Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Have you ever heard someone say that we are living in a “Post-modern” era?

This philosophical term of sorts is difficult to define, but it normally has to do with a distrust of general ideologies and principles.

Taking this a step further, the only way that we interpret the world is by our senses.

Because these things are personal and subjective, there is no such thing as an absolute truth.

You can have your truth and I can have mine because we simply interpret the world differently.

This idea began gaining traction in the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe and Americans caught on after the conclusion of World War II.

All this to say, currently according to Barna, 66% of American adults and 91% of teenagers believe that there is no absolute truth - that truth is personal and subjective.

You might be thinking, why is this a big deal?

If we believe what the Bible says, if we believe that all Scripture is God-breathed and inspired as tells us, then we certainly believe in absolute truth.

We believe that God’s Word is absolute truth.

Many non-Christians will chalk this up to a belief that Christians have that is personal and not universal.

The Bible is good for some people, the Quran is helpful for others and the Book of Mormon is true to others.

Unfortunately these books can be lumped into the same group.

We know that there are clear distinctions between these books and religions, however a non-Christian won’t see it that way.

The way that we show Christianity to be different than Islam or Mormonism is by living out what Scripture teaches day in and day out and exhibiting these absolute truths in the face of a culture that says that absolute truth is outdated and irrelevant.

We understand Scripture and we let our lives bear witness of what Scripture says.

As we’ve been talking about lately in , one of the most powerful places that a Christian can display the love of Christ with the world is through the family unit.

Last week we talked about Christ-Centered marriages and how crucial it is for Christ to be at the center of a marriage between two Christians.

This morning we are going to turn over to as we will see the importance of the family unit for Christians and how children and parents are to treat one another.

This is a message that is certainly difficult to live out on a consistent basis, but again, perfection is not attainable.

Our goal should be to strive to be this type of parent, grand-parent, husband, wife, friend or child and grandchild.

Let’s see what Paul has to say in .

Obedience (1-3)

You might be thinking that this message is not for you because either you do not have children or because your children are grown up and have moved away.

Because of that, you’re about to take a snooze for the next 20 minutes because this doesn’t apply to you! Fortunately, this passage is certainly for the entire church body.

The whole body of Christ is responsible for raising and training children up in the ways of the Lord.

As the African proverb states, “It takes a village to raise a child.”

Regardless of where you’re at in your life, single, engaged, married without kids, married with kids, married with grandkids, this is a message for you because the church is a family is shows us.

Children are valuable.

You might think that this is a very clear point that does not warrant much discussion, but truly, children are valuable and they deserve to be cared for and loved.

In the ancient world, this was not the case.

Many children were simply abandoned and left to fend for themselves.

The early church, however, welcomed children and cared for and valued them.

This should be the response for the church today as well!

This is why the church should be extremely active in supporting agencies that help provide for struggling families and single parents with children.

We have a duty to help those who are in need as we have talked about extensively and we certainly have a duty to help children.

With all of the advancement in our society, we see the word children and we don’t really think anything of it, however in the 1st century world Paul was breaking a societal norm with its use.

During this time, it would have been appropriate for Paul to simply put “fathers, do not make your boys angry” because there was an emphasis on boys during this time.

Paul instead uses the term children, and this cannot go unnoticed by us today.

Paul is being inclusive and, again, is pro-woman, despite what some might claim.

We know that Jesus Christ valued and cared for children!

We see that throughout the Gospels, especially in and 19.

Again, this was an idea that would have been foreign for this culture because an unwanted child in the Roman Empire would often be killed, abandoned or thought of as a burden rather than a blessing.

I would be remise if I didn’t at least mention the fact that this idea is coming back into our society, unfortunately.

As Christians, we have a duty to joyfully celebrate the birth of children because we understand that life is a gift from God from the womb to the tomb.

That means that the only way that you can be consistently pro-life is to be supportive of life both inside and outside the womb.

That means that we celebrate and support those who are in need.

We spent a good amount of time in talking about the process of adoption and how if you are a child of God, you have been adopted into His family!

This is great news, but it is also something that we can play a part in in our world today.

We must remember that we were once abandoned and left to die, spiritually, but we have been adopted into the family of God.

If that is our testimony, we should strive to aid those who are in need today.

We talked about how this generation has been considered the “Fatherless generation” and about the statistics of fatherlessness in our nation.

This is an epidemic sweeping our world and bringing about devastating repercussions to children of all backgrounds.

Our church should be a church that aids those who have no where else to turn.

We should welcome those types of children into our church and love on them with the love of Jesus Christ.

We must be obedient and imitate God (as commands us to) as a church before we can even think of asking our own children to do the same.

Why were you made?

What is your purpose?

These are questions that people ask frequently and have come up with dozens of different answers such as to live a happy life or to make life better for those around me. Psychology Today said that your purpose in life is to live the life of a hero.

I want us to think about this idea a little bit this morning.

For many people, they think that they are in fact the hero in the story.

As someone who loves Marvel movies, I can attest, it is easy to watch a superhero movie and put yourself into the film as the hero!

This is a natural human tendency, however we must realize that we are not the hero of the storyline.

As Sally Lloyd-Jones puts it in her book The Jesus Story Book Bible,

“Some people think that the Bible is a book of rules, telling you what you should and shouldn’t do.

The Bible certainly does have some rules in it.

They show you how life works best.

But the Bible isn’t mainly about you and what you should be doing.

It’s about God and what He has done.

Other people think the Bible is a book of heroes, showing you people you should copy.

The Bible does have some heroes in it, but most of the people in the Bible aren’t heroes at all.

They make mistakes, they get afraid and they run away.

At times they are downright mean.

No, the Bible isn’t a story of rules, or a book of heroes.

The Bible is most of all a Story.

It’s an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back His lost treasure.

It’s a love story about a brave prince who leaves His palace, his throne - everything - to rescue the one he loves.

It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life.

You see, the best thing about this story is that it’s true.

There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all these stories are telling one Big story.

The story of how God loves His children and comes to rescue them.

It takes the whole Bible to tell this story.

And at the center of the story is a baby.

Every story whispers his name.

He is the missing piece.

Kind of like a puzzle, He is the piece that makes all the other pieces fit together and suddenly you see the beautiful picture.”

We buy into the lie that we are the hero of the story or the master of our fate.

The fact of the matter is that Jesus Christ is the hero - He is the main star and we are supporting characters who’s sole purpose is to glorify God.

You might think that that is sad or that it’s not very exciting to be a supporting actor, but whenever the main actor is Jesus Christ, we should be more than happy to point others to Him instead of making everything about ourselves.

Paul instructs children to do a couple of things in order to fulfill their purpose to glorify God: honor and obey their parents.

These are certainly not easy tasks, but let’s see how they glorify God.

Honor your parents

Honor is one of those words that is we do not quite understand in our culture like it would have been meant in Biblical times.

We know that honor is important and something that we should show to one another, however many of us do not exactly know what to do with this word.

We know that Scripture says that children are to honor their parents - this means to acknowledge the fact that they have God-given authority over them and that they are to not only obey, but also love and respect them as well.

comes to mind here.

This was something extremely important during this time and one that had severe punishments associated with it if there was ever an instance of disobedience.

shows us this penalty.

Aren’t you thankful that this is not in place in our world?