us.

Currently there is only one para assigned to my room, and three other women who work for another company to help me.

The Sunday before we went back to school from Christmas break, I got a text from Lexy, she has visited here before, she said she was having emergency surgery.

She did and is doing great.

We’ve been praying for her.

Yet it means she won’t be back to school until February.

Another aide is getting Ubers to work, she is such a hard worker, but has transportation issues and during the storms she couldn’t get to work.

Another aide has home life issues and another health concerns.

Did I mention that substitutes almost never come?

I have been working so hard but God showed me so much in prayer.

God is caring me through.

I have just enough energy to make it through the day.

We studied prayer last week, for those of you who were doing the online devotional it dealt with all kinds of easy and hard aspects of prayer.

For me, the idea of prayer in overwhelming circumstances.

I do pray for God to change my circumstance but I am also learning that God provides in all circumstances.

That just because I know things could be better doesn’t make the current situation un-doable.

God got this.

I get prayer!

Just because I don’t want to be in the situation I am in doesn’t mean that God is not there, and showing me His power to carry me in the midst of my undesirable situation.

Next week we will be doing a devotional on this book of the Bible.