Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Create in Me a Clean Heart \\ Change My Heart, O God \\ \\
*Call to Worship* \\ \\ /Come let us worship the Lord.
/ \\ *God longs to give us the desires of our heart*.
\\ /Let us bow down amid our preconceived, irreverent ideals.
/ \\ *The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul (Psalm 19:7).
* \\ /For God seeks to enter into covenant with the children of all creation.
\\ /*Fill us, O Lord, with a sense of respect and awe, as you rouse yourself from your holy dwelling place to touch each of us...just as we are, where we are.
* \\ */Praise your holy name/*.
\\ \\
Open My Eyes That I May See # 174
Matt
Ex 19:5-6 You have seen how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to me.
If you will listen obediently to what I say and keep my covenant, our of all peoples you’ll be my special treasure.
The whole earth is mine to choose from, but you’re special: a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.
*offering prayer *Help us as individuals and as a congregation, O Lord, to see what is in our power to be and to do for you.
Let our obedient stewardship prepare us the good and gracious service that you have for us.
Children are familiar with rules and know the kinds of things that displease their parents and teachers.
Ask the children to name things they think God would like us to do.
Then have them name things God does not like us to do.
Help them compare those lists with the Ten Commandments.
Give them a list of the Ten Commandments to discuss with their families at home.
For each of the next 10 Sundays, give the children one commandment to learn by heart.
This will take until the Sunday before Christmas and ties in rather well with the lectionary readings for each week.
*Prayer *How often we call out to you, O Lord, yet we do not incline an ear to the words spoken in the still quiet of our souls.
We distance ourselves from your love and healing touch.
Break the stubborn arrogance of our hearts, that we would embrace your unchanging word and know true peace that only comes from total submission to your will.
For it is in his name we pray.
Have Thine Own Way, Lord # 414
/Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20/
Tremendous Trifles
*Moral failure comes not from enormous misdeeds, but through lapses in "tremendous trifles."*
Have you ever tried quickly to pull a dangling thread from the hem of a pant-leg or skirt or jacket, only to find you've got hold of one of those dreaded running stitches?
Instead of breaking off, the thread continues to unstitch itself until the entire hem falls out.
Instead of freeing yourself from one annoying little thread, you now have a major clothing catastrophe.
\\ It is always the little things that end up getting us in the biggest trouble.
G. K. Chesterton referred to these as "tremendous trifles."
Life, Chesterton observed, does not usually present us with big temptations or grandiose sins.
Instead, we constantly encounter little temptations that can easily slip under the threshold of our levels of acceptance and tolerance.
These little, apparently insignificant temptations nibble away at us-gradually compromising our integrity with each tiny bite.
\\ Human moral failure does not usually come from enormous, glaring misdeeds- things like murdering, stealing or cheating on a spouse.
Our ethical standards are not so much ripped out by the roots through such obvious sins.
Instead, we are far more likely to experience the gradual decay of our human moral fiber through the insidious work of "tremendous trifles"-such as holding onto our anger, backbiting, small-mindedness or selfishness.
Eventually our standards of acceptable behavior slip lower and lower, until we can talk ourselves into almost anything, as long as it is to our own benefit.
~/~/~/~/~/ \\ Children are dependent upon parents, a community and a culture to teach them right from wrong.
Children cannot raise themselves - although they are increasingly forced to do so, which is part of our problem.
When we fail to accomplish that basic feat we leave them stranded in a moral wasteland with nothing except their own wants and desires.
\\ We are teaching our children Every time we endorse violence as a form of cheap entertainment.
Every time we accept grasping greed as striving for success.
Every time we depersonalize the poor and hungry and homeless by making them into stats.
Every time we settle for a "quick fix" instead of solving a problem.
\\ Every time we shut out the cries of others in order to focus better on our own desires.
Every time we use and discard friends, lovers, coworkers or family members as though they were disposable diapers.
\\ Our "tremendous trifles" are stacking up into a mountain of broken loyalties, self-centered needs and loveless relationships.
All the while our children are watching, learning and perfecting our attitudes.
\\ \\
Children are being raised in a cultural hothouse with an atmosphere that is "commandment-free"-or at least "commandment-optional."
And the reluctance of our churches to proclaim from the rooftops these tablets of stone that are to be written into our hearts ~/ makes the church an accomplice in raising up of a generation of super-predators.~/~/~/~/~/
\\ The Decalogue intentionally doesn't go into specific details of situations and punishment because it is intended to become part of the structure of our soul, the spine of our being.
The mandates of love and loyalty, respect and honor, justice and worthiness that they impart must stand inside each one of us ready to direct us when we face trouble and temptation.
When we let our spiritual backbone gradually decay, when we fail to feed our bones the calcium of faithfulness, they grow so weak and porous that the least pressure shatters them to dust.
It only takes the weight of a "tremendous trifle" to bring us down.
We become formless and faithless- easily shaped into whatever mold stands before us.
the book Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament (1995), argues that Jesus' values were shaped by his Jewish upbringing and his understanding of the Torah.
Jesus' ethical framework was triangular.
First, "God comes first."
Second, "Persons matter more than things."
Third, "Needs matter more than rights."
\\ The Ten Commandments make up the bedrock of human faithfulness.
Yet these laws are presented so straight-forwardly that they seem almost simplistic.
\\ At its essence what we have in the Ten Commandments is a list of what displeases God.
Except for the divine comments in verses 5-6, there is no careful itemization of penalties or a list of punishments each broken commandment will elicit.
Instead, we have a kind of divine crib sheet on how to live a God-pleasing life.
\\ The first four commandments in the Decalogue focus on the divine-human relationship.
By following the four laws outlined in verses 1-4 and 7-9, God's (1) identity, (2) essential nature, (3) divine name (4) and holy day are given appropriate recognition and honor.
These commandments offer an encapsulated vision of both God's omnipotence and grandeur as well as God's minute concern for every word uttered and every deed done.
This "jealous God" declares that there is only one divine sovereign to worship and bow down to.
The pagan worship of idols and images taken from familiar creatures of the earth, seas and skies is rejected (v.
4).
\\ Yet this one all-powerful God is concerned that humans not abuse the divine name.
Even more revealing is the eternal God's careful concern with the passage of time and the limits of human endurance.
The rhythm of days, so important in human passages, is located as a part of the divine will.
A Sabbath day, a day of rest, is prescribed as an essential part of the divine-human relationship.
\\ The other six commandments listed have as their focus the creation of right relationships between human beings.
Appropriately, the first of these human-directed commandments begins at home-with the relationship between parent and child.
Of course, in ancient Near Eastern culture the family or clan was the most basic fingerprint of one's identity.
Physical and economic survival as well as emotional support and nurturance combined to make the clan-unit and the families within it the basis of each person's life.
\\ The wording of this fifth commandment in verse 12 intentionally makes an intimate connection between the parent-child and the human-divine relationship.
Being in right relationship with one's family-by honoring father and mother--goes part and parcel with fully enjoying that benefit of a right relationship with God-the gift of deliverance into the Promised Land itself.
\\ Only when these two cornerstones of human life have been firmly established-correct relationships with God and with family-does the list of divine commandments continue.
The commentary that accompanied the first five commandments now falls away.
Verses 13-16 list the most straightforward and easily enforceable of the commandments.
Unlike the commands to give love, loyalty and honor to God and family, these four "shalt nots" have clearly measurable agendas.
\\ The sanctity of human life-which was created in the image of God-is upheld by rejecting murder.
~/~/ The unique social and legal obligations of the marriage covenant are upheld by the command against adultery.
~/~/ Protecting property, which means one's livelihood and economic survival, actually protects the well-being of all people.
~/~/ Bearing false witness is dismissed as an option.
All men and women, whatever their social or economic portion, are to be equal before the truth.
\\ By denying any legitimacy to the social catastrophes brought about by lying, cheating, stealing and murdering, God's commands weave a strong and stable cloth for the Israelites' new culture.
But one more commandment is still added.
This final commandment once again requires explanatory sidebars.
\\ The command not to "covet" seeks once again to measure and judge what is in the human heart.
Desire is not necessarily a discernable quality or an obvious act.
The commandment itself gives specific examples of what should not be coveted but finally concludes with "or anything that belongs to your neighbor."
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