Sermon Tone Analysis

Staff Appreciation

Just a reminder that October is Pastor Appreciation month and since I am new.

You are all doing me the personal favor of appreciating the pastoral staff instead of me

Pastor Evan just had an amazing all nighter event

Pastor Ruth spent half of her week fixing the computer that all of the settings got messed up on when we had a power outage

Pastor Bethany is leading Emotionally Healthy Relationships and is doing a fantastic Job

And Heather is getting our harvest festival going.

So write them a card, let them know how much you appreciate them.

Just as a personal favor to me, please skip me this year

Verse of the Series

So Church whether or not we like it: At certain times our relationships are all a hot mess

They are like a child eating ice cream on a hot day

So at the beginning of every message we are memorizing this Bible Verse together

1 John 4:11-12

The New International Version (Chapter 4)

11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

REMINDER: WHEN YOU LOVE PEOPLE WITH THE LOVE OF JESUS YOU HELP THEM TO EXPERIENCE GOD!

It is actually evangelistic to love broken and hurting people, because that is what Jesus did for you

I want you to think of someone right now who doesn't deserve your love and attention:

DO YOU HAVE THE NAME YET

They don’t deserve the time of day...

That was you.

But God loved you, and died for you and redeemed you...

Living out God’s love in our relationships is the main thing for relationships that are redeemed and restored...

I mean, John will even go as far as saying, if you hate people, your just giving lip service to this whole following Jesus thing...

Its like you talk and pray one way but you actually believe another thing.

1 John 2:9

The New International Version (Chapter 2)

9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness.

These two verses are the basics of Godly relationships

Love one another with the love of Jesus

You cant fake that!

Intro, Okay, lets get into it today...

Relational Posture

About a year ago I sort of woke up to this idea of relational posture.

The idea is the way that you present yourself in relationships matters

not only because you want to be kind and you want to have an impact on other peoples lives

It actually goes much deeper than that.

The posture you take in relationships is invisible discipleship

It is more effective than any bible study

It is more effective than any discipleship class

Because it molds and shapes others on a sub conscious level

Let me give you an example.

Let’s say: Your grandfather was an angry man.

He was always angry towards others, blaming everyone else for his problems.

Your grandfather never took ownership of what was his fault.

Consequently your father was always angry.

Just the way that he treats your mom is through a posture of Anger.

He gets ticked off at the smallest and slightest thing

Maybe you just learned to tip-toe around your dad because you didn’t want to make him angry.

And you know what maybe you have these times in your life that you explode in anger.

I mean you try to do better than your dad because you don’t want to end up like him.

But maybe things ticks you off that don’t normally tick other off and

maybe you start to see your kids tip-toe around you, and you mistakenly look at it as respect instead of fear...

just maybe you have inherited your grandfather’s relational posture.

It is simply the way that he approaches relationships.

And you never went to a class on relational posture

you never studied the bible on it..

You are just this way by default

The relationship posture is this great unseen force that spans generations, It shaped you and whether you like it or not you are shaping your kids or grandkids with your relational posture.

Because it is so well hidden…We just never deal with it.

Because we never deal with it, we end up discipling our kids in relationships by osmosis…

You disciple your grandkids, the people at your work, your friends and family simply by accident

And It is the way that you approach relationships....

The reason why this is so vital is that usually the way we stand before others in relationship is the way that we stand before God.

If you are humble in your relationships, you will stand before God humbly

If you feel like everyone owes you something, you will never be satisfied with God because you will always feel like He owes you something

The good news is that we follow a God who is transformative

A God who can break vicious cycles

A God who can transform our relational posture

The Posture that we take in relationships can either break them or cause them to last.

And I want to submit to you that, so much of the lasting part of our relationships is the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

So first for your notes this morning is this:

Great relationships take their cues from the Bible.

Messy relationships take their cues from culture.

The reason why it can be hard to live out a biblical relational posture is because it is so counter cultural and revolutionary.

It is SO different to the way this world works

I like to write sermons at Starbucks or some other local coffee shop.

Mainly because the office has so many distractions.

So a while back I go to a Starbucks to get some writing in and I see a woman reading a book

The title is: “ You are a Bad-A[ss] _”

The subtitle is: “How to stop doubting your greatness and start living an awesome life…”

This captured my attention so I went on Amazon and read some reviews

This is what one reviewer said:

“If touchy-feely self-help tomes make you feel, shall we say, less than inspired, this no-nonsense manifesto to awesomeness might be just what you're looking for.

Filled with blunt and sassy advice, do-it-yourself exercises in personal transformation, and a whole lot of hilarity, You Are a Bad-A will silence your inner critic, and help you build a life worthy of the kind of Facebook news feed that others envy.

Take a day off from looking for your inner goddess, and spending some time cultivating your outer bad-A instead.”

I was actually laughing in Starbucks when I read this review..

Because This is the opposite of the posture that Jesus calls is to take!

This book was a cultural manifesto for people to be the best, look the coolest…and gain influence through looking great on the outside...

The book props up a culture that says

You’re most impotrant

You’re the brand

You’re the best, focus on yourself

Don’t worry about other people, your job is to make them Jealous of your life

In a world that believes that what you project to the world is all that matters….Of course there is a book called You are a Bad-A…

And the market is flooded with books that are just like it.

Because this is the wisdom of our world

How to win….