Sermon Tone Analysis

Check Your Vitals

The end of a year and beginning of a new one is naturally a time for us to look back and look forward.

First, we reflect.

That is, we look back on how this year has gone.

We think carefully about our goals, our achievements, our shortcomings.

We ask ourselves if we’re in the career place we want to be, if we have the relational statuses we want to be, how we’ve done as a friend/mother/sister/father/brother/etc.

We ask if we’re as health as we should be, or have grown in certain qualities as a person.

We always want to do better.

If you are a Christian, you might even reflect upon your spiritual walk.

You might look at the consistency of your prayers, of your bible reading, of your consistency as a part of the church, the local body of Christ.

You might look at your habits, and if you have overcome certain sins that have had a grasp on you.

And then, of course, after we reflect, we t

If I want to lose weight, I resolve to eat healthier and go to the gym.

If I want to be more present in my kid’s lives, I resolve to block off a certain amount of time each day that is reserved for them.

If I want to be a better spouse, I resolve to hold to a consistent date night.

If I want to be a better friend to someone, I resolve to have dinner with them once a week.

And so it goes in our spiritual walks–If I want to grow in Jesus, I resolve to pray for 30 minutes and read the Bible for 30 minutes each day.

If I want to grow in my fight against sin, I resolve to meet with an accountability partner every week and be open with them.

If I want to grow in my service to others, I resolve to join a ministry team at church.

Now, I’m not saying that these things are bad.

I think that time for reflection and resolution is a gift, and that God can use them in our lives to grow us in how we live and honor Him.

I’ve never been much a fan of the doctor’s office.

I don’t like the needles.

But, I know that periodic visits to the doctor are necessary to monitor and maintain one’s health.

I do, on the other hand, think it important to ask ourselves why we make resolutions?

Some of us genuinely do so to honor God-to seek to orient our lives more and more around Him.

But other times, we can make resolutions in an effort to ‘prove’ our worth or value–whether to God or to others, to gain our sense of worth.

If you are not a follower of Jesus Christ, then this makes sense.

Outside of Jesus, we search for value, validation, and love–which the world only gives through people’s accomplishments.

I’m sorry to say, though, that the truth of God is that will never satisfy.

It’s a hamster wheel that won’t eternally give you rest.

You can never do enough to satisfy self or others, or God.

If you are a Christian, though, our reflection and resolution must be built upon the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That is, the truth that, though we fall short of God’s standards, Jesus has paid the price for our sins past, present, and future through His death and resurrection on our behalf, and thus our past is covered and our future has been secured.

We look back with the bedrock of grace–that no sin is too great for Him to forgive, and look forward with grace–that we don’t have to resolve to earn HIs love, for He has given it freely to us in Jesus.

With that said, it is important to allow God’s Spirit space to examine our hearts, and if we are living a life worthy of the gospel of Christ.

If we are living a life abiding in His grace and leaning on Him in everything.

I believe this kind of pause, this kind of reflection and subsequent resolution, takes us deeper than our typical practices as the years come to a close.

I’ve never been much a fan of the doctor’s office.

I never liked the needles.

But, I know that it is necessary to monitor and maintain one’s health.

One of the basic, ongoing examinations you get at the doctor’s office is a physical exam.

This is just an overall assessment of your health as a person, a check-up to see if everything is normal.

What’s interesting is that the first thing that doctor’s check is a patient’s vital signs.

Let me explain–the first thing that doctor’s check in a is their vital signs.

The first thing that doctor’s check in a is their vital signs.

That is, they measure and examine the body’s most basic functions.

(Temperature, pulse, breathing rate, and blood pressure.)

Similarly, as we move into the New Year, many of us take this time to measure and examine our lives.

We take time to reflect and resolve.

We look back and look forward.

We think carefully about our goals, our achievements, our shortcomings this past year.

We ask ourselves if we’re in the career place we want to be, if we have the relational statuses we want to be, how we’ve done as a friend/mother/sister/father/brother/etc.

We ask if we’re as healthy as we should be, or have grown in certain qualities as a person.

We always want to do better.

If you are a Christian, you might even reflect upon your spiritual walk.

You might look at the consistency of your prayers, of your bible reading, of your consistency as a part of the church, the local body of Christ.

You might look at your habits, and if you have overcome certain sins that have had a grasp on you.

Then, we resolve.

As we are faced with ways in which we fall short of our desired outcomes for ourselves and our lives, so we resolve–we make a firm decision of a course of actions to help us achieve our goals this upcoming year.

If I want to lose weight, I resolve to eat healthier and go to the gym.

If I want to be more present in my kid’s lives, I resolve to block off a certain amount of time each day that is reserved for them.

If I want to be a better spouse, I resolve to hold to a consistent date night.

If I want to be a better friend to someone, I resolve to have dinner with them once a week.

And so it goes in our spiritual walks–If I want to grow in Jesus, I resolve to pray for 30 minutes and read the Bible for 30 minutes each day.

If I want to grow in my fight against sin, I resolve to meet with an accountability partner every week and be open with them.

If I want to grow in my service to others, I resolve to join a ministry team at church.

We see ‘how we’ve done’ and what we want to change/work on in the new year.

An issue with all of this reflecting and resolving is that we often spend all our time looking at secondary issues while even deeper vital signs are going unexamined.

That’s because oftentimes, in our resolutions, we assume our ‘vitals’ are fine and move on to check everything else in our bodies.

The problem, of course, is that we might fine tune our vision and hearing, but if our pulse is off, that can have life-threatening consequences if it goes unchecked.

It doesn’t matter how great your vision and hearing is–if your pulse if off, you will die with 20/20 vision and perfect hearing.

Too often in our resolutions, we focus on practices while neglecting the deeper posture of our heart.

Spiritually speaking, great practices with a poor posture leads to spiritual malnourishment at best, and spiritual death at worst.

We cannot elevate practices over posture.

So during this time closing out the year and into the new year, I would like us to shift our focus from examining practices to asking God to examine the posture of our heart.

The way to do that is to check your vitals.

The prime vital sign I believe that sheds light onto the state of our souls is our pulse of praise.

So, as we close 2018 and move into 2019, I believe the question God is asking of all of us today is,

What does the pulse of your praise say about the posture of your heart?

I want God to free us all up to praise Him with all that we have – in mind, in soul, in spirit, and body.

That we’d trade our posture of dignity for a posture of desperation.

Sarah Brenon put me onto the idea that, just as the last psalm in the book of psalms is a psalm of praise, it would be fitting for our last Sunday in the year to be there as well.

In fact, the last five psalms are psalms of praise.

They are known as the hallelujah psalms, since each psalm begins and end with the word “hallelujah,” which means “praise the LORD.”

So, may we, just like these last five psalms, seek to end our year and begin our next with a “hallelujah posture.”

So would you turn to with me, our text for today is going to be verse 2 in particular.

So would you turn to with me, our text for today is going to be verses 1 and 2 in particular.

(Throughout the sermon we will touch on different parts of the other 4 hallelujah psalms.)

Hear the Word of the Lord

WhT’S AMAZING IS TH

What is Praise?

The Bible is full of praise.

It’s full of people praising God, angels praising Him, and His creation praising Him.

In the Old Testament, the word ‘praise’ shows up over 200 times.

That’s Just the word ‘praise’ – not similar words like ‘bless’, ‘give thanks’, ‘worship’.

The Bible is not just full of praise, but it is about praise.

It is a book about praising God for His worth, beauty, and infinite value–this is what we were created for.

The whole aim of the Bible is to show the great lengths God has gone to to make a way for sinful humanity to be forgiven and restored to a love relationship with God and praise His name forever.

One scholar writing on the book of Psalms says