Sermon Tone Analysis

\\ /Scriptures: 2 Corinthians 9:6-8; 2 Kings 17/

 

My counselor has finally forced me to face the fact that I am a failure in my ministry.

Permit me to list my evangelical demerits.

1.

I have never been to the Holy Land.

I mean, not even as a visitor, let alone as a tour guide.

I wince whenever I see a "Go to the Holy Land!" ad in a religious magazine.

My wife has even stopped buying kosher wieners because they make me feel convicted.

It's terrible.

2.

Every program I've started has failed.

Our "Evangelism Explosion" didn't explode: it gave an embarrassed "pop" and rolled over and died.

Finis.

Kaput.

I attended a "Church Growth Seminar", and while I was gone, six families left the church.

No explanation -- they just up and disappeared.

3.

The refugee family we tried to sponsor refused to come.

The last I heard, they were seeking asylum in a Chinese restaurant in St. Louis.

4.

Whenever I try "Dial-a-Prayer", I get a wrong number, and it's usually a funeral home or a chicken carry-out place.

I tried "Dial-a- Meditation" the other day, and the tape broke after the first sentence, which was: "So things aren't going well today?"

It's frightening.

5.

Board meetings.

You should attend them -- because nobody else does.

And I get the wildest excuses: "The dog was sick," or "I had to change the light bulb in the garage," or "My wife needed both cars."

I always mimeograph agendas but nobody is there to use them.

My wife uses them for grocery lists.

6.

Our church teams never win any games.

Baseball, basketball, volleyball, shuffleboard -- you name it and we've lost it.

The town Little League champs challenged us and won.

I am thinking of sharing all of this with our denominational leaders but they are never around when I phone, and all their letters to me are addressed to "Occupant".

I have been told that failure could be the back door to success, but the door seems to be locked and I can't find a key.

Any suggestions?

-- Christianity Today

 

I have a bit of apprehension today as I preach.

I will never forget the first “giving” sermon that I preached here at First Wesleyan.

I was publicly rejoicing over the giving of our people and toward the end of the message remarked that it was good to preach on this subject without having our backs to the wall financially.

The idea that we had no “screaming needs”.

Those of you who were here that day will remember that shortly after that the smoke began to come out of the ceiling of the building and we actually evacuated the building that morning.

Bottom line: we went in the hole about $2500 dollars that morning.

I believe that it is important to preach about the scriptural principle of tithing because it is a part of God’s Word and although it reaches into your pocket book and creates discomfort in our lives by times and this very preaching is subject to much misinterpretation, at it’s heart, it is a spiritual issue.

A person’s giving is affected by much more than the  state of a their finances.

I believe that the spiritual issues that bind people are the greater concern.

q     Some fail to give or “fall short” because they worry about having enough left to live on.

Can I trust God to meet my needs?

This is the spiritual issue.

q     Others because they want to have the freedom to consume their excess and they want all they can get.

The spiritual issue here is greed.

q     Still others just refuse to obey God in this area.

It’s a smoke and mirrors thing with them so there are plenty of issues ranging from things like: “I don’t feel that they are spending money wisely.”

or “I don’t like this or that so I will hold back my tithe or give it to missions.”

At the heart of this is rebellion.

This is a spiritual issue.

The scripture from 2 Kings expresses my greatest concern today.

/"Do not forget the covenant I have made with you, and do not worship other gods.

Rather, worship the LORD your God; it is he who will deliver you from the hand of all your enemies.”

They would not listen, however, but persisted in their former practices.

*Even while these people were worshiping the LORD, they were serving their idols.

To this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as their fathers did.**"*

(2 Kings 17:38-41, NIV) /

 

We don’t consider ourselves to be quite as pagan as the picture that we have read here today but in essence this is present in the lives of certain people who attend church regularly in our day.

/.

*Even while these people were worshiping the LORD, they were serving their idols.

To this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as their fathers did.*/*/"/*

While we come together into a house of worship professing to love God supremely, our actions tell God a different story.

And what is worse is that our half-heartedness places our children and our grandchildren that mush farther away from God.

You see, our failure to live out an accurate representation of our faith, tell sour children that it’s really not that important.

And we wonder why our children begin to stray.

Perhaps even worse is the confusing by times when we look at our lives and wonder if we are giving our best to God or . . .

.

1.   Giving Our Best To Baal

 

We have no idea what we are giving and the price we are paying.

Look at the scripture again in 2 Kings:

 

/"But they would not listen and were as stiff-necked as their fathers, who did not trust in the LORD their God.

They rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their fathers and the warnings he had given them.

*They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless.*

They *imitated the nations around them* although the LORD had ordered them, “Do not do as they do,” and they did the things the LORD had forbidden them to do.

They *forsook all the commands* of the LORD their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole.

They *bowed down to all the starry hosts*, and they worshiped Baal.

*They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire.*

They practiced divination and sorcery and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the LORD, provoking him to anger."

(2 Kings 17:14-17, NIV) /

/*[1]*/

Again we look at phrases like this and dismiss them because we don’t see this possibility in our own lives.

Are we like the children of Israel by times?

We would never intentionally “sacrifice our sons and daughters” – I mean we would never end their lives but perhaps in one way or another we are giving our best to the Baals and in effect sacrificing the most important things in our lives to gods that we don’t even realize that we worship.

*We think we are getting a better deal when we run away from God* as though He would take things away from us that we are not ready to surrender.

I know of many people today who pray that God would take away the things that they ran toward.

q     Vices – there are many people who are bound today by the liberating choices that they made yesterday.

They thought that they were exercising their freedom and that religion held bondage but they have run headlong into something that they cannot find the willpower to escape from.

There are many in the pews today who would beg others to stay away from things that have ruined their lives and relationships.

q     Relationships – there are those who have discovered that advice that they had been given about relationships was accurate and they should have listened.

Now there are consequences that they will deal with for the rest of their lives.

It all could have been avoided if they had only chosen to live their lives by scriptural principles and priorities.

These would have helped them to recognize the danger signals and to run toward God rather than away from Him.

 

q     Materialism – What an exhilarating pursuit at first – to win the rat race and to acquire.

It’s intoxicating until you discover that each new acquisition gives you only a temporary fix and there’s always something newer and better and bigger and louder and shinier that brings that sense of longing back and lures you forward.

And then you get to the place in life where you realize that you have been possessed by your possessions and you ar ea slave to them and the false sense of acceptance and the fickle friends that they have brought.

Or one day in the midst of all your distractions, you lose your health, or your home or your marriage or your faith.

You’d give all you have gained to find what you have lost but it’s too late.

You can only hoped that you have learned something that will keep you from repeating your mistakes.

Have you ever stopped to wonder how you are spending your life?

I mean, are you giving yourself to the greatest causes and purposes.

It amazes me to think of how easily and even thoughtlessly we give away the things that we can never regain.

The most important things in our lives are those that we sacrifice for other things that really don’t matter.

We are giving our best to the Baals.