Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
We are the beneficiaries of a beneficent Benefactor.
In simpler terms, we are those who are given good gifts from a giving God.
If that is our state of mind, we are thinking aright.
Another way of thinking aright is that we are the beneficence to the beneficiaries from the Benefactor.
Or, to put it simply, we are the gifting to those who are the given from a giving God .
If we think of ourselves as the gifting given, we think aright.
However, we think wrongly if we ever think we are the Benefactor bestowing beneficence upon beneficiaries.
If we think we are the Giver of the gifts to the given, we think amiss; we think wrongly.
This morning, I want to show you how all three of those statements are true, namely that we are either the beneficiaries or the beneficence, but not the Benefactor.
Thinking aright is critical if our goal is to love God and neighbor more.
Thus these three truths are the focus of this morning’s message.
We are not the Benefactor
We are the Beneficiary
We are the Beneficence
We are not the Benefactor
The first truth that we must accept and put into our minds is that we are not the Benefactor.
We are not the Giver.
The moment that we think ourselves the Benefactor is the moment that we are thinking of ourselves on the level of God.
We are seeking to usurp God’s throne.
We are thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought, and yet, Paul tells us to think the opposite way.
Notice that in the last two weeks, we have dealt with three verses in a row that talk about thinking.
Pastor Matt showed last week that what the ESV and CSB translate as spiritual worship or true worship, might actually be translated better as the King James says: reasonable service.
The word reasonable comes from the word in which we get logical.
And the word latreia, which can mean “worship or service”, if you think about it, it makes sense to think that we worship through our service of God to others.
We even use that same language today.
We are currently in a worship service.
We worship by serving.
We serve by presenting ourselves as living sacrifices to do God’s will.
Thus it is reasonable—thinking aright—to see ourselves as living sacrifices that serve God.
What is not reasonable, what is not thinking aright, is seeing ourselves as God.
Now we would never say those words.
In fact, we’d never think those words hopefully.
But our actions can betray our inner heart.
The moment we think “it’s my way of the highway,” is the moment we think too highly of ourselves.
The moment we think ourselves indispensible and that “the church can’t live without me” is the moment we are thinking too highly of ourselves.
That idea of indispensability is hyper-thinking.
That’s the word that Paul used.
To think highly of one’s self is to think hyper-thoughts.
There’s no place in the church for hyper-thinking.
There is only place for sober thinking or sensible thinking or sane thinking.
To think highly is to think insanely.
Insane thinking does not benefit the church.
On the way back from our Christmas vacation, I listened to the original Frankenstein by Mary Shelly.
Two quick notes about this book: first, it’s nothing like what we think of, when we think of Frankenstein’s monster.
Second, it was unbelievably boring and I would not recommend it.
But in the book, Dr. Frankenstein thinks he can help the world by bringing to life a creature impervious to disease.
He insanely thought that through his playing Benefactor, the world would be the beneficiary of his beneficence.
Instead, those who were closest to him died horrible deaths.
The moment he brought the monster to life was the moment he began to think sensibly and regretted his actions.
But there was no turning back.
The clock could not be rewound.
Beloved, if we want to kill a church, let us think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think: think hyper-thoughts.
But if we want to actually benefit the church, let us think sensibly about who we are and who we are not.
We are not the Benefactor.
As James wrote:
We are the Beneficiary
We are not the Benefactor to God’s church.
God is the Benefactor.
That’s the first truth we must come to terms with and keep in our minds.
The second truth is that we are the beneficiaries.
We are the ones receiving the good and perfect gifts from the Father of lights.
If you go back, you’ll read in verse 3 that we are to think according to something.
“each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”
God has given to us a measure of faith.
That word “measure” is where we get our word, “metric” from—as in the metric system or simply a standard of measurement.
We’ve probably heard of a “new metric”—a new way of evaluating (or measuring) something.
God has given us a measure of faith.
That’s God’s doing.
Some have been given strong faith.
Other’s weak faith.
Some have been given long-faith, others short faith.
Some of been given weighty faith and some much lighter.
But what we all have in common is that we are beneficiaries of God’s gift of faith.
We don’t have time to go into all the details, but we see a parable that Jesus told in Matthew 25 about three men who were given talents.
One man was given five talents, another was given two talents, and a third was given one talent.
Now, talents then are not what we think of as talents now.
We think of talents today as an ability to do something well.
Talents in ancient Rome were measures of weight.
In this case, a certain amount of money: a talent of silver.
The first was given a measure of money (5 talents) by his master.
The second was given a lesser measure of two and the third was given still a lesser measure of just one talent.
It was all by the prerogative of the master.
Each was to utilize that measure of money for the benefit of the master and his household.
We know the story.
The one with five measures of money went out and traded and turned five into ten.
The second went out and traded with his two talents and turned it into five talents.
But the servant of one talent buried it and had nothing to give except what was given.
Two of the three were faithful with the measure that was given them.
One was not.
After all, what good is having just a small measure anyway?
That’s what some of us think about our faith, isn’t it?
My faith is weak.
My faith isn’t like so and so’s faith.
That all may be true.
But it is a faith that God has assigned to you.
You are the beneficiary of God’s gracious gift.
You are the beneficiary of the good and perfect gift from the Father of lights.
Think sensibly, soberly, sanely about what that means.
It means that as small a measure as you’ve been given, it can still be put to use.
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