Sermon Tone Analysis

Shout out to 7th grade

Simon Says game for starbucks card

Introduction

Anybody have any New Years resolutions that they want to share?

New Years sermons and messages are all very similar.

You’ve probably heard them over and over and many times they are very similar, and oftentimes they are not very memorable.

In fact, I was trying to see if I could remember who did the New Years chapel here last year, and I had forgotten that I actually did it.

And I tried for a few minutes to see if I could remember what I preached and I just couldn’t.

So I went back and looked at my notes and it was 5 necessary prayers for the New Year.

The first one was from David in Psalm 139 when he said search me.

Then Moses in Exodus 33 when he said show me.

Samson in Judges 16 said strengthen me.

Isaiah in Isaiah 6 said send me, and Peter in Matthew 14 said save me.

So odds are the majority of you don’t remember that.

Some of you may remember me talking about prayer, and maybe just a few if any at all remembered any actual points and prayers that I talked about.

And I’ll be honest, this message probably wont be any different.

It’s a similar message.

Still has a New Years theme.

There’s nothing going to be extravagant in this message, were just gonna pull some principles and applications from a particular book.

So what’s the point brother Zain, if I’m not gonna remember this message a year from now, a couple months from now, maybe even a couple days or even hours you’ll forget about it.

The point is is that you could remember this message if you wanted to.

You could let this message from God’s Word speak to your heart and let it change you.

You could choose to take notes and write some of these applications down.

But I think most of the time that’s where we stop, or at least I’m very guilty of that.

It doesn’t do us any good if we take notes but then never refer back to them.

I love to take notes.

In college I was that guy who was still using a paper and pen when everyone was either using a laptop, or sometimes the professor would give you his notes for his lecture so you wouldn’t have to take any.

I love to take notes in church services from sermons.

Brother Andrew preached a great message on Sunday and I took notes, by the way, if you don’t have a church that you are a member of and involved in and serve in, then come visit our church were here on Sunday mornings at 10:30 and youth meets wednesday nights at 6:30.

But anyways here’s a couple notes I wrote down from his message from Luke 19.

I have this cool wide margin Bible where I can just take notes on the side.

#1 Jesus was intentional.

He had a single minded determination for His mission, which was to seek and to save those who were lost.

#2 Jesus was unconditional, He loves and extends His grace to everyone unconditionally, even a tax collector like Zaccheus.

#3 Jesus was relational.

He was personable.

He was intentionally relational because of His unconditional love.

Thats good stuff, good points that can be easily applied to my life.

I need to be intentional, unconditional, and relational just like Jesus was.

But it does’t do me any good if I take all these notes but never refer back to them.

When I was in the 8th grade, we had a history teacher named Sir Awtry.

He had actually been to England and was knighted, so he had the title of sir.

Sir Awtry.

Sir was an older man, tall, a little on the heavier side, bald on top but short gray hair on the sides, he had the brown sun spots on his head, short gray beard, big round circle glasses, always wore khakis with suspender and a plaid button up short sleeve shirt.

And Sir Awtry was notorious, notorious for his fast lectures.

You had to write down everything he said because anything he said could be on a test.

When you were done taking notes you had to turn them in for a grade and he would grade you on how much stuff you actually got down, then he’d give them back to you so that you could study.

There were three kinds of people in that class.

People who didn’t take notes, obviously they didn’t get a good grade in the class.

People who took notes, but never studied them, they did better than the ones who didn’t take notes but still not that great.

And then those who took notes, and referred back to them and studied them to prepare for a test.

Obviously these people got the best grades in the class.

I think it is similar to listening to sermons.

You can just listen to a sermon, and you’ll be helped, you can be encouraged or challenged if you listen to a sermon.

If you take notes during a sermon or message, it will help you remember more and understand more.

If you refer back to those notes it can help you grow even more in your walk with God, especially when the tests of life come.

When trials or temptations come you can refer back to some of those notes to get wisdom and application for that situation.

So I encourage you any time someone preaches to take some sort of notes and to refer back to them often so that you can pass the tests of life.

Take your Bibles and go to the book of Esther.

Find the book of Psalms in the middle of your Bible, then flip behind it two books.

Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms.

Esther chapter 2

Keep your Bibles open cause we are going to be flipping all through this book.

Flip over to chapter 5.

Let’s get some facts about this book:

Setting: Persian capital of Susa, where King Ahasuerus was ruling over an empire from India to Ethiopia

Main Characters:

Esther- Main girl, jewish, pretty young woman, orphan

Mordecai- Esther’s cousin/uncle who lives here because of the Babylonian captivity.

Godly man

King Ahasuerus- King of the empire

Haman- King Ahasuerus’ second hand man, wicked.

Summary:

King Ahasuerus throws a big party that lasts for months

Asks his wife, Queen Vashti to make an appearance, she declines.

He divorces her.

(A little dramatic)

He asks his servants to search his empire for the most beautiful women so that he can choose a new queen.

Esther is one of these women and is eventually chosen as queen.

Around this same time Haman is chosen as the King’s second hand man.

Haman is going down the street one day and everyone is bowing to him, except for Mordecai.

Mordecai says he can’t because he is a jew and only bows down to God.

Haman is furious and declares that not only should Mordecai be killed, but all Jews should be killed as well.

He has gallows built for Mordecai to be killed on.

Esther then goes to the king without an invitation (which is against the rules and she could be killed for it) and asks for a banquet to speak with the king and Haman.

At that banquet she tells the King that Haman is wicked and is trying to kill her people.

The King then puts Haman on his own gallows that were built for Mordecai and Haman is killed.

So number one this new year, for your new years resolutions

1. Connect being to doing (5:2)

So here in this passage Esther has come to the court of the King uninvited which could be punishable by death.

Why was she there?

Because of Haman’s decree to kill all the Jews.

Esther did not just sit on the sidelines and hope that something miraculous would happen to save the Jews.

She did not just have wishful thinking.

She did not just send her prayers and good vibes, no she got up and she did something about the situation around her.

She took the steps that were necessary to achieve the goal.

Good goals for the New Year have to be practical in some way ... it doesn't work for me to say "I want to be a more generous person" & just kinda hope it happens.

Instead of saying I want to get better grades, I can say I want to devote more time to studying.

or Instead of I want to be healthier, I can say I will run a mile every morning... or instead of I want to get closer to God, I can set aside 30 minutes each morning to pray and read the Bible.

Don't lose the WHO you want to be for the WHAT you want to do.