Sermon Tone Analysis

Faith is the gift of God.

So is the air, but you have to breathe it.

So is bread, but you have to eat it.

So is water, but you have to drink it.

So how do we accept this gift?

Not by a feeling, for “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom.

10:17).

It is not for me to sit down and wait for faith to come upon me with a strong feeling of some kind.

Rather, faith comes when we take God at his word.

Lord God, bless Your Word wherever it is proclaimed.

Make it a Word of power and peace to convert those not yet Your own and to confirm those who have come to saving faith.

May Your Word pass from the ear to the heart, from the heart to the lip, and from the lip to the life that, as You have promised, Your Word may achieve the purpose for which You send it, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

The missio Dei (Mission of God), the plan established before the foundation of the world, before the first “let there be” was uttered, in fact, the plan upon which basis Genesis 1:1 rests, was the Messiah.

Contrary to what we might think, the coming of Christ was not a reaction, but the ordained checkmate in a chess match whose end was as certain as the rising of the sun.

The Apostles and Prophets spoke and wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

We check the weather reports before we go on trips, we check the financial reports before we invest, but nobody has a track record for accuracy like the Lord our God.

The Lord reveals His will through His Word, He reveals His plans through the Word, and He declares His judgments through the Word.

When a woman goes into labor, it isn’t pleasant, it doesn’t feel good.

You can’t go through labor looking cute.

Jesus tells us the truth about the time before His return, He doesn’t sugarcoat it or soften the blow because of your delicate sensibilities.

Just like He told the truth about the death that He would suffer for our sakes, and the disciples didn’t want to hear that either.

People, some of you aren’t going to like it, but I tell you the truth.

The saints in the past endured hardship as good soldiers in Christ Jesus, but this generation can’t even handle a little criticism coming its way, whether it’s constructive or not.

Saints today want to set aside their salvation over a negative emoji!

Why do we get so shocked when the world isn’t singing the praises of the church?

If this were a popularity contest, or Jesus hadn’t already told us that “in the world you will have tribulation,” I could understand it.

The pure Gospel is not designed to be “liked,” it’s designed to be believed.

And there is no one who doesn’t need to hear it.

“For faith comes by hearing, and hearing from the Word of Christ”

The Mission of God has a hard part and it has a couple of easy parts.

God did not trust you with the hard part.

He knew that you could not handle the hard part.

Who’s ready to die for other folk’s mess!

If our general reactions to this COVID-19 are any indication, we ain’t ready to die as part of the course of life, much less to pay for anybody else’s transgressions!

Jesus knew that ever since the fall.

Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God over the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and what did they do?

They hid.

Cain killed Abel, and what did he do when God confronted him about it?

He wailed that somebody else might do to him what he did to his brother.

So Jesus did the hard part - He died the death that we deserve, that our neighbor deserves, that you deserve.

He did that, then He rose again and gave you the easy parts - “hear,” and “be His witnesses.”

But we act sometimes like we need a special dispensation even to do that.

We can get on social media and talk about what everybody else has done that doesn’t affect us worth a hill of beans, but when it comes to talking about what Christ has done for us - we got nothin’!

What Jesus did was way more scandalous that all of the reality show fame-seekers pressed down, shaken together.

and running over!

Jesus died for our sins and rose for our justification.

His death paid for EVERYTHING, even for our lackluster proclaiming of it.

That’s how sufficient - and how scandalous - it is - Jesus paid it all!

There isn’t a sin you’ve done, or will do, that is too much for His blood to wash away.

There is nothing that you can confess that His blood can’t cleanse.

You can’t run fast enough or far enough, you can’t build a wall high enough, or dig a hole deep enough, to get you out of the reach of His love.

All you need to do is hear His Good News, because “faith comes by hearing, and hearing from the word of Christ,” and then help someone else to hear it too.

Can you believe that?

So come on, come on out of hiding, stop treating Jesus like a debt collector, and stop ignoring who He reveals Himself to be, the God who so loved you that He came all the way from heaven down to rescue His creation, just the way that He said that He would in His Word, along with all the other wonderful promises that He gives to us there.

Your life is worth that much to Him.

And the peace of God, that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.