Sermon Tone Analysis

Lost teddy

In the July holiday period, I had some time to spend with the family, which is always fun.

Unfortunately Fiona had to work for much of the week, so we didn’t go far, but on one particular day I decided to take my three young daughters for a day around Newcastle.

So, as you do when you’ve got young children, you pack well to cater for all situation.

Now while I try my hardest, sometimes I don’t always think everything through as well as I should, so when Josephine (my youngest) decided that she wanted to take Sophie, her pink little teddy (or Beanie Boo for anyone who is familiar with kids toys).

At the time I didn’t see any problem, and so Sophie joined us on our day trip.

And it was a really fun day.

Sophie, the pink little teddy came with us as we drove to Stockton.

She had a ride on the ferry.

We then caught the new tram into the beach, where we walked to Fort Scratchly and did the tunnel tour.

She ate fish and chips and Nobby’s, and then went with us to the Museum.

The whole time because I had agreed to letting Sophie come, I paid extra care to make sure she never got left behind - after all, she was very precious.

Finally we made it back to the ferry and after a long day we were all very exhausted.

We’d had fun, but I think we were all looking forward to getting home.

We got in the car at Stockton, drove half an hour home and pulled in the garage.

It was as we were getting out of the car that I heard the words that made my heart skip a beat:

“Have you got Sophie?”

At this point, I somehow know the inevitable, but I will it not to be true.

I won’t recount the following traumatic moments as we confirm Sophie has gone missing.

But we all desperately try to remember when we last saw her.

But as tensions rise, questioning became a useless exercise.

Somehow I seemed to think that if I just asked the question a bit more forcefully, there would be an answer, but no.

We’re now all very tired, and getting increasingly upset, but I made a decision.

It might be slim, but I decided to grab a hold of the tiny little bit of hope I had in me, and we jumped in the car to go find it.

I didn’t really have a plan.

We weren’t quite sure whether we had lost it in the ferry, or whether we had lost it before we got on the ferry.

The hope left in me wasn’t very strong, but there was still a little bit.

Finally, we get to Stockton and I first got to where we parked the car in the thought that maybe she was dropped as we were getting into the car.

But nothing.

I then drove closer to the ferry were I could now get a closer park.

As I was parking, the ferry was in the terminal on the Stockton side.

But then I realised that it was about to depart for the Newcastle side.

So I got out of the car, telling the girls to wait in the car.

I then sprinted as fast as I could to the terminal.

As I got there they were just pulling up the ramp and untying the rope.

But I was desperate.

That tiny bit of hope was pushing me.

So yelled to the lady pulling in the ropes - “Is there a pink teddy about so big?”

If the answer was ‘no’, I had absolutely no idea what I’d do next.

She looked up… “yes”

“Really”

The relief was amazing - except now the boat was pulling out.

Thankfully, at that time of day, the ferry crosses are frequent, and she told me she would be back in about 7 minutes.

That hope that I clung to was realised, and it was amazing.

Hope for the church

You know, sometimes I think our hope for the church is a little bit like the hope I had of finding that lost little teddy.

We’ve been doing church for a long time.

For that long time we’ve been careful to hold what is dear to us close.

But in recent times, society has changed far quicker then we’ve realised, and we’ve got to that point of asking - where did everyone go?

In some ways, it’s like we’re left with a choice like I did as I stood at home exhausted and realised teddy was lost.

On the one hand, I could throw my hands in the air.

Teddy is lost.

You are just going to have to accept it.

In our case - the people are gone, we’re just going to have to accept it.

Or the alternative, we’re going to cling to some form of hope that God isn’t finished yet.

That his church isn’t just going to die a slow natural death, but that new life is there, ready to be taken hold of.

Now if we accept the first option - that is, to accept all is lost, then the strategy is clear.

Let’s just minimize the tears as we except the inevitable.

Sure we had good times, but as they say, all good things must come to an end, so let’s just accept it.

But what if we don’t accept it?

What if we think there has to be more?

The question then becomes, not about how we are going to comfort one another, but about where our hope lies.

And this is the key.

Because we’re we put our hope is going to determine where things end up.

You see, there are a number of different things we can put our hope in.

We can put hope in clever marketing.

We can put hope in strategic planning.

We can even put a Christian spin on these things.

You see, our hope can be in things like evangelism, or good preaching, or sincere worship.

Now don’t get me wrong, all those things are very important.

We should be engaging in evangelism, and doing all we can to encourage sound preaching and inspiring worship - but these are the means.

If our hope is in the means, then we have to put up with the fact that were going to stuff things up.

Our evangelism will be ineffective.

Our preaching will either be too long, too short, too dull, too complicated or whatever.

We need something beyond these means… something which is not going to disappoint.

Hope

Well, in the passage that was read to us a moment ago, we actually saw the word “hope” turn up in both of the passages that were read, but I’d forgive you if you missed the references.

If you have the passage open, then if you look at verse 5, while Paul is complimenting the Colossian church for their love, he specifically makes note of the fact that there faith and love have sprung from their hope… the hope that has been stored up for you in heaven.

That little indication there is of a very deep hope that affects us in the here and now.

But there is another mention of this little word found down in verse 23.

In this verse Paul is talking about our reconciliation with Christ, but he clarifies in verse 23 that this reconciliation happens, when we continue in the faith… and do now move from the hope held out in the gospel.

Again we see this hope as being something to secure us to where we are headed.

So, just from these two verses that I’ve just highlighted we can see that the hope is not some flimsy wishy washy fantasy, but is something we can root everything into.

It is something that should drive us into action and keep us on track.

But what is it?

Who is it?

Well, I want to suggest that rather than ask, what is the hope, we should instead be asking who is the hope?

You see, as we go through these passages that were read a short while ago, what is clear is that everything is not based around a ‘what’ but around a ‘who’.

And that ‘who’, of course, is Jesus Christ!

You see, for Paul, everything rises and falls on Jesus Christ.

Paul famously said in that if Christ did not raise from the dead, then we are to be pitied more than all others.

The Colossians situation

But before I explore what it means for us to pin our hopes on Jesus, let me just take a brief moment to explore the situation of the Church of Colossae in which this letter was addressed.

Now I should point out that much of the background is actually inferred by looking at what Paul says in his letters.

But what seems to be evident is that there were people that were coming into the church and leading them astray.

Now I don’t want to get too caught up in the finer details of all this - after all, there are many pages of writings that have been devoted to thinking about this and now is not the time to get into it.

Except to point you to chapter 2 verse 8, where Paul warns against becoming captive to hollow and deceptive philosophy depending on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces, rather than on Christ.

You see, it would seem that there were these people, probably well qualified and eloquent, who took them away from the rock solid hope, and into fancy thinking.

And so it would seem that a significant reason that Paul wrote this letter was to bring them back to the hope that they first found in Jesus Christ.

It is this hope that will not let them down.