Sermon Tone Analysis

! The Ways Of God

 

The Seven Ages of Man

 

1.

Spills

2. Drills

3. Thrills

4. Bills

5. Ills

6. Pills

7. Wills

 

GREAT REASONS TO BE A GUY!!

 

l.

Phone...conversations are over in 30 seconds

2.

You know stuff about tanks.

3. A five day vacation requires only one suitcase.

4.

You can open all your own jars

5.

You don't have to learn to spell a new last name

6.

You can kill your own food

7. Wedding plans take care of themselves

8. Three pairs of shoes are more than enough

9.

You don't have to clean your apartment just because the meter reader is coming

10.

Car mechanics tell you the truth

11.

Gray hair and wrinkles only add character

12.

If another guy shows up at a party in the same outfit, you just might become lifelong friends

13.

Your pals can be trusted never to trap you with.

"so, notice anything different?"

14.

You are not expected to know the name of more than five colours

15.

You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt

16.

You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes

17.

The same hairstyle last for years, maybe decades

18.

One wallet and one pair of shoes, one colour, all seasons

19.

You can "do" your nails with a pocket knife

20.

Christmas shopping can be accomplished for 25 relatives, on December 24th in 45 minutes

 

God’s ways are vastly different from our own.

He writes in characters too grand

For our short sight to understand;

We catch but broken strokes, and try

To fathom all the mystery

Of withered hopes, of death, of life,

The endless war, the useless strife --

But there, with larger, clearer sight,

We shall see this -- His way was right.

!! q    A Purposeful Habit

 

7 Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the "tent of meeting".

Anyone inquiring of the LORD would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp.

To know the ways of God there needs to be the private and corporate practice of meeting with God

 

Some 70 percent of Americans believe that "most churches and synagogues today are not effective in helping people find meaning in life, "George H. Gallup Jr., America's leading pollster and a committed Christian, reports in the recently published 1992 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches.

Gallup believes the vitality of churches, synagogues, and faith communities depends very much on how effectively they respond to six spiritual needs of Americans as he perceives them from his surveys.

They are listed as:

 

 1.

The need to believe that life is meaningful and has a purpose.

2.

The need for a sense of community and deeper relationships.

3.

The need to be appreciated and respected.

4.

To be listened to and heard.

 5.

To feel that he is growing in the faith.

6.

The need for practical help in developing a mature faith.

-- Pulpit Helps, March 1994, p. 15.

 

See:  Rom 12:1-21; Eph 4:11-16

 

The tremendous power of mass-suggestion, which we call the world, can only be confronted, and its victims cured, if they are received into a body which is filled with a vivid, vigorous, and conscious community life of the Spirit.

Individuals are powerless to cope with a power so subtle and all-pervasive as this mass-suggestion is.

If we are to save and rescue sinners, there must grow up in our Church a Spirit of Love and Brotherhood, a Christian community-life,

transcending class and national distinctions, as pungent, as powerful, as impossible to escape as the Spirit of the world.

No Apostolic Succession, no Ecclesiastical correctness, no rigidity of orthodox doctrine, can be themselves and in themselves give us this; it comes, and can only come, from a clearer vision of the Christ, a more complete surrender to His call and to the bearing of His Cross.

... G. A. Studdert Kennedy, The Wicket Gate [1923]

 

On yonder hill I see a tree

Standing there majestically,

Looking down with great concern

At fellow tree and bush and fern.

Like some great preacher, straight and tall,

Seeking some reaction to the altar call

And wondering if the audience had truly heard

As he had faithfully expounded God's holy word.

And looking out o'er this mottled throng

Some young, some old, some weak, or strong,

Perhaps he wonders if they, like mortals,

Will turn their backs on heaven's portals.

And then with a touch of consternation

He sees them as a human congregation,

Those with blossom's beautiful are the ladies fair,

The wild cherry tree and the sugar pear.

The elegant elm and the stately pine

Are the men of means, with dress so fine,

The spruce and fir with dress quite crass

Are the members of the working class.

The great white oak and the silver white birth

Are the pillars and saints of this glorious church,

The poison ivy bush, in this woodland skit,

Could take the role of the hypocrite.

This thought shatters his reverie and peace of mind,

For there are hypocrites only, among mankind,

So he calls for a song from his forest choir

Of poplars and willows, in their grandest attire.

The music is provided by the birds and the bees

And the singing is the sound of the wind in the trees

Their voices are raised in a song full of praise

To Almighty God and his wonderful ways.

And they also give thanks to a God kind and good

That they're not flesh and blood, but instead made of wood,

Not driven by envy or greed or hate,

Standing together, yet alone, each awaiting his fate.

There's a lesson to be learned from this poem and verse,

Cast your eyes up to heaven ere you blasphemer curse