Sermon Tone Analysis

\\ I am only one, but I am one.

I cannot do everything, but I can do something.

What I can do, I ought to do.

And what I ought to do,

By the grace of God

I shall do!

 

Edward Evrett Hale

 

/James 4:13 Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money."

[14] Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.

What is your life?

You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

[15] Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that."

[16] As it is, you boast and brag.

All such boasting is evil.

[17] Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.

/

 

Is he saying that we should not plan?

Not really but we should plan with God’s interests and concerns in mind.

I really believe that we are missing the mark if we do not operate our lives as God’s servants.

We wake each day asking Him what He would have for us today.

I think that there is an unspoken sort of an attitude that chooses to believe that we are fair game for God during our teen years but once we declare our direction or get a good job or a college education that God sort of gives up on us and we are excused from obeying Him relative to our life’s direction.

Professor Lowell of Harvard University was speaking many years ago to a gathering on Columbus Day.

He said that there were three profound things about Christopher Columbus' discovery of America: First, when he left Spain he didn't know where he was going.

Second, when he arrived in the New World he didn't know where he was.

Third, when he returned to Ferdinand in his court he didn't know where he had been.

Later wags have also added, "And he did it all on borrowed money!"

 

   --James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988), p. 442.

Moses and the people were in the desert, but what was he going to do with them?

They had to be fed, and feeding 3 or 3 ½ million people requires a lot of food.

According to the Quartermaster General in the Army, it is reported that Moses would have to have 1,500 tons of food each day.

Do you know that to bring that much food each day, two freight trains each a mile long would be required!

Besides you must remember, they were out in the desert, and they would have to have firewood to use in cooking the food.

This would take 4,000 tons of wood and a few more freight trains each a mile long, just for one day.

And just think, they were forty years in transit.

Oh, yes, they would have to have water.

If they only had enough to drink and wash a few dishes, it would take 11,000,000 gallons each day, and a freight trainwith tank cars 1,800 miles long, just to bring water!

And then another thing.

They had to get across the Red Sea at night.

Now, if they went on a narrow path, double file, the line would be 800 miles long and would require 35 days and

nights to get through.

So, there had to be a space in the Red Sea, 3 miles wide so that they could walk 5,000 abreast to get over in one night.

But then another problem.

Each time they camped at the end of the day, a campground two-thirds the size of the state of Rhode Island was required, or a total of 750 square miles long, think of it!

This space just for nightly camping.

Do you think Moses figured all this out before he left Egypt?

I think not!

You see, Moses believed in God.

God took care of these things for him.

Let us take courage, we have the same God.

We think our problems are so big.

Remember what God can do!

What He has done!

Team up with God and your problems will be His.

Let Him run your life.

All the way the Savior leads us HOME.

by: Dr. Danny Kellum

 

 

1)  To Plan Or Not To Plan

 

a)   It is a natural tendency to jump ahead of God.

Often we make our plans first and then bring them to God for His blessing.

/Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money."

/In the stage where our plans require His blessing we are very serious about hearing from God.

We are not so disposed in the formulation of the plans from the start.

It is true of individuals – it would have to be true of churches.

We can come up with wonderful plans and schemes which may produce fruit of some limited nature.

We hold up our meager return as evidence of His blessing when it is merely evidence of His faithfulness.

There is a difference between God’s faithfulness and His blessing.

/2Timothy 2:12 if we endure, we will also reign with him.

If we disown him,    he will also disown us; 13 if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself/.

/ /

This trickle which we interpret as God’s blessing may merely be His faithfulness.

The blessing of God is another thing.

God is faithful to honor the things that we do in His name.

God'’ abundant blessing lies when we cooperate with His plans.

When we jump ahead of God to do even good things, He is faithful.

b)   We take for granted the God-granted variables.

What are these variables?

They are things like health, life, His presence, loved ones . . .

etc..

They are those things over which we have little or no control.

How the picture can change overnight.

c)   Our motivation is often sub-standard.

We will go “carry on business and make money."

We will do most anything for it.

It is a master that we serve tirelessly.

To a degree we must but somewhere along the line that hold needs to be broken.

I know people as you do who are in the process of trading their lives, the years of their youth, their children, their spouses for this promise.

We’ll trade without hesitation the things that we have for the promise of something to come that will never take the place of the things that we have lost.

/James 5:1 Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you.

[2] Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes.

[3] Your gold and silver are corroded.

Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire/.

Some people trade their health and well being.

According to John MacArthur, some years ago, the Mayo Clinic stated that statistically 80 percent to 85 percent of their total case load were ill either in reality or artificially due directly to mental stress.

Also according to MacArthur, not too long ago, there appeared an article in a leading medical journal entitled, "Is Stress the Cause of All Disease?"

The author of the article says that at the beginning of the century, bacteria were considered to be the center of attention.

Today, mental stress has replaced bacteria.

Many folks worry about things that never happen.

It is like the patient in the mental hospital, holding his ear close to the wall, listening intently.

The attendant finally approached.

"Sh!" whispered the patient, beckoning him over.

The attendant pressed his ear to the wall for a long time.

"I can't hear a thing," he finally said.