Sermon Tone Analysis

*GETTING THE MOST OUT OF LIFE*

*“Focus on the MAIN Thing”*

*Ecclesiastes 12:13-14*

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*Who was Solomon?*

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*TAKE GOD SERIOUSLY *

*Fear God* – The “fear of the Lord” is that attitude of reverence and awe that His people show to Him because they love Him and respect His power and His greatness.

*Oswald Chambers writes “The remarkable thing about fearing God is that, when you fear God, you fear nothing else; whereas, if you do not fear God, you fear everything else.”*

 

*Bill Gothard - *The fear of the Lord: *The continual awareness that God is watching and weighing every one of my thoughts, words, actions, and attitudes.*

(Proverbs 9:10)

 

*The fear of God is not the same as saving faith*.

*Today, when there is so much emphasis on God’s love, grace, and mercy, is it possible that we have forgotten that God is to be feared?

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*We have replaced fear with complacency, ignorance, and apathy.*

*God takes our sin very seriously; therefore we need to take His holiness very seriously.

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*If we feared God it would affect our choices, we would live differently.*

*God’s Character – holy, righteous, just, unconditionally loving, never changing*

      *READ* - Isaiah 6:1-4

 

      *My Character – sinful, imperfect, selfish, greedy*

*      REFER TO: Exodus 20:1-17*

*We don’t understand the bad news, we cannot meet those standards.*

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*Ask yourself this question.

Do I appreciate God’s holiness?*

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*Ask yourself this question.

Do I accept my own sinfulness?*

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*What would happen if God showed up on this stage right now?*

*Would you greet Him by saying, “Hey God, it is so cool to see you?”*

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*In his book, Knowledge of the Holy, A. W. Tozer writes: *

*Wherever God appeared to men in Bible times the results were the same—an overwhelming sense of terror and dismay, a wrenching sensation of sinfulness and guilt.

When God spoke, Abraham stretched himself upon the ground to listen.

When Moses saw the Lord in the burning bush, he hid his face in fear to look upon God.

Isaiah’s vision of God wrung from him the cry, “Woe is me!” *

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*READ – Isaiah 6:5-*

*Why did Isaiah respond that way? – Because we are now being placed in comparison to God.*

 

*OBEY GOD FAITHFULLY*

*The person who fears the Lord will pay attention to His Word and obey it.

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*He or she will not tempt the Lord by deliberately disobeying or by “playing with sin.*

*The Secret Life of an American Christian \\ When you first hear the title of ABC Family's new series - The Secret Life of an American Teenager, one might say- \\ Duh! \\ Seriously - don't most teenagers have somewhat of a secret life?

That's like starting a new show called The Dysfunctional Lives of Hardened Criminals .

\\ \\ I'm not saying that it's cool to have a secret life, but it's just the way a boatload of 13-18 year olds decide to do things.

\\ \\ So in The Secret Life... we have a band girl getting pregnant, a SUPER Christian cheerleader, unhappy marriages, and a multitude of backstabbing betrayals and blistering banter.

\\ In other words, pretty much like real life.

\\ \\ I wouldn't know how God feels about this show - He probably doesn't watch TV because He already knows what's coming anyway...but I do, however, know how God feels about the secret lives of Christian teenagers.

\\ \\ You know what I'm talking about, right?

If not, let me lay it out for you: \\ Sunday morning \\ Whoa!

Today is church, right?

Yikes, I need to do some serious confessing so I don't, like, get struck by lighting or have a serious Bible dropped on my head from above.

Oh, and I need to remember to activate the cussing filter and tell the youth leader how I've been praying and reading the Bible.

Yeah, I'll confess that one too...later.

\\ Monday-Friday \\ Yesssss.

Back at school where some people know I'm a Christian, but I sure don't want to come off like some Jesus Freak or something.

That's why I let the profanity fly when the situation demands it, judge others based on how they look, and c'mon - does Jesus really expect me to save sexual pleasure for marriage?

Oh - and I'm definitely going to that party Friday night - even though I know my parents think I'm just out with friends.

And even though there's going to be enough booze and drugs to supply a small nation...I'm just going so I can maybe talk to people about God...right?

\\ Saturday \\ I guess I had fun...but why do I feel so guilty inside?

Everybody is doing this secret life stuff, but nobody seems happy.

I thought having a relationship with Christ was supposed to bring me joy and contentment, but all I'm getting is shame and loneliness.

\\ Sunday morning \\ Whoa!

Today is church, right?

Yikes, I need to do some serious confessing so I don't, like, get struck by lighting or have a serious Bible dropped on my head from above... \\ And the pattern continues.*

*And this is the review that God is sending your way- \\ "I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold.

I wish that you were one or the other!

But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!

You say, 'I am rich.

I have everything I want.

I don't need a thing!'

And you don't realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked."

(Revelation 3:15-17) \\ Get the point?

A secret life is a 'lukewarm' life that dishonors God's name and makes Christianity a joke.

But you already knew that, right?

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*The secret life of a Christian teenager is a fast track trip to the worst life possible.

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*Why?

Well, people who aren't Christians live life apart from knowing the way God designed it.

So partying and acting selfishly and choosing destructively come naturally for them.

\\ \\ But Christians are the only people on planet earth who have the Holy Spirit of God living inside them.

And when we choose to live life contrary to God's design, we literally make God sick.

\\ \\ *

*God has given us the resources needed to obey His commands.

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*When we choose not to follow Him and use His resources we are in essence telling Him that He is of no use to us.

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*- We can do it better on our own.*

*- Or what He has for us is not as good as what the world has to give us.*

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*And for some strange reason we also think that we can live in a secret way that He will never know about.*

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*We are cautioned to think about in verse 14 how He knows everything and we will be brought to judgment for that act.*

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*God wants us to…*

*THINK ABOUT ETERNITY*

*We need to think about eternity because of the joy of our salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ and His forgiveness of our sin.*

*AND*

*We need to think of eternity in regards to our actions.*

*Six times in his discourse, Solomon told us to enjoy life while we can; but at no time did he advise us to enjoy sin.* *The joys of the present depend on the security of the future.*

But for some strange reason we keep living for today’s pleasures and the security of today.

*When you think about it, holding on to sinful patterns from our non-Christian days is madness and insanity.

\\ Einstein defined 'crazy' as "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results"*

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\\ 12:13 His final *conclusion* may give the impression that he has at last risen above the sun.

He says, “*Fear God and keep His commandments*, because *this is* the whole duty of man, *man’s all*.”

But we must keep in mind that the *fear* of *God* here is not the same as saving faith.

It is the slavish terror of a creature before His Creator.

And the *commandments* do not necessarily mean the law of God as revealed in the OT.

Rather they might mean any commands which God has instinctively written on the hearts of mankind.

In other words, we need not assign a high degree of spiritual insight to Solomon’s words.

They may be nothing more than what a wise person would conclude from natural intuition and from practical experience.

*This is man’s all*—not just the whole duty but the basic elements that make for a full and happy life.

12:14 The motive for fearing and obeying *God* here is the certainty of coming *judgment*.

We can be eternally grateful as believers that the Savior has delivered us from this kind of fear.