Sermon Tone Analysis

ATTENTION

Just a few weeks ago this scene flickered onto our laptops and flat screens.

The people who witnessed it said it felt like an earthquake.

It left this smoldering building in ruins.

You remember what happened:

Joseph Stack, in some kind of dispute with the IRS over his taxes took matters into his own hands.

On his website he had written, “I am finally ready to stop this insanity.

Well, Mr Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.”

He burned his house to the ground, and headed for the Georgetown Airport, 40 minutes north of Austin Texas.

Witnesses said that they saw his aircraft flying low towards the centre of the Echelon building at full speed, skimming over traffic lights, before crashing into the building.

The remainder of the manifesto on his website read like the angry, frustrated ramblings of a man who felt ignored by his Government and the people who were supposed to represent his interests.

Mr Stack cites the government bailouts of banks and auto companies and the “murdering [of] tens of thousands” by the greedy insurance companies while his government representatives sit idly by and only help the rich.

Mr Stack added: “I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind.

Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say.

“I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand,” Mr Stack wrote before declaring: “I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure [sic] nothing will change.”

Well, Joe didn’t live long enough to see that, regardless of the body count, nothing really has changed.

He threw away his life getting back at a system that will now just dismiss him as a lunatic and castigate him as a murderer.

Where’s the logic in that?

What’s the point?

I think that really is the point.

The point is . . .

there really isn’t any point.

There never is anything logical about the mad desire to so seek what this world offers, or even to preserve what you’ve achieved in this world that you’ll do anything to get it, or to keep it.

There really is no logic to that, yet it is something that goes on constantly.

Perhaps that’s why the last couple of years have been so anxious in this country.

People, who in 2008 would not even go to the polls, in 2010 are showing up at town hall meetings to shout at their congressman.

Why?

One word: MONEY!

People, just like Joe, see their financial situation slipping and they are filled with fear.

Like a cancer it has spread until our whole system has almost locked up.

As one philosopher said, “There is no passion so contagious as fear.”

NEED

Now, at one level, it’s really understandable.

When the government which is usually given to painting our canvas too rosy, begins to use words like “crisis” and “meltdown,” anyone with half the sense God gave a grape will be concerned.

However, I must tell you that this financial fear, this “wealth worry” seems to contradict scripture.

Do you remember what Jesus said in Matt 6:25?

Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on.

Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are you not of more value than they?

27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

28 “So why do you worry about clothing?

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek.

For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things.

Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Now I know that just about everyone in this room has heard these verses, probably many times.

But will you take a fresh look today?

You see, I know that some of you have had your trust weakened by what you’re going through.

Your financial fear has weakened your trust because your whole paradigm has been destroyed.

You had it all down.

Things were going well, but then the business collapsed, or the job failed, and you want to trust, but you’re really struggling.

You’re not sure you’re going to make it, and in the back of your mind is that question.

“Where’s God? What’s He doing about this?

And as a result of this weakened trust, you’ve lost your passion for God.

Can we just be really honest for a minute?

It’s hard to develop an intimate relationship with a God you do not trust, isn’t it.

What’s happened is that you have lost your passion for God.

You still in worship, but your voice has lost it’s ring and your step has lost it’s spring.

And all of this has happened because of this last thing.

You see, not only has your fear weakened your trust and stolen your passion, it has also clouded your view of God.

You know what the Bible says about Him, but saying that God is good, or that God is sovereign just kind of stick’s in your throat.

When it comes to God you feel like you’re walking around in a thick spiritual fog, and all of it flows from your financial fear.

Wouldn’t you like to over come that?

Wouldn’t you like to get your faith back?

Wouldn’t you like to have a passion for the Lord like you once had?

I believe you can and I believe these verses tell you how.

In the first place, if you want to overcome financial fear, you can

DIV 1: RESET YOUR PRIORITIES - V 25

EXPLANATION

V. 25 begins with a negative statement: “Do not worry about your life what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put . .

.”

Basically, Jesus is telling us here that our lives will have one of two preoccupations: We will be either be taken with our needs or taken with the supplier of our needs.

If I am taken with my needs, I will worry.

That’s the thing Jesus warns us against.

In the Bible, that word “worry” literally means, “to have an anxious concern, based on apprehension about possible danger or misfortune.”

Doesn’t that paint a picture.

The worried person anxiously wonders if the car note will be paid, or if the spouse will be fired, or if the kids will go to an expensive college.

They are preoccupied with needs.

Jesus warns against worry because worry betrays a false priority.

When I worry, I get so caught up in what I need that it does damage to my spirit.

For one thing, it denies faith.

In fact, the Greek word for worry is actually the opposite in meaning to the Greek word for faith.

The opposite of faith is not doubt, it is worry.

When I worry I do not trust and when I trust, I do not worry.

But there’s another way worry damages my spirit.

The Bible hints that worry can even destroy life.

V 25 adds, “Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?”

And when He asks that question, He’s expecting a “yes it is” answer.

What Jesus is getting at is this: When I worry, I am actually destroying the real value of my life.

One commentator wrote:

An obvious characteristic of anxiety is its tendency to be all-consuming: the scope of life narrows under its pressure.

It may well be that it is precisely to this narrowing that the question is directed.

In the larger context seeking the kingdom (v.

33) will be excluded by the anxiety-induced restriction of focus (and thus mammon will have dominated in the attempt at double loyalty), but at this stage the point is more general and requires only the recognition that life is more than the basics of survival.

The first reason, then, for not being anxious is that it narrows life intolerably.

Isn’t that a great way to put it?

Worry narrows your life till all you can see is what you need.