Sermon Tone Analysis
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It’s almost New Year’s Day.
Have you got your resolutions all put together?
I don’t really do them much anymore.
Actually, I do something a little different.
I try to learn some sort of new skill or something once per month.
I just make some simple goal.
Like last year for the month of January, I wanted to make a really good omelet.
I don’t know that I really succeeded there.
I never could get them to look right.
Tasted fine but the appearance would have gotten me booted off a cooking show.
My goal for January is going to be making a pot or vessel of some sort on a pottery wheel.
And I’ll pick some other simple little thing for each month of the year, Lord willing.
It’s really just ordinary stuff.
We will, Lord willing, return to our study of Hebrews next Sunday.
This Sunday I thought might be a good place to launch us into 2020.
Allow me to set this text up for us in think you could perhaps argue that the early church here in was in its purest form.
There isn’t cultural Christianity here.
Of course there are likely issues of maturity and such still.
It’s not as if everyone was saved and filled with the Spirit on this day in Pentecost and so they didn’t struggle with anything anymore.
The rest of Acts would show us how much that isn’t true.
But in we read, “so those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”
I’m tell you all of this to say that my goal for our church in 2020 is that we be perfectly ordinary—not necessarily boring—but that we just do faithful ordinary day to day things.
It’s what Eugene Peterson would call a Long Obedience in the Same Direction.
I think this 2020 might give us a bit more pause and time to reflect, because this is also a new decade.
Will this be the roaring 20’s?
Did you have really big goals in 2010?
Do you pick really big resolutions year to year?
Allow me to set this text up for us in think you could perhaps argue that the early church here in was in its purest form.
There isn’t cultural Christianity here.
Of course there are likely issues of maturity and such still.
It’s not as if everyone was saved and filled with the Spirit on this day in Pentecost and so they didn’t struggle with anything anymore.
The rest of Acts would show us how much that isn’t true.
But in we read, “so those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”
Scripture Introduction:
Do you remember the telephone game?
You start by whispering to the person next to you who passes it down to the other person.
You start with something like a guppy in a shark tank and end up with something like the puppy ate a spark plug?
It’s a funny game which really shows how things tend to get corrupted over time and not quite as pure.
Now let’s imagine these 3,000 people all together and starting this new church.
What’s it look like?
When the presence of God is obvious among them?
When God is working and moving in a way that is just absolutely obvious.
What is the first impulse of these new believers?
I share that illustration to say if you could imagine the church in its purest form you’d like look at Pentecost.
In the Holy Spirit has just filled the believers, the church has been formed, and Peter has just preached the first recorded sermon in Acts.
And the result is amazing.
says, “so those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”
Now there were some pretty amazing things in that text, right?
But did you notice how unbelievably ordinary their activities are?
I’m tell you all of this to say that my goal for our church in 2020 is that we be perfectly ordinary—not necessarily boring—but that we just do faithful ordinary day to day things.
It’s what Eugene Peterson would call a Long Obedience in the Same Direction.
I think this 2020 might give us a bit more pause and time to reflect, because this is also a new decade.
Will this be the roaring 20’s?
Did you have really big goals in 2010?
Do you pick really big resolutions year to year?
I want to convince you today to aim for the ordinary in 2020.
Here’s what I believe we can see from Acts.
Lots of times when we think about the purest expression of the church we think of many things that are probably closer to our culture than what we actually see in the Bible.
In the Bible we see ordinary people using ordinary means of grace and God doing some really amazing things.
Let’s rewind to 2010.
What if you’d set a goal of reading just one chapter of the Bible per day.
Did you realize that you would have read through the entire Bible almost 4 times?
Lots of times when we think about the purest expression of the church we think of many things that are probably closer to our culture than what we actually see in the Bible.
In the Bible we see ordinary people using ordinary means of grace and God doing some really amazing things.
So where does this come from?
I get all kinds of mail every week from conferences and things promising to help us pastors see our churches grow and things like that.
Get this book.
Go to this conference.
Try this program.
And it’s covered with words like:
What if you made a goal of praying 15 minutes per day.
Did you know that would have led to 912 hours over the last 10 years?
What if you decided that you’d share the gospel of Jesus with 1 person per week.
And you did this for the past decade.
Did you know you would have shared the gospel with 521 people?
Or maybe you made a goal to spend 1 quality hour per day with your spouse and or your kids.
That means no phone, no distractions, just good quality time.
That would be 3,650 hours in the past decade.
Or 152 entire 24 hour days.
What would happen if you decided to spend something like 2 hours per week really getting to know somebody.
Maybe you make it a goal to ask somebody out for lunch at least once a week, or have a coffee with someone.
You dedicate 2 hours per week to engaging another human being.
You know that would be 1,040 hours over a decade.
Can you imagine the relational depth that could be fostered in that time?
What if you said, I’m going to pick one person and actively disciple them. 2 hours per week.
You do that for a decade…what is that 1000 hours going to do?
But, did you know that the average person spends 4 hours per day on their phone.
That’ll be 14,600 hours per decade.
Or 608 days.
That means of a decade you’ll spend almost 2 full years of that on your phone.
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