Sermon Tone Analysis

In the years that I served as an ER chaplain, I was struck by just how often ER medicine seems to be guessing.

Maybe part of that is because when a trauma comes into the ER there is such limited information.

The doctors have very little time to assess the injury and start ruling out what it is not.

They don’t have the benefit of knowing exactly what happened to cause the injury.

They don’t have the benefit of knowing the patient, of knowing medical history or previous conditions.

It seemed to me that sometimes ER doctors would start making guesses and rule things out because that is all they can do with limited information and limited time.

And given those limits, I think they do a pretty good job.

It’s a completely different story with a family doctor.

My primary physician is someone I see every year for my annual physical.

He knows a little bit about me.

He knows my medical history.

He knows my family medical history.

He has spent time getting to know me and my health.

He does not have the same limits that the ER doctor works around.

In 2014 and early 2015 it was repeated visits to my primary physician that led to my cancer being found and diagnosed.

Because my doctor knew something was not right with my health, he kept digging and kept looking till the problem was uncovered.

It took time and persistence and careful examination of all the medical information he had.

It was only that kind of careful examination that brought the right answers.

Payton Manning was a quarterback for the Broncos who did not work out of the huddle.

The offense would simply line up, and then Manning would call the play, and then players would shift around, and then—a few Omaha’s later—the ball is snapped.

Part of that I think is because Manning would first want to see the defense before calling his play.

He could predict what the defense was about to do by the way they lined up and then he could rearrange the offense to overcome it.

Part of what made Payton Manning a great quarterback came from his athletic ability.

But I think the thing that propelled him to have a record-breaking career came from more than athleticism.

He worked and practiced and studied.

Hours and hours of preparation by studying films of different teams and defenses prepared him to step out on the field and play a superior game.

When he got in the game, he knew exactly what he was looking at, what he was looking for, and what he needed to call for his team to do.

There was no guesswork.

He did his homework and was confident in what he was walking into.

It was only that kind of careful examination that brought the right answers.

This is where we are in the letter of 1 John today.

John sees his church lining up against an enemy.

There is something of an obstacle in front of them.

And John is setting up his audience on the best way to carefully examine what they are facing so that they can be brought to the right answers.

1 John 4:1–6 (NIV)

4 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.

This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.

6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us.

This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

Being a doctor in charge of patients’ health takes careful examination if you want to perform well.

Being a quarterback playing on a football team takes careful examination if you want to play well.

And being a disciple of Jesus also takes careful examination if you want to grow in faith well.

Sometimes we don’t do things well.

Sometimes we cut corners and are sloppy either because we are in a rush, or maybe we just don’t care that much, or maybe we lack the right knowledge or skills or tools to do something the right way.

When I lived in Kalamazoo, my house had a finished basement.

It wasn’t that way from the builder, it was a project done by the previous owner.

It included a rec room and a full bathroom.

it obviously was not professional, but looked good enough.

And it all passed inspection, so I figured it all must be okay.

But after we had lived there a while I began to notice a few things.

one of the things I noticed was that the shower in this bathroom seemed to get dusty and dirty quite often, like someone was shaking out towels and blankets into it.

It was soon after that when I realized that the guy had taken the shower fan and patched it into the same exhaust vent as the laundry room dryer.

It was dryer lint.

Whenever we would run the clothes dryer, it would blow dryer lint into the shower.

It all looked fine on the outside, but because of a sloppy shortcut, it didn’t do what it was supposed to do.

Sometimes our faith—our life of discipleship—can fall into the same predicament.

Sometimes you and I fall into sloppy shortcuts in our spiritual lives.

We cut corners.

We cut corners because our lives are in a rush.

We cut corners because other things take higher priority.

We cut corners because we lack the knowledge or the skills or the tools to grow in faith well.

And the result is that our faith might look good on the outside.

But on the inside, our faith does not do what it is supposed to do.

What might this look like?

One of the things noted about the early church in the book of Acts is that they always gathered together.

The author of Hebrews urges the church to not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing (Heb.

10:25).

Our faith was never meant to take place in isolation.

When we start thinking that we don’t need the church and we don’t need community with other Christians, then we start taking sloppy shortcuts in our faith.

After all, being part of a church takes time, takes effort, takes energy, takes commitment.

Sometimes we might be tempted to pursue a faith that cuts corners around these things.

And what we do here when we gather for worship as the church gives a clue to what those regular habits and rhythms should look like in a healthy growing faith.

The Bible calls us to be people who rejoice in the Lord.

So, we lift up our voices and sing to him.

The Bible calls us to be honest before God and confess our sins and our needs to God in prayer.

The Bible calls for us to be generous and share our blessings.

These are all habits we practice regularly when we gather as the church.

When we take shortcuts around these things, then it only hurts our own faith.

Here’s what I love about today’s passage.

John is laying out what it is that keeps our faith on the right path, and calling out what it is that steers our faith into sloppy shortcuts that might look good on the outside, but don’t get us anywhere on the inside.

Here’s what else I love about this passage.

It echoes our mission statement here at Horizon.

The words might look a little different, but all the exact same ideas are here.

Our mission statement says that Horizon helps people see Jesus, know Jesus, serve Jesus, and share Jesus.

We say at Horizon that these are the pillars for our mission to be true disciples of Jesus who are growing in faith.

Look with me at how this mission weaves through what John writes.

Recognize Jesus

Verse 2 says this is how you can recognize the Spirit of God.

John wants the church to be able to recognize the one true God for who he is.

In our mission at Horizon, we call this seeing Jesus.

Here is where John is taking this mission of seeing Jesus and bringing it to the next level.

Apparently, there were some people coming into John’s church and teaching things about Jesus that weren’t true.

John is reminding his church, if you want to see Jesus, it is important that you recognize him for who he truly is.

In john’s day of the first century church, the truth of Jesus was being distorted by a false teaching known as Gnosticism.

The Gnostics were saying that Jesus was not truly human; that he only appeared human, but was actually a purely spiritual being.

This is why john writes to his church that they know the truth by those who acknowledge Jesus in the flesh.

More simply, this is what John is saying for us today.

There are those who come along and try to portray Jesus to be something other than what he is.

They want you to take shortcuts in your journey of faith.