Sermon Tone Analysis

\\ Never be lacking in zeal, keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.

Romans 12:11

 

/No one keeps up his enthusiasm automatically.

Enthusiasm must be nourished with new actions, new aspirations, new efforts, new vision.

It is one's own fault if his enthusiasm is gone.

He has failed to feed it.

/

/ /

/--Anonymous/

 

We all have zeal for certain things.

They are not the things that require discipline to keep us involved.

We are the first ones in line to participate.

People who are zealous for their hobbies, pursuits or their causes have influence over those who may be totally uninformed of them.

Even after Constantine had made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire, there came to the throne another Emperor called Julian, who wished to put the clock back and to bring back the old gods.

His complaint, as Ibsen puts it, was:

 

"Have you looked at these Christians closely?

Hollow-eyed, pale- cheeked, flat-breasted all; they brood their lives away, unspurred by ambition: the sun shines for them, but they do not see it: the earth offers them its fullness, but they desire it not; all their desire is to renounce and to suffer that they may come to die."

As Julian saw it, Christianity took the vividness out of life.

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "I might have entered the ministry if certain clergymen I knew had not looked and acted so much like undertakers."

Robert Louis Stevenson once entered in his diary, as if he was recording an extraordinary phenomenon, "I have been to Church today, and am not depressed."

To speak of matters of faith without passion is to bore the listener.

It is to convince him~/her that there is no real reason that they should investigate further.

There are things that people unconsciously substitute for passion in their faith.

People who are upset at the sinfulness of society can rave about it’s decadence, thinking that this is zeal when it is merely anger.

There are particular sins that people devote their lives to opposing.

They are good causes and the world would be a better place if these “sins” were vanquished.

But we need to remember that the absence of any particular vice in a person’s life does not indicate that he is redeemed – only that he is free in that area.

We could eliminate a host of “sins” and be no more redeemed in their absence than we are in their presence.

Why is “service” so important to the presence of “zeal” and the preservation of “spiritual fervor”?

q      Service to God is an emptying experience.

I believe that what God gives us is meant to be spent in the interests of his kingdom.

It is the process of spending it that brings spiritual fervor.

There are no people in this church with the zeal for missions that those have who have been a part of spending themselves and emptying themselves in this cause.

As they are spent then they are refilled.

And the refilling is a spiritually invigorating process.

q      We are repeatedly taken to the end of our own resources.

We can never tap into God’s supply we exhaust our own.

Many Christians profess a life of faith but live within their own means for a lifetime.

No wonder they are bored.

They never experience the miraculous because they never need it.

You see the church is not a business, it is a living organism, it is the bride of Christ.

It thrives on principles that make no sense from a human perspective.

A real Christian is an odd number, anyway.

He feels supreme love for One who he has never seen; talks familiarly every day to Someone he cannot see; expects to go to heaven on the virtue of Another; empties himself in order to be full; admits he is wrong so he can be declared right; goes down in order to get up; is strongest when he is weakest; richest when he is poorest and happiest when he feels the worst.

He dies so he can live; forsakes in order to have; gives away so he can keep; sees the invisible, hears the inaudible, and knows that which passeth knowledge.

-- A.W. Tozer

 

Christians are not differentiated from other people by country, language or customs; you see, they do not live in cities of their own, or speak some strange dialect, or have some peculiar lifestyle.

This teaching of theirs has not been contrived by the invention and speculation of inquisitive men; nor are they propagating mere human teaching as some people do.

They live in both Greek and foreign cities, wherever chance has put them.

They follow local customs in clothing, food and the other aspects of life.

But at the same time, they demonstrate to us the wonderful and certainly unusual form of their own citizenship.

They live in their own native lands, but as aliens; as citizens, they share all things with others; but like aliens, suffer all things.

Every foreign country is to them as their native country, and every native land as a foreign country.

They marry and have children just like every one else; but they do not kill unwanted babies.

They offer a shared table, but not a shared bed.

They are at present "in the flesh" but they do not live "according to the flesh".

They are passing their days on earth, but are citizens of heaven.

They obey the appointed laws, and go beyond the laws in their own lives.

They love every one, but are persecuted by all.

They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death and gain life.

They are poor and yet make many rich.

They are short of everything and yet have plenty of all things.

They are dishonored and yet gain glory through dishonor.

Their names are blackened and yet they are cleared.

They are mocked and bless in return.

They are treated outrageously and behave respectfully to others.

When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; when punished, they rejoice as if being given new life.

They are attacked by Jews as aliens, and are persecuted by Greeks; yet those who hate them cannot give any Reason for their hostility.

To put it simply -- the soul is to the body as Christians are to the world.

The soul is spread through all parts of the body and Christians through all the cities of the world.

The soul is in the body but is not of the body; Christians are in the world but not of the world.

-- From an anonymous letter to Diognetus, possibly dating from the second century.

q      It is an endurance experience.

I have enjoyed the whole experience of training for and running marathons.

I have gained perspectives that no other experience has brought me.

I know what I can take – more.

I know that finishing is what counts – not the speed, not the cheers of the crowd – just knowing that I have the ability to rule my own life, my attitudes and responses to people, to be able to differentiate between activity that will sap my energy and passion for no apparent benefit.

The whole preparatory experience in itself is educational.

q      It represents an external focus.

I am sure that the more focused we are on ourselves in this life the greater our lack of fulfillment, restlessness, boredom will be.

To be distracted is all that we can do when we focus on ourselves.

And it is expensive to live life trying to distract ourselves from the ache of an empty heart that is destined to be filled with God.

You have to be independently wealthy to hope to be able to do this for a lifetime.

We all know of too many people who leave their unspent fortunes in this life supremely unhappy because of the perpetual soul ache.

!

The “Third Soil Syndrome.

Matthew 13:22

 

“The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.”

q      The worries of this life.

There are relatively few things that can rob us of precious energy and life giving vision like worries and most of us have them.

Worry is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind.

If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.

--Arthur Somers Roche  

 

I was helping K.J., my man child complete some home work the other day.

He was creating components for a “coat-of-arms” and there was a banner across the bottom of this blank drawing that was to be filled by a “motto”.

I was laboring in my mind to explain to him what a motto was when he blurted out, “a kuna ma tata”.

Elaine wasn’t immediately impressed by the thought but I thought it was perfect.

Too profoundly simple for most people to grasp when they are in the middle of their distress.

“It means don’t worry for the rest of your days.

It’s a problem free philosophy, a kuna ma tata”  Really nothing more than what Jesus advocated.

Now this may be too simple for you as well but if a person is to live well with passion and zeal for God then we need to learn this most basic of Christian principles.

“Trust in the Lord, lean not unto your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths.”

Trust is not denial any more than courage is the absence of fear.