Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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\\ I graduated from High School in 1973.
My parents had just separated.
I was preparing to leave the island to attend Bethany Bible College.
It was an incredible step for me.
I was answering what I felt to be a call from to God to go and preach the gospel.
The thought of preaching was at one time an absolute nightmare to me.
I was not raised in a churched home and I had never seen a preacher who represented any kind of an appealing role model to me.
I assumed that they were good men but not real men.
Part of my difficulty with the call was that I felt that somehow I was surrendering something masculine within me.
Even in becoming a Christian I felt that I was becoming less a man.
I know today that these feelings were not accurate.
Wayne Briggs had just been hired by the Wesleyan churches on the island to serve as a youth pastor.
Thurland Brown and I received a government grant to work with Wayne that summer.
I don’t ever remember a sermon that I heard on tithing but I knew that I had to begin this practice.
So from the $1000 that I earned over the summer, I gave $100 dollars.
In the last couple of days before leaving that summer I visited some of the church folk who had been an encouragement to me.
When I got on the ferry to leave I had been given $110 dollars from these various people.
As a young Christian I saw a message in the money that I gave and the money that I received.
Ø God cares for our needs when we give to Him.
Ø He always gives back more than we give to Him.
Ø It is the right thing for Christian people to honor God with their tithe.
When Elaine and I were expecting our first baby we were living in Allentown PA.
I was working three jobs and going to school at United Wesleyan College.
We were renting a two bedroom apartment .
There was an empty room there for the baby.
I mean empty.
One week before the Kristie was to be born there was no furniture in this room.
We had an appointment at Allentown General Hospital for December 18th, 1978 at 8:00pm.
They were going to induce delivery.
It was Tuesday the 12th and Elaine was frantically searching through the paper looking for used baby furniture and she found what looked like a great deal.
Crib, changing table, high chair, the whole deal for around $50. We made an appointment and went to look at the goods.
The people were very nice and we told them that we wanted the furniture and would arrange to pick it up on Friday.
It was about ½ hour drive from town and on the way back, Elaine and I had a discussion.
I had fallen behind on my tithe and wanted to make it up in church on Sunday.
We didn’t even like the church we attended but we gave regularly.
I didn’t enjoy the preaching most Sundays.
That had something to do with the fact that I worked a night shift as a Pinkerton Security guard most Saturday nights and tried to stay awake on Sunday mornings.
There is a direct correlation between what you glean from a Sunday morning service and a sermon and how late you stay up on Saturday night.
I have found that the earlier I get to bed, the better the preacher preaches.
You know what else, Elaine and I hated the music.
It was high church and trained voices and it just didn’t do a thing for me.
We went there for the two years that we spent in Allentown.
What does “liking your church” or your pastor have to do with giving?
What does “liking the music” have to do with giving.
When you refuse to give to God you are not making any kind of statement to anyone else but the Almighty.
We were convinced that when we gave we were putting the money directly in God’s hands.
The church people would have to answer to God as to how they used our money or how they ran the church.
God had simply asked us to give.
The church was “the storehouse” and we are told in the scriptures to bring the tithe into the storehouse.
/6 //“I the Lord do not change.
So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.
7 Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them.
Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.
“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’ 8 “Will a man rob God?
Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ “In tithes and offerings.
9 You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.
Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.
11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit,” says the Lord Almighty.
12 “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty.
Malachi 3:6-12 (NIV)/[1]
Anyway – back to the baby story.
We had a choice to make.
We could buy the baby furniture.
It was a legitimate need for us and we were not buying luxury equipment.
It was adequate and it was clean but that was about the best you could say.
Or we could catch up on the tithe.
We talked about it all the way home.
It was more difficult for Elaine.
The fierce mothering instincts were kicking in.
I didn’t understand that babies needed their own room and so much stuff.
Friday morning came and we had reached consensus.
I would call the folks, apologize and tell them that we were going to have to pass on the furniture.
The phone rang and I told them who it was.
The voice was warm and excited, the lady remembered me immediately.
She told me that they had borrowed a van and the furniture was all packed up.
They had decided that they would make the ½ drive and would be in to see us early in the evening.
I didn’t know what to say.
After she had gone through all the preparation and was so excited to do something for us, I couldn’t complete the purpose of my call.
I tried to sound excited, I thanked her and hung the phone up.
I told Elaine what had transpired.
The mother inside her leapt for joy.
I suspect that she was suspicious of something Divine at work.
I was just feeling bad that one more week would pass without being able to honor God financially.
The cargo van pulled into the parking lot at 7:00pm on the nose.
There were three or four people who began to unload “stuff”.
Much more stuff than we had seen at the house.
They just kept coming.
I never lifted a finger.
They even brought tools to assemble the crib.
This was a */personal blessing/* to me.
When they were all done they sat with us for a minute in the living room.
They feeling that they had done something very special and I loved seeing that on their faces.
Real joy for the Christian – you know what – for anyone – comes in serving others.
The scripture tells us in Romans 12:9-13
/9 //Love must be sincere.
Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.
10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.
Honor one another above yourselves.
11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.
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