Sermon Tone Analysis

Series Review

About 2-3 times per year I end up with a couple in my office wanting to get married, and they’re ready to begin premarital counseling.

Let’s start the fights before we get married.

Every once in a while a couple will ask if they can write their own vows: I’ve learned to address that before beginning the sessions.

I tell them no.

If they want to prepare some words they want to say to one another as a part of the ceremony, but I use the traditional vows (who remembers them?).

Maybe the “vows” the couple wants to write are good, but to me, writing your own vows is like writing your own terms for marriage.

Setting your own standard of commitment.

For a starry eyed couple barely in their 20’s, the traditional vows really summarized the commitment required, and they decided to postpone the wedding.

You can’t enter into a marriage covenant thinking nothing about you or your life will change.

Without thinking there will be some personal cost.

Believing in marriage, until you realize what it involves.

(starry eyed couple, barely in their twenties, one session); marriage - romance, the giddy high of “falling in love.”

But you can’t enter into a marriage covenant thinking nothing about you or your life will change.

something can sounds wonderful in theory, but you find that it is hard to put into practice;

The same with believing in God or becoming a Christian.

How many people have made a profession of faith, a commitment to God, only to step back from that commitment when it requires too much of us.

Or do we, like the young married couple, want to write our own covenant with God.

Define Christianity on our terms.

This series has been about functional atheism: professing a belief in God but living as if there is no god.

Believing in God on a philosophical level, but not having a personal knowledge of God.

We believe in a forgiving God, but we’re not sure he’ll forgive me (or help me to forgive).

We believe in God, but wonder about his sense of justice.

We worry as if God is not in control.

Do we want our lives to align with our stated beliefs?

Are we ready to commit to being consistent?

Sermon Introduction

That’s the question being asked to the church in Laodicea.

Are we going to go “all in” with Christ?

Do we want our lives to align with our stated beliefs?

Are we ready to commit to being consistent?

You believe in God but don’t want to go overboard: (football fan, season tickets, jersey, face painted; there are fanatical forms of everything: sports; comic books; political positions; religion.

Christianity.

I remember visiting NCSU, being given a tour of the campus and seeing a Christian preacher with an open Bible calling people to repentance.

“He’s usually here at least 2x week.

You can see him standing there.”

He was a part of the tour.

He wasn’t taken seriously.

He was seen as a fanatic.

Maybe Christians don’t want to be labeled like that.

We want to be taken seriously, we certainly don’t want to be vilified for expressing our faith (read the news - seems to happen all the time).

The danger is moving to the other extreme - you’re not a fanatic, but now you’re an undercover Christian.

We’ve blended in with society.

We’ve become lukewarm.

Are we ready to commit to being consistent?

Lukewarm: that’s the key word Christ uses to describe the church at Laodicea.

Book of Revelation is strange, mysterious and difficult at times - strange visions, bizarre creatures, so many interpretations out there.

I would love to do a Bible study that works its way through the book.

The book begins with John being exiled on the island of Patmos, and has a vision of the resurrected and glorified Jesus.

Jesus tells him to write letters to 7 churches; the letter Tom shared with us is the last of the 7.

The Laodicean church, like so many churches today, like so many Christians today, aren’t fully commited.

You believe in God but don’t want to go overboard:

Jesus tells him to write letters to 7 churches;

4) Their water system came from hot springs miles away

Lukewarm = Christian Atheism.

Willing to take the Christian label, but not the Christian life.

Willing to

Laodicea.

Wealthy - upper -middle class.

(Gold)

3 things Jesus tells us about being lukewarm Christians

Our Satisfaction = God’s Sickness

Hot used for healing; cold used for refreshment; lukewarm good for nothing;

The letter is not a positive one.

God knows their works.

Based upon their works, God concluded that they were neither hot nor cold.

Coffee: dislike cold.

Temperature matters.

Wash hands in warm water.

Soothe burned skin with cold.

The letter is not a positive one.

God knows their works.

Based upon their works, God concluded that they were neither hot nor cold.

offee, dislike cold.

Temperature matters.

Wash hands in warm water.

Soothe burned skin with cold

Like asking seniors about the days before modern comfort.

People who lived through the Great Depression aren’t interested in a scratch on a new car.

What did you do for cold water?

“Spring house.”

Water in Laodecia, piped in from miles away.

There was a saying in the ancient world, cold quenches, heat heals, lukewarm water is useless; a rather blunt message to the church at Laodicea: I have seen your works: Not, “I have examined your statement of faith, I’ve noticed that your attendance is up.

I’ve noticed you’re business is doing well; I like the new house.

“I have seen your works, and I’ve concluded that your faith is useless.

What standards of measurement are we using?

How we asses our faith, our walk, our relationship with God - might not be the same criteria God uses.

I think the standard of measurement is pretty simple (and I don’t like to oversimplify things).

Our standard is Jesus of Nazareth.

The Jesus who humbled himself and became human, and accepted all of the limitations that come with being human.

The Jesus who loved the unlovable.

The Jesus who forgave without limits.

The Jesus who sacrificed himself for our salvation.

That’s our standard - anything lower, anything less, is an insult to all that Jesus has done for us.

Anything less is lukewarm, and it is useless.

are we becoming more like Christ? that’s the standard;

Not worldly standards - wealth, security; wisdom, appearance; religious activity.

When one feels he has all that he needs, he is in great danger.

Jesus said

The answer is repent: The problem is that we don’t know the difference between...