Sermon Tone Analysis

Monthly Vision Casting

Who had a great time at Disciple Now Weekend?

It was an amazing experience partnering with Faith, coming together to worship Christ and grow in fellowship.

Pray

How has God used last weekend in your life?

Has anything changed in your life?

of his love.

Well, my prayer is that all that we do as a Student Ministry would work to push you further in and further up (as Lewis would say) in your relationship with Christ.

We exist for the purpose of teaching you to become a joyful follower of Christ.

We long to see you grow in your relationship with Him, we long to see you reaching out to impact your family and friends and we hope that you recognize the joy and happiness that follows from life in Christ.

As Jesus said:

Many hopes and dreams are achieved on Valentine’s Day and on the other side of the coin many of our worst fears are realized.

If you haven’t written a Valentine’s Day dump poem - well you are just not living right.

Come to the light people.

“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly ().”

And certainly Jesus is talking about eternal life with Him in heaven, but He is also talking about today.

Right, now.

He wants you to have life and life abundant.

I want to clue you into a new type of Wednesday night service we will be having regularly, once every 5 weeks or so - and that is a night of prayer.

We will come together and worship through song, I’ll lead a pastoral prayer, then we will break into smaller groups where we can share prayer requests and have a time where we pray with and for one another.

There is this scene in all four gospels where the time of Passover was at hand and Jesus had made his way to the temple in Jerusalem and entering the temple he see’s these merchants selling animals for people to make their sacrifices.

Which, on the face of it wouldn’t have been a bad thing, people needed these animals to fulfill their duty to God.

However, what was happening was these merchants were making profit, they were lining their pockets at the expense of the people, they were using God and His law, to make a quick buck.

So Jesus comes in and makes a whip and flips over the tables and drives these thieves out.

Christ was zealous or passionate for His father’s house.

Then He said this to those listening:

“It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers ().”

A house of prayer.

Students it is time that we make space for this place to be a house of prayer.

I am convinced that many of you don’t really know how to pray because it has not been modeled to you well here at Fuel.

This is changing.

By God’s grace we will be a Student Ministry that is marked by Spirit-dependent prayer.

But seriously, with all the different ideas about what “love” is and how “love” is shown - I think we should allow God’s Word to set the record straight.

So, tonight we are going to talk about The Goodness and Love of God.

And my hope is we recognize the goodness of God and the extent of his love.

Pray

Student Read

Or, from the lips of Christ:

God is good.

It is the fabric of his nature and character.

He doesn’t just act good, like he meets some standard, but He is in fact good within Himself.

And, the Bible also speaks unashamedly that God is love:

Or,

God is love.

It is His nature.

It is who He is.

He doesn’t just love, but He is love.

And thus it follows that if God is good and if God is love than all that he does is consistent with His goodness and love.

All that God does flows from His goodness.

So a week ago, we peeked into the book of James and listened to James command that we not to judge others.

That self-serving and self-righteous judgment is evil and that it contradicts the law of love.

We cannot love each other while simultaneously judging each other.

It’s not possible.

That was last week.

Tonight is Valentine’s Day though and I thought we would look back at this command to “judge not” in light of love.

Everyone talks of love on Valentine’s Day.

You get cards, candy and flowers on this day.

Who in here was given/gave a card/present this year for Valentine’s Day?

It’s the day of love.

Really, February is celebrated as the month of love.

The history of Valentine’s Day is a bit murky and we don’t even really know who Saint Valentine was.

Legend tells us it was one of two or three men.

One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome.

When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men.

Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret.

When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.

Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons, where they were often beaten and tortured.

According to one legend, an imprisoned Valentine actually sent the first “valentine” greeting himself after he fell in love with a young girl–possibly his jailer's daughter–who visited him during his confinement.

Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter signed “From your Valentine,” an expression that is still in use today.

And if you don’t think Valentine’s Day matters, well you need to hear these statistics:

In the US alone 62% of adults celebrate the holiday in some sort and fashion.

448 million dollars is spent on candy this week in the US.

58 million pounds of chocolate candy (that would be 29,000 elephants if each elephant weighed 2000 pounds) is purchase.

36 million heart shaped chocolate boxes are sold.

150 million Valentine’s Cards are sent each year.

On average men shell out $150 and women shell out $74 (come on women seems a bit cheap).

8 Billion sweet hearts are produced.

23% of people say they buy flowers.

Mixed flowers are the top choice, followed by Roses.

This week about 174,000 gallons of sparkling wine will be sold.

So yeah, we celebrate this holiday.

It is the second largest money-making holiday (Christmas being #1).

And it is historically about love, sympathy and heroism.

And so tonight I thought it would be appropriate to take up the topic “Tough Love in the Body of Christ.”

With all the “I love You’s” floating around today, the sentimental feelings, the longing looks of adoration, the dm’s filled with private love messages - I thought why don’t we balance our understanding of love a bit.

“Tough Love in the Body of Christ.”

The phrase “Body of Christ” do you know what that means?

It means - a local group of believers -

Have you ever tried to help someone and got back this ringing line: “don’t judge me.”

Whether an adult in here tried to help a family member with budgeting or you a student tried to help a friend with relational issues - you have heard that phrase: “don’t judge me.”

I remember being a senior in HS and my friend Rhyan Anderson telling me that I needed to work on my relational capacity - that I didn’t let people in easily, I was not open with others, and quite frankly wasn’t very friendly - you know what I said to him: “don’t judge me.”

I was upset.

I was mad.

I thought “he has no right.”

And in light of last week where we talked about how judging others is a sin - I thought tonight we could look at this same command in another place in Scripture and understand it more fully.

Truthfully, the phrase “don’t judge me” may not be as biblical as we once thought.

I want to help us see that the famous slogan “don’t judge me” may not be as biblical as we once thought.

From the outset I want to be clear: teaches that there is only one true judge.

God alone is worthy and perfect in His judgments.

We have no right as His created beings to try to usurp His throne and attempt to pass judgment on others.