Sermon Tone Analysis

It is my intention to spend a little time in

Break up your fallow ground

Where ground is broken up on a yearly basis the soil becomes soft, rich and healthy but soil that has not been broken up is hard, unfruitful and can only bring up weeds and thorns.

The former gives a harvest when seed is sown – the latter just cannot.

A ground that is continually turned over keeps the ground fresh and ready for a future harvest.

To break up fallow ground means to get the land ready to work.

This is obviously about our hearts and lives: “Break off your evil ways, repent of your sins, cease to do evil, and then the good seed of the word will have room to grow and bear fruit.” 1 To break up fallow ground was to prepare ourselves for righteousness.

It is time to be renewed.

1 Easton, M. G. (1893).

Easton’s Bible dictionary.

New York: Harper & Brothers.

Sow for yourselves righteousness

The action of breaking up the fallow ground is an internal action.

The action of sowing righteousness is an external action, that is, to live a righteous life.

This involves me being righteous to my neighbour, my family, my fellow believer, and my fellow church member.

To live a righteous life among one another is to live a life of truth.

No good comes from ploughing a field if you don’t plant something in it.

We must be people who sow righteousness, who do right things in response to our salvation.

God expects our obedience.

Sowing righteousness is simply obeying God and doing what he has called us to do.

When we do, God will do great things among us.

We are the body of Christ...as a body we can do everything...but as individuals we can only do some things.

In other words; we may have a gifting in one area but not another – we fill the gap where we have a gift and someone else fills the gap where we are lacking.

However don’t be proud that you have a gift that someone else does not because that someone else has a gift that you do not and the first of those is probably humility!

We reap what we sow so let us be very careful how we sow:

We have to sow to righteousness and this list in 2 Peter is part of that.

And over the next few weeks we will look a little closer at this passage, God willing.

It is time to seek the Lord.

No matter how well things are going or how bad there is no time like the present to seek the Lord.

We read earlier that we should seek Him whilst He may be found.

As we are in a time when He can be found then now is the time to seek the Lord.

How do we do this?

Some think that there is some mystical secret thing that you need to do but really it is more by trial and error than skill; it is learned at the cutting face.

There is no secret knowledge or some secret ritual for seeking God otherwise the ordinary Christian who does not have access to this knowledge or skills are left out.

Seeking God is not for the elite or super-spirituals – it is for all of us.

We are simply to look for Him, to seek Him and to wait on Him.

I’ve made one basic assumption about seeking God that I think is backed up by Scripture and that is God wants to be found.

So this should encourage us – He really wants to be found by us – He is not going to hide Himself from us.

How do I know?

1) He came to seek and find us...we were lost and His seeking of us led Him to send His own Son to turn us back towards him.

If He came for us then it is logical to say He wants us to come to Him.

2) His desire is for us – He desires all to be saved, all to know Him – in Jesus’ prayer in

3) In various places He declares that if you seek Him you will find Him especially when we seek Him with all our hearts.

For instance in

What are the reasons for seeking God?

1) We seek Him for Himself.

He is God.

He is the highest one we can seek.

He is all powerful, all wonderful, all beautiful.

Our God is an awesome God.

2) We seek Him to know Him better

3) We seek Him to get answers, for direction in our lives.

Jesus made some crucial decisions after spending the night seeking God such as the choosing of the 12.

4) We seek Him on behalf of others

5) We seek Him to be refreshed

A favourite Scripture with this theme is

The fact is we all fall down.

We all sometimes find the going tough.

The fact is that we need to be filled with His Holy Spirit and to continue being filled because we are inclined to get ourselves muddy in the deep waters of our minds and hearts and this can lead to sin or being duped by the devil.

3a.

The Holy Spirit “…seeks to show you that your infinite worth and value to God make Him desire your fellowship,” while Satan, “…seeks to convince you that you are so bad God wouldn’t want to have anything to do with you” (Mark I. Bubeck, Overcoming The Adversary, published by Moody Press, Chicago, Illinois; pg.

51).

3b.

The Holy Spirit “…seeks to show you that there is forgiveness and restoration available no matter how bad your sin,” while Satan, “…seeks to convince you that there is no forgiveness for you.

You’ve committed the unpardonable sin” (Ibid, pg.

51).

3c.

The Holy Spirit “…uses God’s Word to give you hope and assurance of God’s love and forgiveness,” while Satan “…uses God’s Word out of context to convince you that there is no hope for you” (Ibid, pg.

51).

3d.

The Holy Spirit “…builds faith, hope, and love in your heart and increases your confidence and assurance of salvation,” while Satan “…creates despair, doubt, resentment, and anger toward God, His Word, and His people.

You feel that no one as bad as you could ever really be saved” (Ibid, pg.

51).

We see that we need to come back to the Lord for cleansing and forgiveness – every single one of us.

Confess our sin to Him and He is willing to come in a moment’s notice and to cleanse us as if it had never happened.

This is almost too good to be true but God is good and God is true.

There is only one condition for forgiveness to come in this way – if we are forgiving one another.

Why would this passage speak of all these things?

Because we are all apt to wind up each other the wrong way...Paul had to say this for he knows himself and others well enough to know that each one of us is sinful...but we were shown mercy by God when we were his enemies – how much more then do we need to show mercy to one another.

But don’t let the devil convince you that forgiveness cannot be found in God for it can, though only through Jesus Christ.

Our love for the Lord needs to be renewed as well as our love for one another and our love for those in the world.

We may have forgotten that our sins have been forgiven, that we have been rescued and in the midst of it forgotten others:

Reap in mercy

Once there was a small group of people who had been rescued from drowning of a rocky shoreline.

They were so grateful for being rescued that they decided to build a rescue station on the coast with the mission of saving others who may get into trouble in the dangerous, rocky waters of the coast.

As time went by the members of this rescue station were able to rescue a great many people, and inevitably some of those they rescued were so grateful that they chose to stay and be a part of the rescue station crew.

They too wanted to make sure that others were rescued from the dangerous waters along the coast.

As the station’s crew grew in number they were able to affect more and more rescues, but in order to do so they needed more equipment.

They raised money, they gave their own money, they even found benevolent people to donate to the cause and they were able to build a larger and nicer rescue station.

As their work continued the members of the station crew also began to develop strong friendships.

After all they had a lot in common.

They had all been rescued.

They were all in the business of rescuing others.

Soon a strong social life began to develop among those at the station.

They would have nice activities to celebrate where they had come from.

They would have parties to enjoy one another’s company.

They would have nice get-togethers just for the sake of getting together.

As time went by and the station was remodeled, added to and it got nicer, and as the crowd became friendlier and friendlier with each other they began to lose sight of their mission.

They still rescued some people, when they had the time, but before the rescuees could enter the beautiful new station they had to clean up.

The people being rescued couldn’t be allowed to get the station dirty you know.

Before long the rescue station evolved into a beautiful club.

The rescue motif was strong, lots of life preservers and boats and nets.

It was all very quaint, but rescues didn’t take place anymore.

Only people of certain status and breeding were really accepted in the club.