Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome

Good Morning!

I’m Pastor Wayne and I’d like to welcome you all to the gathering of Ephesus Baptist Church.

Jesus said in Luke 9:26,

Why do we gather?

We gather to worship and exalt the name of the one who has become our salvation.

The right hand of the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ!

Worship is about adoration.

If we truly adore Jesus, we will not be ashamed of Him! Worship matters!

If you are visiting with us this morning, we want you to who we are here at Ephesus...

We are all one family of faith: “giving our all to love God, love people, proclaim Jesus, and make disciples in our generation.”

That is our mission, our purpose, why we exist as a church.

We have a connect card in the pew in front of you.

I invite you to take one and fill it out!

If you have prayer needs, you can let us know about those as well.

I promise, our prayer team will lift you up soon.

You can place those cards in the offering plate when it comes around.

Who’s Your One?

Recognition of our Veterans

Scripture Memory

Opening Scripture Reading

Prayer of Invocation

Revival of Worship

If you have a copy of God’s Word, we are going to be back in the book of Nehemiah today.

Find your way to Chapter 8 and join me in standing in honor of the reading of God’s Word.

Prayer for Illumination

Sermon Introduction

Please allow me to begin this morning by asking a very pointed question:

Have our churches sacrificed true worship at the altar of becoming more user-friendly?

Or to put it differently,

Have we, in America, grown too comfortable in our approach before our Holy and Almighty God?

An anonymous writer observed a paradox found in the way our generation lives.

This writer wrote:

We spend more but have less.

We buy more but enjoy it less.

We have bigger houses and smaller families.

We have more conveniences but less time.

We have more medicine but less well-being.

We read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values.

We have tall men and short character, steep profits and shallow relationships.

We have two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses but broken homes.

We have added years to life, not life to years.

We have cleaned up the air but polluted the soul.

We have learned how to make a living but not a life.1

To that list, I’d like to add:

We have religious lives but not lives filled with worship.

Recently, I stumbled across an article on the Christian website, Crosswalk.

The author was addressing the issue of weak preaching in our modern day churches.

He mentioned something he stumbled across in an advertisement for an unrevealed church ministry.

It said,

“[Our Pastor’s] answer is God– but he slips Him in at the end, and even then doesn't get heavy.

No ranting, no raving.

No fire, no brimstone.

He doesn't even use the H-word.

Call it Light Gospel.

It has the same salvation as the Old Time Religion, but with a third less guilt.”2

Another advertisement read:

“[Our] sermons are relevant, upbeat, and best of all, short.

You won't hear a lot of preaching about sin and damnation, and hell fire.

Preaching here doesn't sound like preaching.

It is sophisticated, urbane, and friendly talk.

It breaks all the stereotypes.”3

According to these churches, the new rules of how to worship God may be summed up like this:

Be clever, informal, positive, light-hearted, brief, friendly, relevant, upbeat, and never, never use the dreaded H-word.

My heart grieves for those pastors and congregations who believe that this watered down, soft, low expectation form of Christian worship is what our world needs.

Does it draw large crowds of people?

Sometimes.

Does it develop people into fully matured Christ followers who are conformed to the image of Christ?

Never!

At the very moment in history when the Church should be stepping up to the microphone and loudly announcing to the world that she has the answer to all our problems in a personal Redeemer named Jesus Christ, she has, instead, lost her voice.

While it is true that churches which hold to the inerrant, infallible, and inspired Word of God have the answer to our world’s dilemma—in the form of the Gospel of Christ’s death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.

It is also true that many churches in our day have compromised that Gospel and grown comfortable following worldly methods and measures for success.

We should communicate that Gospel to our world as if we were giving healing vaccinations to dying people.

We don’t need to give them drugs to make them more comfortable, nor should we offer lessons on how to cope with their pain as they manage life on their way to death.

God forbid it!

We must warn them that they are going to die eternally if they do not come to the Savior, if they don’t take the healing vaccine.

Many churches have lost the fortitude to communicate this life-saving message because it makes people uncomfortable.

At the very time when our world needs the answer, I’m afraid the Church has lost the answer.

The people of God today are in desperate need of revival.

We are in desperate need of revival.

So were the people of Jerusalem.

They had finished the walls and were secure behind their gates and gatekeepers.

But there was a spiritual void in Jerusalem.

They had everything they needed except a right relationship with the God Almighty.

Today, we are going to look at three attributes that God placed in the hearts of His people to stoke the fires of personal and corporate revival in the people of God!

These are three attributes that should be true of God’s people regardless of the time or place they find themselves.

These attributes transcend time and place.

This morning we are going to find an answer in these three attributes to the question,

What happens when God’s people worship through God’s Word?

1. God’s people share a common hunger.

(8:1-3)

The first thing that God placed in the hearts of His people to stoke the fires of revival was a common hunger for His Word!

God’s word formed creation!

God’s word called Israel to be His Holy Nation, and now the word of God will renew His covenant people.

All that follows happened in the seventh month of the Jewish calendar year, the month of Tishri (our Sept/Oct).

Tishri was a very significant month in Judaism.

It begins with the Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah - The Jewish New Year), on the tenth day comes the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), then on the 15th day the thanksgiving celebration known as the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths is held.

At this time of celebration, Nehemiah tells us that “all the people gathered as one man.”

The people are the primary focus of this section of Scripture.

The phrase “all the people” occurs nine times in the first twelve verses.