Sermon Tone Analysis

This morning, I want to affirm a conviction we have about God, as children of faith and as children of God.

The doxology the apostle Paul ends with in Ephesians, chapter 3:20-21 declare an affirmation about God that I submit this morning holds just as true today.

But before I go on to lift up the conviction of this affirmation in a doxology, allow me to paint the difference between a benediction and a doxology.

A benediction is a form of a wish-prayer expressed for the well being of the people for whom the prayer is offered.

In Paul letters, benedictions are often used as opening and closing greetings expressing his deep prayerful concern for his readers.

Paul’s benedictions are both affirmations regarding the grace and peace of God in which the reader is already participating and a (wish-) prayers that they may appreciate and experience these blessings more fully.

A doxology however, is a form of exalted prayer speech directed to the praise of God.

In order words it’s lifting up in intensity, heightening the glory, honor and praise of God.

Doxologies are not tacked-on elements at the end as an after thought, but are connected to the context arising out of the preceding words.

Oh, let me unpack that:

 

There’s basically three parts to a doxology.

First, the person to whom praise is ascribed is mentioned.

Second, a word of praise, doxa (glory, or an equivalent, like honor, power or others) follows.

And finally, the doxology conclude with a temporal description, normally and eternity formula, such as (“for ever and ever”).

In most cases the doxology ends with Amen.

The part I want to focus on  is the second part of the three parts of a doxology Remember the second part or element of a doxology is the ascription of “glory” (honor, greatness or power) which properly belongs to God and is, therefore, rightly ascribed to him.

To give glory (or to ascribed honor, greatness or power) is not to add something to him; rather, it is an active acknowledgment or extolling of what he is or has already done.

And so Paul praises and glorifies God by acknowledging, “God is able.”

But what does it mean for us today, some two thousand years later to say that God is able?

Certainly, I think all of us here today would agree that there will come a time for all of us, if it hasn’t already, when we need to be reminded that God is able.

In this life, and the world in which we live we will encounter overwhelming difficulties.

American society is characterized by extremes of stress and anxiety.

In spite of “America’s dramatic increased in material wealth it has not translated into a subjective sense of well being” for the majority of Americans according to Peter C. Whybrow, a neurosurgeon and author of America Mania: When More is not Enough.

As Whybrow points out, the best selling drugs on the market, amid our drive for wealth and self-improvement, are those prescribed for stress-related diseases of ulcer, depression, and high blood pressure.

In our demand driven, debt-saturated culture, many families find themselves too pressure too enjoy, even to notice, their prosperity or luxury.

How many do you know, who have the nice things, whose living is trying to keep up with the Jones, who’s never ending pursuit to make a dollar have yielded them not only time to enjoy their prosperity, but how much happiness as it yielded?

Again, as Whybrow note, the demands of securing and maintaining material wealth in a rapidly shifting economic climates—particularly for Americans who shoulder considerable debt—have created an accelerated, competitive lifestyle, that steals away sleep and kindle anxiety, threatening the intimate social webs that sustain family and community.

For many Americans the hallowed search for happiness has been hijacked by a discomforting and frenzied activity.

And then theirs those who finds themselves slipping deeper, but in most cases being pushed into a spiraling abyss of alienation from America table of plenty.

Those who experience the angst of the fading idea of community in which people cared, where the vulnerable, the left out, drop out, and left behind, could have their humanity